By Sulaiman Jalloh
As it continues to look into the 2022 Auditor-General’s report, the parliamentary Public Account Committee (PAC) on Tuesday, June 11th, 2024, at the administrative building of the Parliament of Sierra Leone, discovered that, in 2022, over Thirty-Three Million New Leones was not accounted for due to payment without supporting documents by various government’s ministries, department and agencies.
According to Morie Lansana, the Deputy Auditor-General at Audit Service Sierra Leone, one of the things that were recorded for General Purpose Financial Statement (GPFS) for the National Revenue Authority (NRA) is payment without supporting documentation, adding there were direct bank withdraws by vote controllers without vouchers.
“There were thirty-three million, four hundred and seventy-three thousand and seventy-six cents New Leones (33,473,076NLe) payments made without supporting documents such as payment vouchers, delivery notes etc…” Mr. Lansana disclosed, saying this was a violation of the Public Financial Management Act of 2016 and that payment is misclassified in the GPFS.
Responding to the allegations, the Accountant-General of Sierra Leone, Richard Williams said the request of the entities comes either by special request or standing request, something he said is supported by standing force at the Ministry of Finance, saying there are expected payment vouchers from each of the MDAs after they would have received the money into their account. According to him, to follow up after those MDAs have failed to produce supporting documents, there is a process called audit follow-up system which have representative both from his institution, the Ministry of Finance and Audit Service Sierra Leone.
“You cannot initiate a payment without a voucher,” Hon. Ibrahim Tawa Conteh said, while suggesting to establish a committee that will be charged with the responsibility to find out what category these monies falls either standing impress or special impress, pointing out that the actions of the Ministry of Finance is different from what the law says.
According to the Deputy Speaker and PAC chairman, the law is sacred and what some MDAs are doing is outside the law hence some of these actions are criminal and civic offence.
Also making his submission, Hon. Aaron Aruna Koroma, the deputy leader 2 of the main opposition All People’s Congress Party (APC) in parliament said the only way justice can be served is by inviting all players, pointing out that nothing would be done in their absence, citing Section 101 of the Public Financial Management (PFM) Act. “It is an insult that you have accountants and issues coming up repeatedly,” he said, while suggesting for different measures to be created outside the PFM Act.
“All those that have to do with payment without supporting documents we will invoke Section 120 and take a decision and they will pay back to the consolidated fund,” the lawmaker stressed.
Hon. Ibrahim Tawa Conteh said the process is guided by law and that they will follow it, noting he is not in doubt as to how these monies will be recovered, but that they must be recovered. He stated that the issue will be resolved after individuals involved appear before Parliament.
Copyright –Published in print in Expo Times Newspaper on Friday, June 14th , 2024 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)
