By: MOHAMED M. SESAY
In a presser held at the Institute for Governance Reform’s Wilkinson Road Office, the Chief Executive Officer for the Institute for Governance Reform Andrew Lavalie, has on the 22nd March 2022, assured galaxy of journalists that the only way to improve on the Public Financial Management oversight is for government, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and partners to work towards institutionalizing the tracking of audit compliance by developing a digital tracker for all Ministry Department and Agencies (MDAs) to see real time progress they are making to address audit recommendations.
In their just concluded report on the Audit Tears, Andrew Lavalie intimated that their research shows that only 38% of audit recommendations were implemented in the six years under review. In total, he said 2,655 recommendations were produced by AASL for all MDAs and local councils for which Parliament approved Le23.84 trillion (approximately USD 2.4 Billion) for six years. He added that a total of 2,655 recommendations for all MDAs and local councils between 2015 and 2020, 38% were implemented, 18% were partly implemented, and 44% were not implemented. He disclosed that government ministries (35%) and agencies (37%) receiving more resources have lower uptake of audit recommendations than local councils (38%) and departments (41%).
The IGR Boss also intimated that the best performing Parliamentary oversight committee with respect to audit compliance (60%) is the Transport and Aviation Oversight Committee. The Education Committee (22%), which expended the largest budget in the last six years; and the Mines and Minerals Committee (26%), a sector which had the potential to generate the biggest revenue, were the least compliant with auditors.
Andrew Lavalie continued that the average compliance of local councils is 38% with the exception of one of Sierra Leone’s two new districts, Falaba District Council, which was only audited for the first time in 2019. He noted that all top ten councils that were most compliant in the last six years are councils in the Southern and Eastern regions. He revealed that such level of compliance, which is only moderately satisfactory, could well be consistent with a widely held view that political actors are more compliant when they are not assured of protection from patrons in the central government.
At 38% rate of implementation of audit recommendations, IGR Lavalie therefore, called for the need for local and international stakeholders to be concerned about the absence of conversations on audit uptake and fiduciary risk in public institutions. He said such brief intends to draw the attention of stakeholders to the need to look beyond Mrs. Lara Taylor-Pearce and the SLPP government and to seek common ground for increasing audit compliance. He suggested that one step to achieve this is for stakeholders to work towards settling the audit dispute out of court, lower the rhetoric among the parties and promote conversations on audit integrity and uptake of audit recommendations.
“We make this proposal bearing in mind that the interests in the Auditor General’s tribunal by many groups is largely about political point-scoring and less about promoting audit integrity to benefit the Sierra Leone economy. However, there are some who believe that the ongoing tribunal will ultimately improve audit integrity”, he said.
