By Amara Thoronka
Mr. Abdul Aziz, Acting Auditor General of Audit Service Sierra Leone has said his institution has evidence of financial and public service anomalies by ministries, departments and agencies captured in the 2022 Auditor General’s Report.
The head of the country’s audit agency was speaking to journalists and civil society activists at a press conference held on Thursday, 1stFebruary, 2024, at the Freetown City Council administrative building.
“We have evidence on file for all what is in the report. The report out there is just a summary of what we audited. Not all issues are published, especially those bordering on serious security issues. What we do, in such instances, is that we engage institutions concerned and recommend what should be done to stop the anomalies,” he said.
He noted that their work as public auditors is done on behalf of the people of Sierra Leone. He however stated that they do recommend every year on actions to be taken, but that several institutions do not implement their recommendations.
Mr. Aziz said the media is very instrumental in disseminating their work to the public. “The media is the court of public opinion and journalists are the mouthpiece of the less privileged,” he mentioned.
He continued that, for them as auditors, the focus is to ensure that their work impacts the lives of the people, noting that to realize such impact, they have changed their method of approach. “We now go beyond just asking for documents because people and institutions often provide documents. We now go beyond those documents and audit to know whether the services for which money was disbursed are delivered.”
He said that there are more important issues that the media is not reporting on, saying that the media focuses more on the figures [monies unaccounted for] and not service delivery, citing supplies of educational materials to schools, seedlings to farmers, construction of roads and other infrastructure by contractors, among others.
He emphasized that documents were provided for certain services, but that those services were not delivered at the time of auditing, hence the reason Audit Service Sierra Leone has incorporated assessment of service delivery as a new approach.
He encouraged the media to reach out to his institution for clarification on anything bordering on the audit report and related issues. “We have an open door policy. You can always come around to clarify and ask questions on the report and our work.”
Mr. Morie Lansana, the Assistant Auditor General said the 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone mandates the Audit Service Sierra Leone to report on anomalies and make recommendations for effective and efficient financial management and service delivery.
Mr. Lansana noted that the report covers issues on tax, expenditure management not adequately supported, contract management, asset management, among others.
“Now, people are so smart that they provide all the documents, but the documents would not speak to the evidence on ground. So, this year, we changed our strategy to see realities of work claimed to have been done. We visited certain project sites and saw no work done.”
He added that certain personnel claimed to have been recruited by some public institutions could not be accounted for.
Giving an overview of the report, Mr. Philip Goba, the Training Manager of Audit Service Sierra Leone said the national audit agency has set criteria it uses to audit institutions, citing they have over four hundred clients. He said the criteria focus on budget allocation, public interest; revenue budgeted by the audited institution, donor interest, whether the agency prepares financial statement, the agenda of the government and when last was the agency audited.
Mohamed Mustapha, Principal Auditor attached at Parliament, said the report was tabled in Parliament for it to be a public document as provided for by law.
“The Public Account Committee (PAC) is the parliamentary committee that handles the audit report. I and others represent Audit Service Sierra Leone in parliament and provides technical assistant to the committee,” he explained.
The 2022 Auditor General’s report revealed huge financial, administrative and service delivery anomalies which are currently being looked into by Parliament and the Anti Corruption Commission.
Copyright –Published in Expo Times News on Friday, January 2nd, 2024 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)