The World Bank and US State Department have applauded reforms at NRA and the NPPA over the last nineteen (19) months despite President Bio’s government introduction of the Finance Act of 2020 and its controversial passage in Parliament.
The passage of the law in Parliament and also subsequently sending it back to the House by the President without his concurrence due to the hue and cry over a clause on the non-accountable imprest for the President and Vice President, had also provided in section 40 (3) Subsections (1)( (2)of the 2020 Finance Act that the ‘’President may grant approval for the use of soul source in respect of the procurement of sensitive security–related goods, works and services for use by the President and Vice President on a case by case basis’’.
The section had amended section 46 of the Public Procurement Act to Act No. 1 of 2016.
The 2020 Finance Act has also amongst many other clauses in the proposed ACT, limited the functions of the NPPA to conduct end to end reviews from which it raised over USD 70 million dollars for government.
The NPPA as a result of its end to end reviews on procurement contracts had saved over eight billion Leones and a little over 1 billion Leones on the procurement of text books and school buses for the Free Quality Education flagship project of the government.
Many Sierra Leoneans who have been following the President Bio’s commitment to fiscal discipline and curbing leakages were surprised that this very government will sanction such a law.
The NPPA has remained one of the success stories in Bio’s government.
This was demonstrated quite recently by the commendations received from the World Bank Group who visited the country in July 2019 to assess this country’s Financial Improvement and Sustainability Program.
The Group had expressed their commendations for the reforms at both NRA and the NPPA as a result of the introduction of a number of reforms and software in the transparent management of the country’s financial sector.
They rated the country at the end of their visit from moderately Satisfactory to Satisfactory in terms of pushing through the financial improvement and sustainability program.
Sierra Leone was also rated quite recently by the US State Department for ensuring for the first time that all documents relating to contracts and other financial documents within the public sector are transparent and easily accessible to donors and other interested parties, thereby hugely promoting transparency and accountability, a fundamental factor in public financial management.
All of the commendations are coming at a time when the NRA and NPPA have made frantic efforts to support the President’s vision and how comes that the very President would undermine the success of the institutions by allowing certain Ministries within his Government to pass laws that strangulate these institutions ?
‘’You cannot commit yourself to fight leakages while you continue to make laws that incapacitate the institutions that are charged with the responsibility of fighting such leakages,’’ a Government Minister on grounds of anonymity told this medium.
The commitment of huge funds by the World Bank to support the NPPA’s E-PROCUREEMNT platform is a justification that they are pleased with the Authority’s level of determination to sanitize Sierra Leone’s public procurement sector which accounts for over 70% of the country’s GDP, and that any government serious about fighting leakages has to ensure that it provides a very strong political will to the sector.