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Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) have failed to provide evidence of action plans to justify Lei 39 trillion overspent amount to Auditors from Audit Service Sierra Leone (ASSL).
This is according to the Auditor General’ annual Report of the Account of Sierra Leone which was tabled on 22nd December, 2022 in Parliament. The revised budget and actual expenditure revealed that these monies were utilised by some MDAs without no justification.
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Section 30 (1) and (2) of the Public Financial Management Regulations (PFMRS) of 2018 state that: (1) A vote controller of a budgetary agency shall not incur or settle any commitment for which public money has not been provided by the State budget or authorised to be charged on the Consolidated Fund,
(2) When a budgetary agency
has overspent a head or subhead of expenditures under the State budget or made unbudgeted expenditure, the Minister shall require the head of the budgetary or sub-vented agency to submit an action plan under paragraph (b) of subsection (2) of section 120 of the Act, as soon as practicable after the end of a financial year.”
However, Sections 37 (586) and 39 (465) of the Public Financial Management Act (PEMA) of 2016 require that the Minister of Finance shall submit reports to Parliament when expenditures are charged against the unallocated head of expenditures and when withdrawals are made from the contingent funds. These provisions also require the subsequent approval of these expenditures by Parliament.
The report further revealed that, based on information gathered from the IFMIS, transactions. totalling Le37.68 billon and Le20.30 billion were posted under the contingencies find and unallocated head of expenditure, but no evidence of quarterly reports to Parliament as required by the Act was submitted to the auditors.” It is also worth noting that these amounts exceeded their budgeted amounts.
These breach the Auditor General said contravened certain Laws and Regulations specifically Section 30 (182) of the FFMR of 2018. requires that: (1) A vote controller of a budgetary agency shall not incur or settle any commitment for which public money has not been provided by the State budget or authorised to be charged on the Consolidated Fund.
Also, Section (2) states that the Minister shall require the head of the budgetary or sub-vented agency to submit an action plan.
Nevertheless, the budgeting process the Auditor General said has remained quite in line with the rules and regulations stipulated by the PFMA for which public money has not provision f been provided by the State budget 30%, “We or authorised to be charged on the Consolidated Fund.
Also, Section (2) states that the Minister shall require the head of the budgetary or sub-vented agency to submit an action plan.
Nevertheless, the budgeting process the Auditor General said has remained quite in line with the rules and regulations stipulated by the PFMA of 2016 and the PFMR of 2018. The major challenge has been the delay in the allocation of resources to the MDA’s.
This undermines the effective and efficient performance of the MDAs that do not receive the budgeted resources needed to carry out their activities as planned. For the year under review, we also noted some challenges with disclosing budget information in the General Purpose Financial Statements. Some records pertaining to the budget proposals for some MDAS were also not submitted for review” the Auditor General said.
