February 1, 2021
By Mohamed M. Sesay
Deputy Speaker of Parliament, who doubles as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee Solomon Sengepoh Thomas has insisted that refund of money misapplied by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) will not be the end of the road but rather parliament can recommend prosecution for those found culpable of misapplying public funds as captured in the 2020 Audit Report.
He was on 27th January speaking to invited representatives from MDAs responding to a call in clearing the names for fraud and embezzlement in the audit report.
In attendance were representatives from Ministries of Health and Sanitation, Transport and Aviation, Defense, the Sierra Leone Police, National Covid-19 Emergency Response Centre (NaCOVERC), Office of the National Security, along with other representatives of MDAs that took place on the 27th of January. They faced the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in parliament to answer to questions relating to the 2019 Special COVID-19 Audit Report.
While welcoming the Auditor- General and the Commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission, Hon. Segepoh Solomon Thomas, intimated that the House of Parliament has been bashed over time by the general public for seemingly being complacent in the oversight responsibility relative to audit report.
He however clarified that their role as Members of Parliament is not to prosecute corruption. “We rather created the Anti-Corruption Corruption that is charged with the responsibility to investigate, prosecute and prevent corruption.
However, Hon. Thomas pointed out that the House of Parliament would never entertain corruption especially in a situation where individuals tend to cover up those who misapplied public funds allocated to them for public use.
He acknowledged that certain individuals were asked to pay some amounts into the consolidated funds but said, “the refund would not preclude recommendations from Members of Parliament for criminal action consistent with law, against persons of interest, whose actions the committee might find criminal in nature.”
He said: “We can go behind that to say even though you have refunded certain amount of money, we will insist that you be prosecuted in addition to that. It also lies within our powers as a committee to also ensure officials who are found wanton, be dismissed with immediate effect. It lies within our purview to ensure that certain recommendations are made to institutions or MDAs regarding officials who have conducted themselves wrongly.’’
While providing updates on the conclusion of the 2019 Audit Report, the Deputy Auditor General Tamba Momoh, stated that as part of preparedness in the Covid-19 response, Government of Sierra Leone gave five Billion Leones to the Ministry of Health and Sanitation to cover the issue around preparedness. He said the money was spent prior to the establishment of NaCOVERC.
He furthered that with the institution of NaCOVERC, the amount of monies NaCOVERC received to manage the response mechanism of covid-19, were managed by two sets of finance teams such as the Integrated Health Implementation Project Unit managed the funds up to the first lockdown, and then another team from the Ministry of Finance came and took over the management of funds up till the end of June.
He also stated that the Audit Service team issued a query on the 15th of May 2020, in relation to the financial management system, requesting NaCOVERC to explain to Audit team what accounting laws or principles that they were using.
He disclosed after a week of their request to NaCOVERC, the Attorney General issued a constitutional instrument with specific focus of section (9) of that constitutional instrument.
This said section put a hold on the management of the Covid-19 funds coupled with the Public Financial Management Act of 2016 and the Public Procurement Act of 2016.
He also added that the Ministry of Transport and Aviation contracted the services of a supplier called ANAGKZO Ventures to supply thirty brand new vehicles and hundred motor bikes for the Covid-19 operation. He said the Audit Team made two observations on one of the contracts that the price charged by ANAGKZO Ventures per vehicle, was far more than how much the authorized dealer was asking for. He indicated that the prizes were heavily inflated in this regard.
Secondly, he said that three of the vehicles supplied by ANAGKZO Venture were not brand new vehicles.
Responding to the Deputy Auditor General, the Deputy National Coordinator of NaCOVERC Sheku Bangura, said they at NaCOVERC take the audit report in good faith, adding that most of the concerns in the audit border around correcting internal controls which is currently part of institutional weaknesses in the accounting system in the country.
He affirmed that they did cooperate with Audit Service Sierra Leone by providing relevant documentations during the auditing process.
He added that President Bio is the Chairman of the Covid-19 taskforce which is the oversight national body for covid-19 response in the country, noting that every decision taken to manage the response of Covid-19, has been approved and cleared at the taskforce level.
He disclosed that even before NaCOVERC was fully establishment, there was a preparedness plan that was discussed and approved at the highest level in the country.
He stated that there was a Covid-19 response plan approved by President Bio, and there was value for money during their management response process with evidential documentations to back up the claim.
Providing clarity regarding the procurement processes of the vehicles and motor bikes for the covid-19 response, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Public Procurement Authority (NPPA) Ibrahim Swarray, confirmed that some of the vehicles purchased were consistent with the NPPA’s price norm. He said that due to the Covid-19 outbreak, they looked at the prices and provided flexibility by removing about 25% in the price norm.
He described the price norm as the law that they have been using right across even during the period of covid-19.
He also noted that people increase prices the moment they noticed that the purchase is for government taking into cognizance, withholding tax which is 5.5%, and the GST which give reasonable justification for the buyer/supplier to increase their prizes.
He therefore advised the Audit Service and the ACC to take into cognizance NPPA price norm because he said; they at NPPA do the calculations to ensure that there is no discrepancy in the procurement process.
‘’Every buying institution in this country especially for vehicles, we watch at the price norm for the quarter and we will not allow you to sign any contract that exceeds 25%. The prizes for the purchase of the vehicles were reasonable, and that is why we gave concurrence to them,’’ said Ibrahim Swarray.
