By Nasratu Kargbo
Whip from the Government Bench, Ibrahim Tawa Conteh says arrears and debts that Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) owe certain institutions such as Guma Valley, Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority (EDSA) and Audit Service should be deducted from their budget.
Conteh who is a Committee Chairman for one of the sub-appropriation committees in parliament said he has observed that most of the MDAs that appeared before his committee have debts and arrears to pay these institutions.
“We are going to indicate it, write a recommendation for the ministries to be setting off liabilities to EDSA, Guma or Audit Service from the budget” he stressed.
Highlighting other issues that he noticed, the MP said that some ministries are the head of vaults, explaining that they operate a single account that covers all agencies under them. He cited the Ministry of Water Resources operating the account, but monies meant for vendors of SALWACO and Guma Valley are sent through the ministry’s account.
He said “These are all issues that we need to look at and ensure that even though the vaults are under the ministry, these agencies should be able to operate their own accounts so as to be able to establish synergy in the payment system”.
Conteh also emphasized the need for the Ministry of Finance to ensure that they prepare a budget that is realistic, explaining that in his committee they have seen MDAs that have come before them with an approved budget and ended up receiving not even half of the money approved.
He explained that most of the activities to be undertaken with the monies are usually administrative or operational, noting that if the institutions are constrained with the implementation of those activities, then the MDAs will not be functional.
The Whip also highlighted other issues such as huge cash withdrawals, budget disbursement, accounting issues amongst others.
He said that the scrutiny process has been efficient and assured the public that parliament will continue to improve on its exercise of powers to scrutinize and allocate funds to MDAs and ensure their utilization for the purposes requested.
The sub-appropriation process gives MPs the power to properly scrutinize budget estimates from MDAs who will be responding to questions from MPs. The questions mostly require representatives from MDAs such as a vote controller defending the previous year’s expenditure and generated revenue, presentation of intended revenue target and projections of expenditure for the next year, amongst others.
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