House Commends Audit and Performance Report of the Federal Auditor General, Passes a Resolution and Ratifies Draft Bills

The Public Accounts Affairs Standing Committee of the House of Peoples’ Representatives said that the efforts exerted by the Office of the Federal Auditor General to achieve objectives and discharge powers and functions enshrined in the federal constitution as well as in the establishment proclamation are satisfactory and encouraging.

The Pertinent Standing Committee and members remarked this while hearing the 1998fiscal year audit report and the performance report of the 1999 fiscal year of the Office of the Federal Auditor General submitted to the 40th regular session of the House on 3rd of July 2007 by the Deputy Auditor General, Ato Assefa Desta.

Committee members commented that the findings of the audit report, the wide coverage of the audit performances, the expansion of the protection of basic services to 200 Woredas, the performance moving from financial auditing to performance and other auditing activities and the preparation of auditing manuals to carryout auditing in a uniform and standardized ways are the activities, among others, that deserve appreciation.

Members, however, brought in to notice that compliance and performance audit work needs emphasis, business process re-engineering studies need to be conducted in areas not yet realized to further strengthen the civil service reform programme and bring the result-oriented performance evaluation in to being, and efforts be exerted to mainstream HIV/AIDS, gender and population crosscutting issues, and solutions be sought to curb problems encountered in skilled manpower and office space to register better performance in the future.

The audit and performance report of the FAG entirely covers the main findings of audit activities, problems revealed in government finance administration, critical issues that need attention, main problems the FAG is facing at present and the status of the activities of the Accounts Investigation Service Corporation, among others.

The presentation of the audit and performance report session has been concluded with explanations given to the questions paused from committee members as well as the parties with seats in the House.

Meanwhile the House deliberated on the resolution that demands to conduct by-election to replace those members missing their representation due to death, and other personal reasons. The draft resolution underlines that the action of replacement election is delayed and not appropriate to be so, and it is provided in the revised election law article 30/1 that all councils at different levels should demand the National Board of Election to conduct election to replace elected members not existing in the parliament due to different cases.

The resolution tabled for decision again states that the by-election for replacement can be conducted in the forthcoming year along with the local elections, as already agreed up on and decided by the House previously, referring to the House of Peoples’ Representatives Rules of Procedures and Members’ Code of Conduct Regulation No. 3/2006, Article 49/4 and the Revised Election Law, Article 30/1.

In the heated debate on this resolution, opposition parties with seats in the House, namely CUD, EDUP, UEDF and OFDM, with the exception of the Parliament Group, voiced their disagreement reasoning the resolution ought to have been tabled at the beginning of the coming year although they accepted the act of replacement election. The House finally passed the resolution with majority votes of 245 for, 67 against and 5 abstentions as Resolution No.10.

Subsequent to this, the House looked in to the joint reports and recommendations on the draft Proclamation to Provide for the Ratification of the United Nations Convention against Corruption and the Proclamation to Provide for the Ratification of the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption submitted by the Legal and Administrative Affairs Standing Committee and the Foreign, Defense and Security Affairs Standing Committee, which eventually have been ratified as Proclamation No. 544/2007 with majority votes of 294 for, 2 abstention and no objection, and Proclamation No. 545/2007 with majority votes of 296 for, 4 abstentions and no objection respectively.

Following this, the House approved the appointment of three judges for the Federal Supreme Court and one for the Federal First Instance Courts with majority votes of 256 for, 9 against and 37 abstentions performed with a swearing ceremony of the selected candidates who declared loyalty to the constitution and took an oath before the House through the President of the Federal Supreme Court, his Excellency Ato Kemal Bedri.

The House has also adopted the minutes of proceedings of the 30th and 31st regular sessions of its 2nd year tenure with majority votes.