Implementation of audit recommendations will unlock resources –Financial Secretary`
Sierra Leone, Freetown: Financial Secretary Sahr Lahai Jusu has said that there is need to strengthen accountability and governance in the implementation of the Auditor General’s recommendation as it is being emphasized by all donors.
The implementation he said is important and key to mobilizing more resources for the country as the donors base their distribution of resources to a country on its country performance and institutional assessment (CPIA) rating.
This key element that they use to disburse funds he said is “damning us on the ratings” and as a result they have made a presentation to the President for the scaling up of further directives to be implemented against non-implementing ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).
If they fail to implement the Auditor Generals recommendation going forward, FS Jusu disclosed that with the President’s commitment, salaries of the responsible officer will be suspended until the Auditor General is satisfied, that they have implemented her recommendations which will improve on accountability and governance.
Based on the Ministry of Finance assessment in 2018 there were 388 recommendations, 103 have been fully implemented, 248 not implemented and 31 have been partially implemented. Also, in 2019 there were 555 recommendations, 144 fully implemented, 286 not implemented and 114 partially implemented.
The Anti-Corruption Commission he said has been doing some post audits on the recommendations by engaging individual MDAs on it with some recoveries. The Ministry he said will in October 2021, actually publish on their website what they have done so far and they are hopeful that it will be a 60 percent rate of implementation as there is a pass mark of 26.5 percent for 2018 and around 30 percent for 2019.
All the donor support that came in to curtail the impact on the budget during the 2020 he said have phased out, … the country received close to $300 million budget support but in 2021 they rather put their money into testing and vaccine instead of providing direct budget support and that the FS says, poses a challenge to the government.
MDAs in 2020 submitted Le25 trillion for the 2021 budget and at the end the budget approved by Parliament was Le9.2 trillion. Development sector capital budget was close to Le11 trillion and out of the Le9.2 trillion in the budget wages and salaries is about Le3.2 trillion.
When the universities went on strike last year, FS Jusu said, they came asking for their other charges which was around Le25 billion and their monthly salary is around Le13 billion. They were told at that time to wait as it was time for salary payment and other charges can come in a week’s time but they said no.
The ministry released Le14 billion against their salaries and they went on strike, “so these are the alternative and challenges we face” FS said. “We urge MDAs to recast their budget within the framework ceiling. I don’t believe in big budget; you take a big budget to parliament people clap politically but when it comes to implementation you cannot. 2022 is going to be a difficult year as we have the COVID-19 fallout and elections commitments” he said. ZIJ/20/9/2021