Audit Report Exposes Deep-Seated Rot at Information Ministry

By Kelvin Jay

The Auditor-General’s Report of Sierra Leone has exposed serious irregularities at the Ministry of Information and Civic Education, raising concerns over payroll management and accountability.

According to the report, auditors observed that eight staff members listed on the Ministry’s payroll failed to present themselves for physical verification during the audit exercise. Despite their absence, a total sum of NLe 368,595.84 was paid to these individuals over the period under review.

As a result, the auditors recommended that the Director of Human Resources ensure that the affected staff avail themselves for physical verification. Failing this, the report advised that salaries already paid should be recovered and paid into the Consolidated Fund.

In its official response, the Ministry offered the following clarifications:

1. Two of the individuals, with pin codes 128090 and 139970, are duly reflected on the Ministry’s approved staff list and government payroll.
2. A third individual was confirmed to be a staff member of the Ministry of Communication, Technology and Innovation, and his inclusion on the payroll attributed to the Ministry of Information and Civic Education was described as an administrative error.
3. The remaining five individuals were acknowledged not to be staff of the Ministry. Management stated that steps had been initiated to formally communicate these anomalies to the Human Resource Management Office (HRMO) for prompt review and regularisation, to ensure alignment between the Ministry’s staff list and the government payroll. Reacting to the Ministry’s response, the Auditor-General stated that all three individuals mentioned in the management response were physically verified during the audit exercise.However, the audit team noted that no evidence of reconciliation between the staff list and the payroll was submitted for the remaining five individuals, whose annual gross salaries amount to NLe 130,932.00, to justify the payments made to them.

Consequently, the Auditor-General concluded that the issue remains unresolved, pending the submission of verifiable documentation and recovery of unaccounted public funds.