The Audit Service Commission in their recently published Performance Audit Report on the management of the country Public Debt has indicted the ministry for what the report referred to as reckless spending.

Given their general observation on the refund of ineligible expenditure vouchers and supporting documents, it was revealed by the team of auditors that the government of Sierra Leone made three payments of ineligible expenditure to multilateral donor partners for a total Le 358,311,317.90 (US$ 2,173,767.62) as a result of un utilization of funds, management, or noncompliance with the financial and contractual procedures in the signed loan implementation agreement.

It was also revealed that there was no formal investigation by the implementation unit of the ministry to confirm the reason for the claims, as it has not been their practice to report ineligible expenditure to the Public Account Committee of parliament.

The report categorically stated that payment of ineligible expenditure had over the years resulted in a loss and reduction of government funds available for the implementation of other government projects or programmes for service delivery that should have benefitted the lives of citizens and further reduce the confidence of donor partners in the disbursement of funds for the implementation of projects, the report states.

The Audit Service Commission furthered labeled the said ministry Arrears Clearance Strategic as a white elephant.

According to the performance Audit Report on the Management of Sierra Leone Public Debt revealed that the ministry’s Arrears Clearance Strategy that was developed for the singular purpose of suppliers or contractors disclaiming any future liability on the government upon full receipt of the discounted amount was never adhere to.

In general, the Public Debt Management strategy was not successful as the ministry was not consistently preparing the medium-term Debt Management Strategy annually, on a three years rolling basis, the report highlighted.

More on the Report.