By Crispina Cummings
Members of Parliament yesterday asked why there were four Deputy Auditors-General as Audit Service Sierra Leone engaged parliamentarians at a pre-legislative hearing on the bill titled ‘Audit Service Act 2014’.
Auditor General, Lara Taylor-Pearce said the appointment of the four was based on different responsibilities as they worked as a team and made decisions together even though she had the final say.
She explained that the running of the institution was left in the hands of one of her deputies, which she said was rational.
This response, however, did not satisfy the MPs who said that she should have an immediate deputy.
She told the House that funding was a big challenge to the total independence of the Service, compared to other countries where “nobody has to cut down on the budget it submits”. She said that because of the budget gap in Sierra Leone, it was difficult to have a complete budget and expressed joy in the fact that the country was now trying to disburse its budget twice a year.
The proposed bill, according to Tamba Momoh one of the institution’s deputies, was as a result of so many audit issues in various acts in the country that needed to be brought into their own books to introduce vital operational issues and to uphold the independence of the service as was agreed by the UN and in line with the constitution of Sierra Leone.
Momoh said they had also looked at a lot of best practice of countries in the West Africa sub-region, adding that the draft was sent to the law officers' department where recommendations were made and sent back to them, before it was forwarded to parliament.
He said the new bill captured areas like the hiring and firing of staff instead of different ministries sending in and taking staff from the service, noting that the 1998 Act did not capture everything it was supposed to have captured “as it had only 19 sections unlike this new one that has 38".
(C) Politico 20/05/14
