The Auditor-General’s Report for 2017 has noted that massive transfer or absence of key council personnel during the entire audit process was responsible for negatively failing to meet the legislative deadline of 31st March, 2018.
Out of 19 councils, 14 submitted their reports for audit after the deadline.
Two of the councils: Bo and Pujehun Districts submitted their reports after 12 days delay while the most delayed report was from the Koidu New-Sembehun City Council after 74 days.
The Auditors noted that many of their recommendations had been reported in the past and ought not to have been repeated.
Significant matters identified in the audit examinations across local councils fall into the following categories:
• Material deviation from the legislative framework for the submission and audit of financial statements ;
• In-effective implementation of outstanding audit recommendations ;
• Unsatisfactory budgetary performance; and
• Councils opinion and a comparative analysis on their performance.
They noted however that in as much as the above issues are common across different councils, there is no doubt that some are better than the others.
The councils’ budgetary performance in the mobilization of own-source revenue in 2017 was poor.
Comparative analysis between the budgeted and actual own source revenue generated showed that the actual revenue was less than the budgeted amounts by approximately 42% (Le 16.7 billion).
This means that the Councils were only able to collect 58% (Le 23.5 billion) of the own-source revenue that they budgeted to collect in 2017.
Similarly there was 3% drop in own-source revenue generation in 2017 when compared to 2016.
It was however observed that even though there was an overall drop in revenue generation, 11 councils increased their performance in revenue mobilization drive in 2017 compared to 2016.
The poor performance in revenue mobilization could have been attributed to over–ambitious budgeting emanating from the use of unrealistic basis of budgeting or it could be that controls were not in place for the proper collection, banking and accounting of revenue.
The Auditor–General noted that in spite of recommendations in her previous reports, the Councils continued to pay sitting fees and allowances to Councilors without guidelines that were reported for at least five years in a row.
Section 30/20 of the Local Government Act 2004 requires that the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development in consultation with the Ministry of Finance issue guidelines to Councils with regard to the payment of any allowance or remuneration.
To date, the Report noted, no such guidelines had been issued.
In a similar vein during the year to 31st December, Le1.5 billion was paid as sitting fees and other allowances to Councilors who were absent from meetings and Le 588 million was paid for which there was no evidence of meetings such as signed minutes and attendance register to which the payments relate.