By Crispina Cummings
As the debate on the Appropriation Act 2012 continues, Members of Parliament on Tuesday continued to make different interventions on different aspects of the 2013 budget.
Making his contribution, Hassan Sherrif, MP, of the ruling APC party said the budget should be looked at as a national budget not as an APC or SLPP budget, adding that it must be looked at “honestly” as it is meant to serve the nation. He said monies should not be spent on wrong programmes and that the Ministry of Finance should have a monitoring and evaluation unit to check on project implementation. He added that there should also be an internal audit department to check the day-to-day running of MDAs to see if there were irregularities, intentional or otherwise.
Sherrif said parliamentary oversight committees should make their presence felt in carrying out their functions as they look for possible misallocation of funds. He said misuse of funds had to stop and urged that allocations for roads, capital expenditure, and the ministry of defence expenditure on fuel should be looked into by the ministry of finance. He said Sierra Leoneans, particularly those in high positions, should do the right things adding that parliament should support the NRA and other MDAs that help bring in revenue for the country.
“If you spend money on wrong programmes you are not doing justice to the budget” the ruling party MP said.
Making her own contribution on the budget, Hellen Kuyembeh, MP for the opposition SLPP said that it must not be seen as anything personal when the opposition criticized or came up with issues that they thought needed to be questioned. She asked all MPs both in the ruling and opposition parties to always work with their conscience and to put party allegiance aside. She said no country could achieve prosperity when it spent more than it earned, pointing out that those responsible should be careful and responsible with the management of funds.
Kuyembeh said that “overspending” on activities like overseas medical travel should stop in all ministries. She said funds for those activities should be used to buy equipment to upgrade the country’s hospitals.
