How Contractors Are Defrauding The Government of Sierra Leone

Some contractors and suppliers have developed a new scheme through which they are defrauding the Government and People of Sierra Leone. After signing a supply contract with the Government, they make frivolous applications to the Ministry of Finance through NPPA for price adjustments.

During the bid process, some contractors and suppliers lower their bid prices to enable them win big Government supply contracts. After signing the contracts, they write to the Ministry of Finance through NPPA for price adjustments. This has been detected to be the new scheme that some contractors and suppliers use to dupe the Government of Sierra Leone.

Recently, some rice suppliers to the Army, Police, Prisons and Fire Force applied to the Ministry of Finance through NPPA for price adjustments, giving several flimsy and bogus reasons for their requests.

It is understood that the new Minister of Finance, Dennis Vandi is implacably opposed to any price adjustments in the middle of the implementation of a supply contract that has already been approved by the Law Officers Department and signed by the MDAs concerned on behalf of the Government of Sierra Leone.

Some concerned citizens have called on the uncompromising ACC Commissioner, Francis Ben Kaifala to immediately take action to forestall this criminal practice that has been developed by some contractors and suppliers to defraud the Government of Sierra Leone.

The ACC was set up primarily to protect the meagre resources of the state. The ACC Commissioner should therefore move very swiftly to halt this criminal practice, by investigating all applications for price adjustments that have been approved by NPPA through the Ministry of Finance.

A senior official at the ACC has promised to take firm action against business people who attempt to defraud the state through criminal means.

Meanwhile, it is understood that some prominent contractors and suppliers are putting undue pressure on both the NPPA Chief Executive and the Ministry of Finance to approve their applications for price adjustments for contracts that have already been signed and sealed.

Sources intimate that both the finance minister and the NPPA Chief Executive are not comfortable with a raft of applications they have been receiving for price adjustments.