By Mustapha Sesay
Former Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Education, Mani Koroma, on Tuesday informed the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in parliament that the minister of Education and his deputies were yet to account for overseas travel expenses in 2013.
He was reacting to issues of non-documentation of allowances and other travel expenses which were raised in the 2013 audit report presently before The House for discussion. Koroma said there were no supporting documents to explain how certain amounts of monies were expended in that year.
It was indicated in the report that overseas travel expenses amounting to Le 130, 601, 009 million were without relevant supporting documents.
The report also revealed that over Le 4 Billion had been withdrawn from various bank accounts without payment vouchers and other supporting documents to justify the utilization of such funds. It said documents explaining expenses were not made available to the audit team for inspection.
But the ministry’s accountant, Alusine Kargbo, told the PAC that the documents were not available at the time the audit team wanted them because the ministry’s subvention returns were made after first quarter payments. He assured that 95% of the documents were now available at the ministry for inspection by the public.
PAC’s deputy chairman, Comba Koydeyoma, urged the current Permanent Secretary [who was also in Parliament] to make it a point of duty to be asking the ministers for reports on their overseas travel expenses. MP noted that the monies the ministers were using was part of the taxpayers’ money, thus, they needed to be accountable for it.
Another issue that came before the committee on Tuesday was that of the over Le 600million that had been given to various learning institutions abroad in respect of 87 students who had been awarded the government Grants-in Aid scholarships. On this issue, it was uncovered that the ministry was yet to be furnished with progress reports on the beneficiary students.
The secretary of students at the ministry, Mansaray Milton Pierce, explained that the ministry had been liaising with officials of Sierra Leone`s embassies in the various countries in which the students were studying on scholarship so as to keep track of their progress.
In countries like China, Morocco and Turkey, progress reports were submitted and verified but the ministry was found to be having challenges with regards Russia.
Meanwhile, the PAC Chairman, Chernor Bah, urged Mr Pierce to ensure that each and every student was properly verified so as to avoid giving grants to ghost students.
“We should not be paying ghost teachers and sponsoring ghost students at the same time,” Bah said.
© Politico 22/04/15
