1 Comment
Sierra Leone’s Deputy Speaker of Parliament, who doubles as the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Hon Ibrahim Tawa Conteh, has cautioned the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to stop responding to the Anti-Corruption Commission’s (ACC) queries or summons concerning the Auditor General’s Report.
Hon. Tawa Conteh stated that the ACC has no mandate to look into the Auditor General’s Report because it belonged to the House of Parliament.
Hon Tawa Conteh made this disclosure on Thursday 27th June, 2024 when House of Parliament, when the Guma Valley Water Company was updating the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament, about its activities over the years. He categorically made it clear that It is Parliament that has the constitutional right to probe into the report.
Ing. Price Moare Sourie, Deputy Manager at Guma Valley Water Company, published the names of MDAs that owed the government of Sierra Leone twenty-seven Billion Leones (Le27,000,000,000).
Ing. Sourie listed the names of MDAs, which included the Ministry of Defence (MOD), Ministry of Information and Civic Education (MoICE), Bank of Sierra Leone, stating that they have not been paying water bills to Guma Valley Water Company.
In his response, Hon. Tawa Conteh ordered the Managing Director of Guma Valley, Ing. Moore Sourie to start installing prepaid meters at the various MDAS, with the exclusion of Ola During Children’s Hospital and other government hospitals.
it was also discovered that National Fire Force (NFF) owed the company millions of Leones.
The Auditor General’s Report revealed that there were poor store conditions by the company’s store keepers both in the east and wes party of Freetown and Mile 38.
I am not sure if I understand this. Rules are rules and people need to abide by the rules, but no MDA is responding to the ACC out of the goodness of their heart. If ACC is looking into MDAs regarding the Auditor General’s Report, I don’t understand why the Speaker would issue a warning to the MDAs. He should be on the same side as the ACC, so what is his issue? While Parliament can obviously have the law act against any impropriety, usually, if they see something wrong, they just publicize it instead of taking action against wrong doers, so why is there an issue with the ACC talking to MDAs if the ACC sees wrong doing in the report that it needs to address?