Procurement scandal hits Mr. Klin Cleaning Services; a company specialized in rendering cleaning services to clients in Sierra Leone.
The scandal revolves around beach and seaweed cleaning contracts of Le 192M and Le180M respectively awarded to the company by the National Tourist Board of Sierra Leone. The former had a time frame of a year while the later had three months. Both were meant to sanitise Lumely Beach, west of Freetown being one of the famous in the country.
The current audit report is quite critical of the two contracts saying due procedures have not been followed. The report cited a key provision of the procurement law, section 39 of the National Public Procurement Act, 2016 which, it says, has been flouted. The report also indicated that the company started the cleaning exercise before the two contracts were signed.
The section stipulates that, a national competitive bidding (NCB) shall be used when the estimated value of the procurement is below Le 600 million in the case of contracts for the procurement of services.
National Tourist Board (NTB) accepts the Auditor General’s findings which it describes “legitimate.” The NTB said they encouraged the company to undertake the cleaning exercise prior to the allocation of the resources.
The board admitted that the irregularities had occurred owing to untimely budgetary allocation.