By Mustapha Sesay
Parliament on Tuesday finally approved the contentious Kenema City Council 2015 budget after a protracted back and forth.
The parliamentary oversight committee on Finance had repeatedly refused to give the document its blessing, citing anomalies in spending in the previous year.
The budget which was submitted to the committee early this year saw the appearance of core staff of the Council, include the mayor of Kenema, on four different occasions to defend it in futility.
The committee`s chairman Hassan Sheriff and his members had repeatedly picked on inconsistencies between the money received by the Council and what was spent.
According to the budget submitted to the committee, KCC spent more than their total income and the Finance committee wanted to know where the extra money was coming from. But the Council on the different encounters with the committee could not provide clarifications enough to satisfy the MPs.
The matter came to a conclusion behind closed door where journalists were not allowed to witness the hearing.
Before ratifying the budget, the lawmakers unanimously blamed KCC staff for the delay in approving the budget. They singled out Mayor Joseph S. Kaifala for “reckless” accusations made against the members of the Finance committee of soliciting Le20 million in bribe from the Council.
The committee chairman explained that the budget was delayed because KCC staff initially failed to appear before the sub appropriation committee after they submitted their budget and noted that there were inconsistencies in the budget. He said the allegations made against his committee nearly cost him his reputation which he had built over the years.
“I spent over two hour’s and thirty munities at the ACC [Anti Corruption Commission] defending my reputation,” MP Sheriff said. He added that they had no intention to delay the budget for six months but that they did so because of the “ineptitude” of the core staff of the council.
MP Sheriff told his colleagues in the well of parliament that Local Councils were not utilizing the internal auditing systems in place and that this has contributed to financial mismanagement.
Minority leader Bernadette Lahai, said that as MPs from that part of the country they were accused of siding with other MPs to block the approval of the budget. But she pointed out that as a lawmaker she would not want to see her people suffer for six months and that the blame was supposed to be put on the KCC officials who failed to come to parliament.
On the issue of the alleged accusation of soliciting bribe, she said somebody most apologize to parliament “whether the Mayor or the Finance committee members”, depending on the pending report of ACC. Some MPs had said during the approval hearing that Mayor Keifala should apologies to parliament.
The ACC mounted an investigation as soon as the Kenema mayor early this year made the allegations against the MPs. But Dr Lahai said until the ACC report was out, “we all stand to be accused.”
The Speaker of parliament, Sheku Dumbuya, praised opposition MPs in the House for not been partisan regarding the issue, saying: “you have proved to the world that you are decent people.”
(C) Politico 23/07/15
