By Ragan M. Conteh

The Public Account Committee in Parliament which is headed up by the Deputy Speaker has ordered for salaries of Finance Ministry to be reduced.

Hon. Tawa is Chairman of the Public Account Committee (PAC) and he requested for the money to be removed from staff salaries within a six month period.

He said this group of staff clandestinely increased their salaries, a situation which informed his decision to deflate the staff payroll.

The Deputy Speaker described the action of the ministry as a “treasonable offence’.

He said to increase their salaries and other allowances without parliamentary approval amounts to a big crime.

Hon. Tawa made the request on Monday 10th June, 2024 at the New Administrative Building in the House of Parliament while probing the 2022 Audit Report.

He further said the payment should be done into the state Consolidated Fund, promising that he is going to monitor the payment process at the Accountant General’s Department every month to ensure that they refund the sum of money.

The Deputy Auditor General, Morie Lansana, observed that the actual expenditure exceeded the budgeted expenditures and the aggregate was negative.

Mr Lansana disclosed that the budget for staff cost and other benefits during the period under review was NLe105,256,990 and was indicated on payment vouchers.

Lansana said this had resulted to budget overrun of about NLe9,755,579.

He said the amount budgeted for recurrent and capital expenditure under that period was Nle65,566,956.

Morie said recommendations were made to the Deputy Financial Secretary of administration to ensure a justification for budget overrun.

He said the Ministry of Finance (MOF), did not prepare a realistic budget, taking into consideration all the activities of the different divisions.

The Deputy Director of Budget at the aforesaid, Ministry Tiaga Sesay, said it was the transfer of staff within the same ministry that led to budget overrun and also argued that MOF should submit documents requested by the Audit Service Sierra Leone team for audit.

It was revealed that the ministry despite the staff’ salaries were increased but never recruited and promoted any workers.

The staff had said promotion was done by Human Resources Management Office (HRMO).

He affirmed that the ministry claimed they submitted certain documents to the audit team.

But he said there was no document to corroborate such claim.