By Tony Yayo
The Mayor of Freetown City Council, Yvonne Aki Sawyer has debunked some financial statistics given by the Minister of Finance, Jacob Jusu Saffa, that the government disbursed up to twenty one billion Leone in 2019 to the FCC administration.
According to the latest one year report of the transform Freetown project, the FCC received a little over seven billion Leone less of the twenty one billion Leone that was supposed to be disbursed to the council as stated in the 2019 budget.
Mayor Yvonne Aki Sawyer continued that, out of the fourteen point one billion they received most of it was disbursed in accordance with instruction from the central government.
She continued that FCC raised its own-source revenue in 2019 of to the tune of twenty two point two billion Leone ( Le 22.2 billion), which was three hundred million (Le 300 million) more than they budgeted for.
Mayor Aki- Sawyer continued that the 2019 own-source revenue raised was twenty eight percent( 28%) more than 2018 own-source revenue due to the positive impact of the transform Freetown project which also focus on revenue mobilization.
According to the Mayor report, from the fourteen point one billion received from the GOSL, two point three percent was spent on administrative work, while another seven point eight percent was spent on four major hospitals in Freetown, namely, Rokupa, King Harman, Macauley and Lumley hospitals.
Another 0.9 was spent on education and 0.8 on waste management. FCC through the government also spent 0.5 on library and 0.4 on social services.
The rest of the government funding was spent on other administrative issues.
She further disclosed that the FCC in actual facts needed up to forty three point eight billion to successfully implement its programs but was only able to get around thirty six billion both from their own source and the government.
Meanwhile, some Civil Society Activist is now calling on the Ministry of Finance to make clarifications on the discrepancy.