By Mary Kabay
During a Press Conference convened by the Anti-Corruption Commission on the 12th January 2021 which was held its Conference Room on Gloucester Street, the Anti-Corruption Commissioner, Francis Ben Kaifala updated members of the media on the Auditor General’s Report 2019 as well as the COVID-19 Audit report.
Prior to giving the update, the Deputy Commissioner of the ACC, Augustine Foday Ngobie, stated that the rationale behind convening the Press Conference is to highlight the issues the Commission dealt with in 2020 and what would be the Commission’s next step in 2021 with regards the Auditor General’s Report 2019 and the COVID-19 Audit report.
Francis Ben Kaifala Esq, the Commissioner of Anti-Corruption Commission in delivering his update stated that the Auditor General released the Audit Report late last year after which the ACC took two positions which were to properly digest the Report and plan themselves well in order to engage their partners which includes Audit Service Sierra Leone and Parliament as well as to how to move forward with engaging with the 2019 Audit.
He said, however, they decided to move faster with the 2020 COVID-19 Audit especially as they have learnt lessons from the Ebola outbreak particularly with issues relating to financial management and procedural arrangements that went with it which they felt was going to permeate down into the management of the COVID pandemic.
He said they prioritized working on the 2020 COVID audit and leave the 2019 Audit to be looked into by another ACC team, made up of lawyers and persons who are good at gathering intelligence, in order to bring out issues that the Commission will deal with either through investigation or prevention measures.
The Commissioner stated that the first two issues they acted on were the laptops and the generator. He commended the Audit-Sierra Leone for the great work they have been doing in terms of providing intelligence which the ACC is working on.
He said as far as they are aware the Audit captured that it was a 65 kva generator that was seen and not a 50kva generator generating suspicion that the latter was missing. He said they acted on that saying their findings were the same with Audit-Sierra Leone stressing that the Certificate relating to the generator that was provided to the auditors proved that it was a 50kva generator that was donated by the Chinese Government. The ACC boss said they thoroughly investigated the issue and after looking at it in the totality they were clear that it was indeed the 50kva generator that the Chinese donated which is the same that was discovered at Zimmi. He said there must have been a discrepancy in the recording on the certificate.
Dilating on the 47 computers, the ACC Commissioner said they decided not to waste time but to bring all those involved with the computers.
He said they were asked to produce the computers which they did furthering that their findings were that the laptops were not according to the right specifications. The Commissioner concluded that they went beyond that and picked up that some were of better capacity. Francis Kaifala noted that during the procurement phase something went wrong but underscored that the laptops were indeed delivered. He said the laptops were not missing but the Commission took the position that they were going to pay for them which they did and they were able to recover Le250M.
He thanked the Audit Service Sierra Leone for the work they are doing adding that there are other issues that the Commission is investigating one of which is the SUVs. The Commissioner said at no time did he say the SUVs were all brand new or some were old stressing that such will have to be determined as the investigation continues.
The Commissioner said they have not started acting on the 2019 Audit Report saying they are having a conversation with Parliament as to what to do with it as professionals.
Ben Kaifala outlined the names of public institutions that have to refund public funds into the Consolidated Revenue Fund as raised in the 2019 Auditor General’s Report.
He ended by saying, “We are coming strong. We are not going to take excuses. People are going to pay .People are going to prison. We are going to go after their properties. We are going to hit where it hurts them most. It is not a threat, it’s a promise.”
