The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chaired by the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Hon. Segepoh Solomon Thomas has informed representatives of Ministries, Departments and Agencies in Committee Room 1 on Wednesday January 13, 2021 that, it could not proceed with its scheduled public hearings with MDAs relating to the COVID-19 Audit due to the absence of the Auditor General herself.
Whilst tendering his profuse apologies for not proceeding with yesterday’s hearings, he said the Auditor General had already been summoned by the PAC to attend its sittings relating to special and annual audits and that they would neither allow the Deputy Auditor General nor Assistant Auditors to sit on her behalf. He said the PAC had resolved to get her seated on its proceedings to thrash out serious issues and conclusions raised in the COVID-19 and the Auditor General’s Report on the accounts of Sierra Leone for 2019.
Addressing MDAs present, the Chairman of PAC, Hon. Segepoh Solomon Thomas said “that the PAC is established by law. The duty of the Public Accounts Committee is to look at primarily reports submitted to Parliament by the Auditor General. And by reports I mean annual report as well as special report. When once these reports are submitted to Parliament, they are submitted to Parliament through the Public Accounts Committee and it behooves the Public Accounts Committee to table these reports on the table of the Plenary of Parliament. It now becomes our duty as a Committee of Parliament to look at the conclusions for the issues raised in any of the report brought by the Auditor General to Parliament. And that is all the more reason why we have invited you all here today. You have been invited as a result of the NaCOVERC Report that has already been submitted to Parliament. That Report had been tabled in Parliament and the conclusions of that Report are nothing to write home about. There are very serious issues in the Report and as a Committee; we do not intend to treat the conclusions lightly,” he concluded.
Honourable Segepoh said that since the report had been tabled in Parliament, so many things have happened. “We have witnessed several press conferences by the Anti-Corruption Commission and of course the Auditor General’s Office relating particularly to the NaCOVERC Report and of course the 2019 Report. We are concerned as a Committee and we have decided that we will treat issues or matters relating to the conclusions of those Reports very very seriously this year. Of course, for those who appeared before me last year, I sounded several notes of caution relating to reports that would come before this Committee after the 2018 Auditor General’s Report,” he emphasized.
He said that he told auditees last year that the Committee would treat conclusions from any report brought to Parliament by the Auditor General very very seriously. “That is the kind of seriousness we intend to attach to the NaCOVERC report, and of course subsequently to the 2019 report,” he said. He apologized generously for not proceeding yesterday. We don’t want her Deputies to sit with us; we don’t want Assistant Auditors’ General to sit with us. We want the Auditor General herself to be here,” he emphasized. Addressing MDAs, he encouraged them to exercise patience in order for them to have an opportunity to give an explanation on the conclusions, of the Auditor General’s Report in the very presence of the Auditor General.
14/01/2021. ISSUE NO:7980