By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
The accounting firm, Binder Dikker Otte (BDO), has rejected part of the report of the Commissions of Inquiry (COI) implicating it in the failure to transfer some US$ 52,347 of Ebola funds to the government’s account.
BDO was reacting to the just released Government White paper, which endorsed the part of the COI report and ordered the accounting firm to pay back the money into the consolidated revenue fund.
BDO was the fiduciary agents that handled the Ebola funds on behalf of NERC at the height of the 2014-2016 epidemic.
The firm was supposed to transfer the funds to the Integrated Health Project Administration Unit (IHPAU) in the Ministry of Finance after the 2014-2016 West African Ebola epidemic. Sierra Leone was one of the three countries worst hit by the viral disease that claimed over 11, 000 across the region and beyond.
But the response was also shrouded in huge corruption allegations and it featured prominently in the COI which sat between 2018 and 2019.
Managing Partner at BDO, Samuel Noldred, who was personally named in the COI report, told Politico on Friday, a day after the White paper was released, that they had done everything that they were supposed to do to transfer the money. He blamed failure on the part of government officials they were working with for the delay. But he said eventually every amount was transferred.
“This money was not even in our account; this is World Bank money that was in two separate project accounts. We had signed all the documents to effect the transfer from the account to IHPAU, we did nothing wrong,” he explained.
Email transcripts that Noldred showed Politico revealed a chain of email exchanges between an IHPAU Fund Management Specialist, Alpha Jalloh and BDO over the request for the transfer of the funds in February 2018.
Noldred said because the money was Wold Bank’s, IHPAU needed authorization from the bank to get BDO to transfer the funds, something which they got in August 2018.
On August 17th, 2018, Noldred added, the World Bank sent the account details where the money should be transferred to, which BDO subsequently acted on and signed.
“But we were not the only signatories to that account; there was another signatory to the account from NERC (National Ebola Response Center). This means they had to go and get another signature to finally withdraw the money,” the BDO executive said.
The other signatory from NERC on a document which Politico saw was that of Steven Gaoja, who briefly headed the committee charged with tackling Sierra Leone’s response to the Ebola epidemic before former Defense Minister, Alfred Palo Conteh, took over from him.
Documents which Noldred showed to Politico revealed that just over US$ 13,000 was subsequently transferred from one of the accounts. However, the remaining sum, which was over US$ 35,000, was not transferred and was in an account where Government of Sierra Leone also had some money.
The total money in the second account was just over US$181,000, according to a document Politico saw.
“After a year, Jalloh sent me an email saying they were not able to get the funds because they couldn’t get the other signatory to sign to retrieve the money from the second account,” Noldred said.
The second chain of emails between Jalloh and BDO started from July 2019, by then the Commission of Inquiry was in progress.
Nodlred said the remaining money has since been cleared from the second account and transferred into Government of Sierra Leone’s main Treasury Account at the Bank of Sierra Leone, in August this year.
“Government transferred all the money including the World Bank money that was supposed to be transferred to IHPAU,” he said.
He showed Politico a Swift message confirming the transfer.
BDO officials appeared at the hearings of the COI, but Noldred insisted that they were there just as witnesses helping the state to make their case against Alfred Palo Conteh and others over the reported misuse of the Ebola Funds.
Asked why they didn’t share all what seems to be evidence backing their story, he said: “We were never asked to, we were not invited as Persons of Interest. In fact, when we finished testifying, the judge told our people that they could go and if there was anything else they would call us.”
“No one called us,” he stressed.
Noldred said he wouldn’t blame the government for the findings. He said much of the problem was with the judge, Justice Biobele Goergewill, who presided over the case.
“If he couldn’t get to the bottom of cases and he thinks there are doubts, he could have referred those issues to the ACC (Anti-Corruption Commission), like the other judges did,” he said.
Politico couldn’t get Jalloh or IHPAU to comment on the issue.
In the meantime, Noldred said the firm is seeking legal advice on its next step. He said the firm is concerned about how this will affect its reputation.
Like the rest of the officials and institutions named in the COI report and the White paper, BDO has 90 days to act on the directive of the government.
BDO is one of the oldest accounting firms in the country. It was established in 1963, with services including accounting, book keeping, and human resource management.
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