By Ragan M. Conteh

Pursuant to section 93 of the 1991 Constitution, the deputy Chairman of the Public Account Committee, Paramount Chief Desmond Hawayei has laid before Parliament findings and recommendations of Public Account Committee in the 2022 Auditor General’s Report.

Before laying the Report, PC Hawayei stated that during the course of their findings of the PAC in the 2022 Auditor General’s Report, they were able to recover whooping sums of Le23 million new leones.

He said the committee extensively looked at key issues of public interest, including the poor revenue collection or irregularities in revenue collection, procurement breaches and anomalies in payroll management.

According to the PC, the engagement with stakeholders has helped them to strengthen the accountable and oversight.

He said apart from the committee’s facilitation in the recovering of the said sum, it was able to also resolve 70.2 percent of public queries.

He therefore commended the Auditor General and her team, the Chairman of the committee, the membership, Ministry Department and Agencies and Local Councils for their cooperation to this drive.

Making a motion for the report to be debated, the opposition All People’s Congress (APC) Chief Whip, Hon. Abdul Karim Kamara said that members of the general public have been following the work of the committee and therefore need to know what is in the report and its recommendations.

He said the reason why he wants the report to be debated is because fingers have been pointed at MPs for being corrupt forgetting that the very thieves are in the Ministries Departments and Agencies, a reason he wants the people to know who the thieves are in the country.

Acting Speaker of Parliament, Hon Ibrahim Tawa Conteh urged the Kambia MP to do the needful by writing formally for the report to be debated.