Petroleum Directorate’s Senior Staff Withdrew Over Le800 Million as Per Diem in 2018

Transaction details from bank records of the Petroleum Directorate for fiscal year 2018 shows that newly appointed senior staff of the agency withdrew a total of Le869,159,185.83 as travel per diem alone, between 7th June 2018 and 7th December 2018; during the first six months of the Maada Bio regime.

The transaction were mostly processed in the name of the agency’s newly appointed Director General then, Timothy Kabba, and the head of finance, Zainu Deen Karim. We noted 10 specific transactions carried out between June 2018 and December 2018, most of which averaged almost Le100 million per transaction with the highest being Le207,048,895.80 carried out on 29th October 2018 in the name of Timothy Kabba without a clearly stated purpose for which the said amount for per diem was withdrawn.

However, it is important to note that these 2018 per diem transactions do not include rent and leave allowances also transacted in 2018 which amounted to Le1,477,454,888.00. Put together, we discovered that rent and per diem allowances withdrawn by senior staff of the Petroleum Directorate amounted to Le2,346,614,073.83 within the first six months of the Bio regime in 2018 alone.

Again, this does not include similar transactions carried out in 2019 and 2020 respectively. We note that many of these transactions did not comply with the public finance laws of the country!