Health Ministry Fails To Account For Over Le3.9 B …For 60 Bank Statements Submitted

The Ministry of Health failed to account for the sum of SLE3,978,934.66 which is equivalent to over Le3.9 billion in Old Leones and US$198,228.44 after a review of 60 bank statements submitted by the Ministry for Audit purposes.
This was captured by the protector of the Sierra Leone public purse, Audit Service Sierra Leone (ASSL) in the recent audit report.
The report maintained that despite the initial request for documents through a letter sent to the Ministry and several follow ups made, bank statements in respect of 91 bank accounts were not submitted for audit inspection by the Ministry.
“As such, we cannot ascertain whether appropriate procedures were followed in the management of the income and expenditures in respect of these accounts. We recommended that the bank statements are immediately submitted for audit inspection,” ASSL stated.
In their response, the Ministry stated that they tried to reach 31 account holders of which they received responses from five offices, adding that they reached out to the Accountant General, to provide bank statements for the queried accounts for which they are still awaiting responses.
The Audit noted that bank statements for 60 of the 91 bank accounts were submitted leaving the balance of 31 accounts for which bank statements were not submitted.
“In spite of several requests, payment vouchers and supporting documents were not submitted for the amounts withdrawn. The issue remains unresolved,” the Audit stated.