Sierra Leone has failed to properly account for almost a third of the money allocated to fight Ebola, national auditors have found.
These undocumented losses may have slowed the country’s emergency
response to the Ebola outbreak and may have led to unnecessary loss of
life, the authors of a detailed report on the crisis said.
The report, released late last week, found “inadequate controls” over
the disbursement of funds, hazard payments being made to hospitals with
no proof the money was actually going to the health workers on the
frontline and in some cases a “complete disregard for the law” in
procurement.
The government promised a full investigation into the damning report promising anyone who misused the Ebola funds would be prosecuted.
“The government wishes to make it abundantly clear that those who are
found guilty of misusing Ebola funds will face the full force of the
law,” it said on Monday.
It said it takes the matter seriously and that the president “will ensure proper accountability for the use of these funds.”
The report by Sierra Leone’s auditor general looked at 84 billion
leones (£12m) the government set aside for fighting the virus from the start of the outbreak
last May until October 2014. The money came primarily from institutions
and individuals donating from mostly within Sierra Leone, and from tax
revenue.
It did not include money donated by the UN, international government aid or assistance from NGOs.
The funds examined were mostly used for personal protective
equipment, medical supplies, ambulances, hearses, motorbikes, medical
supplies, and bonus payments to healthcare workers, the report said.
It found that more than Le 14bn from the government’s emergency
health response account had no supporting documents to substantiate how
the money was spent.
A further Le 11bn spent from the same account were missing their corresponding receipts and invoices.
“It is clear from our audit that there continue to be lapses in the
financial management system in Sierra Leone,” the report said.
“Monies that have been set aside for the purpose of combating the
Ebola outbreak may have been used for unintended purposes, thereby
slowing the government’s response to eradicate the virus,” it added.
The revelations are a blow to the country which at the weekend
imposed a lockdown in a fishing district of Freetown because of a new
suspected outbreak of the virus.
Despite a drop in cases, Ebola transmission in Sierra Leone remains widespread, with 81 new cases documented in the week to 14 February.
Hopes that the country was beating the virus rose last week when the daily numbers of new cases dropped to just three,
the lowest since last May when the virus first spread from Guinea. But
on Saturday the daily numbers were back up to double figures at 15.
In the 84 page report, auditors found a “complete disregard for the
law on public procurement” in relation to the purchase of ambulances and
the construction of a new Ebola hospital to the north of the capital.
It said the ministry of health and sanitation failed to produce any
documentation for contract agreements that amounted to Le 17bn, which
includes Le 12.7bn for the purchase of 50 vehicles and ambulances and Le
2.7bn for the construction of the Port Loko Treatment Centre.
Among the expenses it investigated were duplicate payments to
security and army personnel at the Connaught Hospital where the British
nurse Will Pooley and doctor Oliver Johnson worked.
The Connaught was at the forefront of the battle last summer with
patients queueing up at the gates seeking treatment and desperate
relatives abandoning corpses at the gates.
A spot review found that army and police personnel were included on a
list of workers to receive hazard money “even though funds had been
transferred to both forces to meet the deployment of their officers”.
In the town of Makeni, where workers in one hospital went on strike
because they had not received hazard payments, there were concerns that
some money has been diverted to to non existent ghost workers.
Claim sheets for Le 571m had been submitted by the local government,
but the numbers to be paid had been “overstated” by 271, amounting to
false claims for just under half the payments. This posed a “risk of
possible misappropriation of funds” and auditors recommended the matter
be referred to the appropriate authority.
One member of parliament was singled out in the report, after it
found payments were made to him to carry out sensitisation programmes
even though an amount had earlier been paid to all seating MPs.
The head of the Health For All Coalition has also been asked to
explain himself after cheques were made out to him personally instead of
his organisation. The ministry of health has since disputed the amount
of money allocated to the Coalition and promised to hand over “all
documentary evidence” to the auditors, who said this case was of the
“utmost concern”.
The report covered the period before the ministry of defence was put in charge of the Ebola response last October.
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