February 4, 2021
BY Mohamed M. Sesay
The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) who also doubles as the Deputy Speaker of Parliament Hon. Solomon Segepoh Thomas has reached consensus with other Honorable Members of the Committee to have the Anti-Corruption Commission investigate National COVID 19 Emergency Response Commission and the Ministry of Health.
The issue at stake is the unjustified payment of allowances totaling one hundred and ninety four million Leones, (Le 194,000,000) to certain workers. This issue was captured in the Audit reports 2020.
“Mr. Clerk, include this amount for investigation by the ACC and both refund and criminal prosecution’ ’Deputy Speaker ordered.
In his statement, the Deputy Speaker Hon. Solomon Segepoh Thomas asserted that he sensed some foul play in payments made by NaCOVERC through a middleman, and therefore requested persons of interest to provide relevant answers.
In another development, the Deputy Auditor-General Tamba Momoh also updated the Committee that a Service provider named Bunyas Hotel based in Port Loko town was contracted by the Ministry of Health and Sanitation as a center where people coming into the country would be kept in quarantine for short time based on the covid-19 regulations.
He added that there was a mismatch in the contract signed between the Ministry of Health and the Service provider (Bunyas Hotel).
According to the contract document, this is an indication that the contract awarded Four Hundred Thousand Leones for one night per person.
He further stated that Bunyas Hotel management thought it fit that since their hotel is now used to quarantine passengers for COVID19, sent an invoice to the Ministry of Health to pay for the entire one hundred and ten (110) rooms.
It has been revealed that Ministry of Health honored the invoice from Bunyas hotel for the payment of the entire rooms.
The Audit report concluded that Bunyas Hotel would have been paid over 2.2 billion Leones because they were charging for all the one hundred and ten rooms instead of the specific rooms that were used for the covid-19 response process.
Hon. Thomas also reaffirmed the misunderstanding in the contract between the Ministry and that of Bunyas hotel, adding that one cannot expect Bunya’s Hotel to be used as a quarantine facility and expect other people to check into that same hotel.
Hon Thomas is of the view that there were only few people as passengers in the said hotel to have been quarantined.
He therefore vindicated Bunyas hotel as one of the service providers named in the 2019 Audit report, and he also directed NaCOVERC to pay Bunyas Hotel for all of the one hundred and ten rooms. He added that Bunyas hotel runs as a business entity and therefore said NaCOVERC would not expect people to go and check in a hotel where passengers are quarantined for coronavirus.
