By Ragan M. Conteh
The Transparency and Accountability Committee in Parliament, chaired by Hon Dickson Rogers, have exposed the fraudulent deals of District Coronavirus Emergency Response Centres (DICOVERC) across the country.
The Committee observed key activities of the operations of these institutions, which are created to help fight against COVID-19 in the country. They are to be transparent and accountable during their operations.
The Committee however noted, with great concern, how these coordinators haphazardly presented documents to the Committee without proper justification of how monies, from donor and government, have been expended by these institutions.
MPs in the Committee also expressed frustration over the manner in which monies and resources were expended by these district centers and urged them to submit all supporting documents to substantiate their claims, to the Committee, in the next adjourned date.
The Chairman of TAC, Hon Dickson Rogers, during the grilling, stated that it is charged with the mandate to summon and investigate any ministry, department and agency with regards funding disbursed by donor and Government for development purposes.
Hon Dixon Rogers expressed the determination of his committee to oversee and investigate all developmental projects relating to transparency and accountability in the country as embedded in the 1991 Constitution.
“We will leave no stone unturned to ensure development reaches the people of this country and monies or services bestowed upon you are accounted for,” TAC Chairman said.
It could be recalled that the 2019 Sierra Leone COVID-19 Audit Report uncovers “massive” corruption in the management and utilization of funds by the National Coronavirus Emergency Response Centre (NaCOVERC) and other Government ministries, departments and agencies.
The report highlighted failure by the Strategic Leadership Team, at NaCOVERC, to develop a cohesive strategy to guide the overall national response to the pandemic, which could have contributed to more infections and possible loss of lives.
The auditors established that, during the height of the outbreak in Sierra Leone, (that is, from April to August 2020), there was no well-developed and focused strategy to guide the national response to the pandemic.
It says decisions relating to threat assessment, resource mobilization, recruitment and training of skilled personnel, management of quarantined facilities, and identification of primary and secondary contacts and caring for infected persons and their families could have been made on ad-hoc and subjective basis.
The auditors blamed this sorry state of affairs on the Strategic Leadership Team, who were paid allowances in excess of billions of Leones, but could not develop a very important document in time.