The following list provides additional details of individual rent allowances of a third selected sample of 20 political appointees spread across several government ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) all of whom were appointed by President Julius Maada Bio between June 2018 and December 2019.
The third sample list includes officials from the Public Service Commission (PSC), the Right to Access Information Commission (RAIC), Human Resources Management Office (HRMO), Ministry of Technical and Higher Education, the Office of the President, Chief Minister’s Office, and the Law Officers Department.
Africanist Press discovered that the rent allowances of the 20 selected officials in this third sample amount to a total Le1.19 billion; an amount that equals the combined monthly salaries of about 1000 senior secondary school teachers in Sierra Leone.
Africanist Press found that on average political appointees on this third list of the Africanist Press sample survey are each receiving individual rent allowances ranging from Le29,174,328 to Le40,841,150 and Le88,560,000 respectively.
Similar to judges and State House consultants, Africanist Press also found that withholding taxes amounting to nearly Le120 million were also not deducted from the rent allowances paid to this third set of political appointees in 2019 and in subsequent years.
Thus, when combined with judges, State House consultants, and other political appointees, Africanist Press discovered that in 2019 alone a total of Le1,272,078,710 in withholding taxes were never deducted from the rent allowances paid to these selected political appointees (judges, consultants and heads of MDAs) despite the exorbitant allowances specially designed for these officials. Approximately, we discovered that a total of about Le5,088,314,840 in withholding taxes from rent allowances paid to these official between FY2018 and FY2021 were deliberately not deducted from the payments; resulting in a major loss of revenues to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF).
Therefore, we note that recent wage bill increases are not due to the reported enrollments of new teachers and nurses on the public payroll. Finance records on rent allowances and salaries we examined; show categorically that expenditures relating to the salaries and other financial benefits of political appointees alone now accounts for over 60% of the increase in the wage bill under the Bio regime.
Most importantly, we found that political appointees are mostly placed and promoted to higher Grade positions where they earn monthly salaries and rent allowances that are, in most cases, between 70% and 100% of the total combined annual salaries of their counterparts with similar or higher qualifications in the civil/public service.
We provide below details of the selected officials and their individual rent allowances to illustrate the evidence upon which this report is based.
CREDIT: www.africanistpress.com
