By Musa Paul Feika
On Wednesday, 22nd May 2024 during a committee sitting at the New Administrative Building in the House of Parliament, a representative from the Ministry of Technical and Higher Education (MTHE), whose refused to disclose his name for a reason best known to him, said the Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL) has owed eight institutions of higher learning a whopping NLe92,000 (Le92 million old leones) in redemptive Sierra Leone Grant Aid covering between 2015 and 2022.
The universities are: The four schools belonging to the University of Sierra Leone (USL) system comprising Fourah Bay College (FBC), Institute of Public Administration and Management (IPAM), College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences (COMAHS), and Njala University, the Ernest Bai Koroma University (EBK), Milton Margai Technical University (MMTU), Eastern University, and Freetown Polytechnic.
He said the said the government continued owing the schools from 2015 to 2022.
Making a listing of the amounts the government owes and is supposed to pay each school as part of the Sierra Leone Grant Aid (SLG) scheme, the unidentified civil servant that called himself a representative revealed that the Ernest Bai Koroma (EBK) University is owed NLe5.9 million, MMTU – NLe7 million, and Freetown Polytechnic – NLe1.38 million.
He added that the outstanding amount the government of Sierra Leone owes these institutions is NLe129.1 million in respect of the Sierra Leone Grant Aid (SLG) scheme covering 2015 to 2022.
Working with the payment plan, he said they asked the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to disclose how much the aforementioned institutions owed the National Revenue Authority (NRA).
He said by the time they requested for the information from the said ministry and after NRA deductions, the outstanding amount of SLG the government ended up owing these institutions is NLe92 million.
He said regarding the severance benefits, the ministry has paid NLe20 million to the universities.
The MTHE representative said they have paid NLe49.4 million that they have distributed proportionally to the institutions involved as severance benefits, adding that what they did was to calculate proportionally what the ministry owed the institutions.
He assured that the Ministry of Technical and Higher Education (MTHE) has submitted the records to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to fastrack the payments.
The committee’s chairman, Hon. Joseph William Lamin representing Bo District, asserted that the committee will ensure that the funds are disbursed to the institutions.