The Ministry of Technical and Higher Education (MTHE) is reportedly owing public universities a whooping sum of (Le92, 000,000) million old Leones Sierra Leone Grant in Aid.

This was disclosed by MTHE’s representative during a parliamentary committee sitting on Wednesday 22n May 2024.

The sitting was held at the House of Parliament New Administrative Building at Tower Hill, in Freetown.

The MTHE’s representative had refused to disclose his name for reason best known to him.

The names of the universities include The University of Sierra Leone (USL) which comprises Fourah Bay College (FBC), The Institute of Public Administration and Management (IPAM), and The College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences (COMAHS), Njala University, Ernest Bai Koroma University (EBK), Milton Margai Technical University (MMTU), The Eastern Technical University and Freetown Polytechnic.

He said the said amount was owed from 2015 -2022.

Highlighting the amounts owed by individual universities The Ernest Bai Koroma University is owed 5.9 million new Leones; (MMTU) is owed NLe 7,000,000, and Freetown Polytechnic has to be paid 1.38 million Leones.

He added that the outstanding amount the Government of Sierra Leone owed these institutions is 129.1 million new Leones, that is, in respective of Sierra Leone Grant in Aid (SLG) since 2015-2022.

According to the payment plan, he said, he had requested from the Ministry of Finance (MoF) for them to know how much the aforementioned institutions equally owed the National Revenue Authority (NRA).

He said by the time they requested for the information from the said ministry and after NRA tax deductions the outstanding amount of SLG the government owed these institutions totals NLe92, 000,000.

And regarding the benefits, the ministry has paid (NLe20,000,000) twenty million Leones to those universities, he said.

MTHE’s representative said  49.4 million Leones has been  distributed proportionally to those institutions as severance benefits ( compensation benefits), adding what they did is that they have calculated what they owed these institutions.

He assured that the Ministry of Technical and Higher Education (MTHE) had submitted the records to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to fast-track the payments.

The committee’s chairman, Hon. Joseph William Lamin representing Bo District said that the committee will ensure that the funds are disbursed to the respective institutions.