By- Aruna Rashed Toma Bangura
The Auditor General’s Report for the Financial Year 2021 has exposed the Sierra Leone Port Authority for payments which were done by the SLPA with inadequate supporting documents such as payment vouchers, receipts, invoices, delivery notes, beneficiary list.
The report disclosed that the Sierra Leone Port Authority made payment totaling NLe 310,245,000 with insufficient supporting documents.
The report also disclosed that the Authority made payment of NLe 384,000,000 as their corporate social responsibility (CSR) to certain individuals and organizations but the audit team did not understand the basis for which those payments were made as these payments did not fall within the normal operations of the Authority.
The report stated that documents to support samples of CSR payments were not submitted to the auditors for inspection.
According to the report from a total of Le310, 245,000, sufficient supporting document were submitted and verified for the sum of Le245,245,000 (79%), leaving an outstanding of Le65,000,000, adding that an outstanding of Le 80,000,000 was not verified as supporting document as payment for corporate social responsibility.