By Crispina Cummings
The parliamentary committee on local government and rural development on Tuesday met the administrative wing of the Freetown City Council at their Wallace Johnson Street office.
Chairman of the committee, Abubakarr Koroma, MP, told the staff that they had gone to check on projects executed by the council and its sectors and to also verify
disbursements made by the council to its various sectors. The however expressed disappointment that heads of other sectors like health and education were not present for questioning.
Commenting on the status report presented by the council to the committee, Ibrahim Kamara, MP, said that he was worried over the fact that the council would be ineffective if, according to local content policy, local councils were required to raise 60 % of their revenue. He said the picture was not promising, adding that even though the central government continued to give full allocations to councils, they were still facing serious challenges.
Kamara said a solution should be found to address the council’s problems where funds were allocated but there was nothing to show for them.
The chief administrator of the council, John Conteh apologised and took responsibility for the absence of some key staff as raised by the committee, saying he had not informed them about the visit.
He said the council was trying to make some progress and to be able to meet its commitment to accrue 60 % of the revenue needed by the council.
Conteh said his council was paying off a huge backlog of debts it owed to some suppliers and banks like the First International Bank and the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank.
The issue of council tax for the 2011/2012 that was issued now to the public was raised and the Mayor, Bode Gibson who joined in the hearing later, explained that council only printed limited tax booklets this year and decided to make use of the 2011/2012 ones.
He said the auditor general was called to verify and authenticate the old tax booklets with an audit service stamp.
Meanwhile, councilors Samba Turay of Ward 368 and Alusine Alu Conteh of Ward 380 pleaded with members of the committee to help advocate with the local government to look into their salaries. They said they were giving too much in terms of their service to the nation but that they were having nothing to show for that. The local government act does not provide for salary for councilors. They get sitting fees.
