The Audit Service Sierra Leone (ASSL) is the institution charged with the statutory responsibility to oversee the management of the public purse by MDA’s Parastatals and other Public Institutions where government puts its resources of which ASSL reports to Parliament, the lawmakers through the Auditor General’s Annual Report submitted to Parliament every year by the 31^st December.

As the people of Sierra Leone, development partners and other stakeholders await to know the contents of the tribunal’s report submitted to the President, this press has gone behind the scenes to investigate and research on what has been happening at the ASSL after the Auditor General and one of the four (4) Deputies were suspended from office for allegedly various forms of professional blunders, unethical audit practices, witch hunting, divulging of information to third parties, among others.

Following the suspension of the Auditor General, Mrs. Lara Taylor Pearce and one of the four (4) Deputies Mr. Tamba Momoh, Mr. Abdul Aziz one of the deputies was appointed in November 2021 to Act as Auditor General whilst the tribunal looks into the stewardship and allegations made against the suspended officers.

The Tribunal was set up on the 6^th of December, 2021 consisting of the following members:

1. Honourable Justice Nyawo Finda Matturi-Jones, JSC retired
2. Honourable Justice Ansumana Ivan Sesay and
3. Mr. Lahai M Farma

The tribunal’s report is out and it has been submitted to the President by the committee. When the contents of the report and the recommendations will be made public is yet to be known.

From what this press has gathered it goes without saying that the Acting Auditor General, Mr. Abdul Aziz has done tremendously well in many areas, including but not limited to:

1. Overseeing, managing and effectively supervising the ASSL staff in executing their day-to-day mandate and responsibilities at the planning, execution and reporting stages of all audit assignments taking cognizance of international best practices, policies and procedures;
2. He has through his wealth of experience in auditing opened up the process to civil society and other stakeholders to empower them on accountability issues and the role it can play in the fight against corruption;
3. Has enhanced public and donor confidence in the work of ASSL whereby donors such as International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), African Development Bank (ADB), World Bank are satisfied with the quality of audit work produced by ASSL and have made requests for the ASSL to audit their programmes;
4. Streamlined and controlled Information management to avert divulsion and misconstruing details of ASSL’s audit work before submission to Parliament and law makers;
5. Completed and Submitted the Auditor Generals Annual Report to Parliament on time for deliberations by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC);
6. Has streamlined the audit approach, process and engagement especially at the initial planning stage of the audit assignment;
7. Used his vast experience and skill both local and international to ensure ASSL staff do follow-up on all audit related issues to clarify with auditees especially at the exit/closing conference stage of the audit assignment before reporting;
8. Ensured high premium is paid by ASSL staff to do follow ups with auditees especially when preparing the Auditor Generals Annual Report to Parliament;
9. Supported and made Provision for continuous training and capacity building in areas such as environmental audits, forensic audit, Information systems audit, both local and international to ASSL staff to improve and enhance the quality of audit work; additionally, refresher training has also been conducted on International Public Sector Auditing Standards (IPSAS);
10. Ensured the use Information management and control of audit work and its observations including averting the provision of information to third parties;
11. Enhanced good working relationship and coordination between the ASSL, Auditees and Public Accounts Committee (PAC) at Parliamentary level;
12. Encouraged ASSL staff to ensure audit recommendations are implemented by auditees prior to the following year’s audit assignment.

Copyright –Published in print in Expo Times Newspaper on Wednesday, June 28th , 2024 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)