By Saio Marrah
In an effort to implement the recommendations in the Auditor General’s Report, the Minister of Finance, Dr. Dennis K. Vandi, says parliament has approved the withholding of the remuneration, fees and salaries of those officials who fail to respond or implement the audit recommendations, effective January, 2022.
He said this while presenting the 2022 annual budget to Members of Parliament on Friday 19th November, 2021.
The audit report has been exposing billions of Leones that went unaccounted for by various government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies. The reports on both past and present governments’ expenditure have shown familiar patterns of unaccounted spending, inflated prices, and breaches of contract, payroll irregularities, unapproved payments, unrecovered funds, unretired impresses, and non-payment of withholding tax, amongst other several irregularities.
The Finance Minister said to expedite the implementation of the Auditor General’s recommendations, his ministry has established an Inter-Departmental Committee comprising the Anti-Corruption Commission, Human Resource Management Office, Accountant-General’s Department and the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament.
He said the Committee is charged with the responsibility of coordinating the implementation of the Auditor-General’s recommendations. Dr. Vandi said to complement the work of this committee, the Internal Audit Department of the Ministry of Finance will follow-up with the management of various MDAs to improve on the implementation of the Auditor-General’s recommendations
He added that the National Transparency and Accountability Platform had been established in the office of the Vice President to coordinate with all relevant stakeholders on the implementation of the Auditor-General’s recommendations.
He added that the Chief Minister has also included the implementation of audit recommendations in the performance contracts of vote controllers.
Meanwhile, the Auditor General, Lara Taylor Pearce, together with one of her deputies, Tamba Momoh is currently under indefinite suspension by the President of Sierra Leone while a tribunal has been set to investigate their professional practice and among others.
Copyright © Político Online 22/11/21
