The Accountant General in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Kebbe Kouroma told journalists and representatives of civil society organisations last Friday that he wanted to devolve some of the functions of his department to various sub-units of government. The reason for it is to ensure that payment of salaries and handling of other government expenditures are dealt with in a timely manner.
Explaining the functions of his department, Mr. Kebbe Kourama said“NRA [National Revenue Authority] collects money and hands it to the Accountant General’s Department (AGD) and they pay it to the consolidated Revenue Fund. ”He says he sees a triangular relationship within the Budget Bureau in the finance ministry, the NRA and the Accountant General’s Department.While the Budget Bureau and parliament are upstream to determine spending, the department is downstream following their instructions.
The department also renders and publish statements of the public accounts as require by law, he stressed.
The department has two deputy directors and two assistant directors. Citing the functions of the department, he said that there are eight units within the department. One of the major functions is the payment of salaries. There are about 35,000 teachers and 22,000 civil servants excluding the police and military whose payments are handled every month. Because of the volume of cheques to sign every month, his department is proposing an electronic system that will not require signing of cheques manually but will be done electronically for direct payment from the central bank.
He stressed that the Accountant General’s office is not a unit of the finance ministry but a department within the ministry with some form of independence. The department is like the Police Force in the Internal Affairs Ministry with some amount of independence. He said that the chief executive of the finance ministry is the financial secretary whiles he is the head of the department. The department is charged with the responsibility of the management and control of public sector financing as well as keeping.
Counting the strength of the human resource, he said two of his staff completed their ACCA last year and there are others with Bachelor’s, Master’s and other professional qualifications in the department.
Tuesday February 09, 2016
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