By Saio Marrah
Following the release of the 2020 Audit report, the Commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), Francis Ben Kaifala has called on Finance Officials of several public institutions mentioned in the audit report for unaccounted funds to produce supporting documents and explanation to the commission by Friday the 24th December 2021 or be detained.
The Commission has already identified several public institutions such as the National Mineral Agencies (NMA) for unaccounted revenue of 15.9 billion Leones, and revenue totaling US$888,035.26 that is owed to the Government of Sierra Leone by the Ship Registration Bureau Limited-SLMARAD.
The report also noted that the Ministry of Finance (MOF) could not provide adequate documents to the auditors to ascertain the legitimacy of the 144 billion Leones duty waivers. The African Link Inspection Company Limited also did not account for a total of 13.19 billion Leones.
It added that duty waivers amounting to 4.5 billion Leones were given to 58 Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) which according to the report were not eligible for duty waiver concession.
The undisclosed loan contract agreement by Ministry of Finance, EDSA and Sierratel are among the documents that were not shared with the auditors, according to the report.
The Commissioner at a press conference in Freetown, on Monday 20th December 2021 said the move was to show the commission’s willingness and desire to fight corruption.
He added that the commission has dealt with about 80 percent of the issues raised in the 2019 report and recovered billions of Leones.
The Commission noted an increase in the number of issues in the report from below 500 in 2019 to 1,020 in 2020, of which nine issues which are related to Public Accounts, Embassies, High Commissions, Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), Public Enterprises, Commissions and Donor-Funded Projects and Local Councils. He said they cannot address all the issues simultaneously but at a time.
The Commissioner said that most of the issues in the report are a result of lack of cooperation with audit officials from the different MDAs in providing relevant documents during the process but said they would now have to provide them to the anti-graft agency.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online (22/12/21)
