Post a comment
Africanist Press found that a specific invoice #637 ( attached below) issued on 14 June 2022 in the name of the Laxton Group requested from ECSL the amount of US$224,710.00 as a 10% advance payment on the voter registration contract even though ECSL did not directly contract the said Laxton Group.
Again, the listed contractor that was awarded the US$8.5 million contract was Infinity ICT and General Merchandise and not the Laxton Group.
In essence, invoice #637 (attached below) shows that ECSL processed a payment request from a company they did not contract for the said project. This invoicing arrangement further illustrates the fact that ECSL deliberately awarded Infinity an 80% inflated contract knowing full well the company does not have the technical capacity to undertake the contract.
Africanist Press examined correspondence by ECSL’s Executive Secretary, William Addo-Davies dated 15 June 2022, which instructed Bank of Sierra Leone (BSL) officials to transfer the amount of US$213,963.00 from ECSL/NEC’s BSL Account # 0112008440 to Infinity ICT and General Merchandise’s USD Account # 003 001100165412164 held at the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank in Freetown. Central Bank records show that BSL transferred the requested funds to the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank on 16 June 2022 (at about 12:15 PM) in Sierra Leone.
Oddly enough, this transaction shows that even though the said payment was in response to the Laxton Group invoice #637, in processing the payment, ECSL directed BSL to lodge the transfer into Infinity’s SLCB Account. This further raises two unresolved issues that point to the inflated contract and the authenticity of the invoice itself. Firstly, if ECSL was making a 10% advance payment to Infinity, then the US$213,963.00 from ECSL/NEC’s BSL Account #0112008440 that was transferred to Infinity ICT and General Merchandise’s USD Account # 003 001100165412164 held at the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank in Freetown shows that the actual value of the contract was US$2.2 million instead of the stated US$8.5 million.
Thus, there is a difference of US$6.3 million that ECSL officials have not accounted for in the contract awarded to Infinity. Secondly, even though ECSL processed a payment for an invoice allegedly submitted by the Laxton Group, the funds were directly paid to Infinity instead of Laxton Group.
This transactional process further proves that ECSL did not only inflate the contract by US$6.3 million, but ECSL also used an invoice from a non-existing company to transfer funds from the BSL to a private company without justification. In other words, the stated reasons for the transactions and the documentary evidence of the transaction starkly contradict each other.
This irregular process of financial transactions and fund transfers was again evident in a transaction carried out on 29 June 2022, when ECSL requested BSL to pay another US$409,294.58 through SWIFT transfer (via Standard Chartered Bank South Africa – SCB/SA) in the name of Infinity as an additional payment of 20% on the said contract.
