The Sierra Leone Parliament established Audit Service Sierra Leone (ASSL) to work as the country’s supreme audit institution for the promotion of accountability across the state institutions that handle the finances of the people in a bid to ensure good governance.
But it seems the tenets of transparency and accountability for which that institution was established could not hold as the catchphrase and mandatory norms in the country’s governance system. And it would come a great speed of shock if members of the very Parliament that created the audit service institution are proved to be complicit in undermining, shattering and battering the strides toward a transparent and accountable society.
As it stands, an ugly phenomenon is unfolding in modern Sierra Leone. In 2021, two outstanding auditors, Madam Lara Taylor-Pearce and Mr. Tamba Momoh, despite being highly respected in Sierra Leone and beyond for their official probity and the uprightness in serving the state, were suspended by the President for alleged professional misconduct or the lack thereof.
The duo was famous for demonstrating astute sense of responsibility in their work. They had always published hard-hitting annual audit reports on how the country’s finances were accumulated and expended by its handlers under the erstwhile APC government of Ernest Bai Koroma.
Therefore, tongues were left wagging, especially, as the action of the President came at a time when the “great’ auditors had completed the time-consuming work of auditing public institutions, and were about to present the 2020 Annual Audit Report to the public. Not just that but the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice was instructed to set up a Tribunal to examine their official conduct and ascertain whether they acted professionally or not. This whole occurrence met wider condemnations from all fronts, including local legal minds and international organisations, for its lack of conformity with the provisions of the 1991 Constitution and international best practices, but the Attorney General and Minister of Justice went ahead to establish the Tribunal.
The Tribunal subsequently recommended, among other things, for the indefinite suspension to turn to the final removal of the two auditors from office. At the close of last week’s working days, however, Members of Parliament endorsed the Tribunal’s prayer, voting a two-thirds majority for their final sacking.
Lara Taylor-Pearce and Tamba Momoh faced an accusation of breach of confidentiality and professional misconduct, for during the course of auditing the Office of the President, they did not just pick up the fakery of receipts submitted but activities deemed as double-dipping and those related to money laundry. Therefore, to ascertain whether or not the receipts submitted for auditing were authentic, the auditors contacted managements of hotels in the diaspora without the approval of the President’s office, a common practice said to be falling within the confines of international standards for auditors.
To defend her reputation, Lara had cause to instruct her solicitors to file papers in the Supreme Court, praying for the interpretation of Sections 137(4), 137(5), and 137(6) of the 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone. The solicitors sought to establish whether by law the Judicial and Legal Service Commission (JLSC) could recommend for a Plaintiff to be investigated without prior complaints from a third party, stressing that the Tribunal was not properly constituted, and its panel members were by law not qualified because at no point in time had they served as substantive Justices of the Supreme Court.
Lara’s solicitors rebuked the JLSC for flouting the due process and principles of natural justice by not making known to their client the specific allegations against them, as they were also excluded in the investigation process. Moreover, amid several correspondences to the Chief Justice, the solicitors say the matter was not listed for hearing, calling it an unfair act to their client.
Meanwhile, after all the good, bad and ugly circumstances surrounding the suspension of the two auditors, 100 members of Parliament have given the Tribunal’s recommendation a clean bill of health with 36 voting against their removal from office.
What reportedly leaves honest Sierra Leoneans reeling in shock is the 18 votes that came from the Opposition APC’s parliamentary membership, giving the rulling SLPP’s side the two-thirds majority required by law to remove the auditors.
The irony, according to pundits, is that the Bio government that has now seen Lara and Momoh as demons used their works as the source of information and reason to build up the Transition Team Report, and the basis for setting up the Commission of Inquiry. Further in 2019, Bio’s government asked the Lara-led ASSL to conduct technical audit in selected public institutions from 2015 to 2018, and the outcome was shocking revelations that left the public to believe that the former APC Government siphoned billions of leones.
When the news broke out that Parliament was to vote on the auditors” fate, Lara Taylor-Pearce’s deputy, Tamba Momoh, posted on social media a day before, “So, after over 3yrs of suspension from office, the People of Sierra Leone through their representatives in Parliament, will vote tomorrow Friday 20th December 2024, on the government’s motion to remove the Auditor General, because auditors (including myself) under her watch discovered fraud in the office of the President and reported the same. Merry Christmas to the land that we love.”
Many Sierra Leoneans spoken to say they are disappointed in their legislative representatives for voting the removal of Lara and Tamba, noting that what has taken place could be recorded as not just a war against transparency and accountability but a bad precedence in a country where corruption takes toll on its development agendas and ambition.
Lara had earlier raised serious concerns about the Tribunal’s findings, expressing shock and disappointment at the Tribunal’s conclusions and handling of the evidence, denying any wrongdoing in her course of duty, while arguing that the audit in the office of the president was a compliance one, not the others, and that the third-party confirmations referenced by the Tribunal were misapplied.
Stating among many other things that the third-party authentication requests were handled in accordance with professional standards with no breach of confidentiality committed, Lara questioned the overall conclusions of the Tribunal as no direct evidence of her wrongdoing or misconduct was presented during the hearings.
Mr. Tamba Momoh had also denied any official wrongdoing, as the Institute of Chartered Accountant of Sierra Leone (ICASL) also rebuffed the Tribunal’s Report after the outcome of an investigation committee it set up to review the findings of the same Tribunal to unveil whether there were any breaches of professional and ethical standards or if their actions were in tandem with the ICASL Code of Ethics, International Standards on Auditing (ISA), International Standards of Supreme Audit Institutions (ISSAI), the Constitution of Sierra Leone, and the Audit Service Act 2014.
ICASL said after an extensive review of the Tribunal Report, it came clear that the auditors acted in the best interest of the public, upheld professional standards and adhered to international auditing standards and guidelines.
Before the paper went to bed at the weekend, Mrs. Lara Taylor-Pearce had not made any public comment over the parliamentary endorsement for their final removal from office.
However, Leader of the Parliamentary Caucus of the opposition All Peoples Congress (APC), Hon. Abdul Kargbo, may have been disappointed, and could be devastated by the betrayal of his led members in Parliament.
The other day in the past months, Hon Abdul Kargbo, made the public to know the position of the APC Caucus in Parliament upon the release of the Tribunal Report.
He said that having noted the provisions of the Constitution of Sierra Leone and other related legislations, submissions made by international professional bodies, members of the public, and the two auditors amid much deliberations, coupled with wider consultations with both local and international stakeholders, the Auditor General and her deputy were strictly guided by the International Standards on Auditing [ISA] 240 or its public sector equivalent, the International Standards of Supreme Audit Institutions (ISSAI) 2240, which states that “an auditor is usually not trained or expected to be an expert in the authentication of documents, however, when an auditor identifies conditions that cause the auditor to believe that a document may not be authentic or that terms in a document have been modified but not disclosed to the auditor, possible procedures to investigate further includes confirming directly with the third party.”
Hon Kargbo said the allegation for which the Auditor General was investigated relates to third party confirmation of the authenticity of documents, which is clearly separate and distinct from third party confirmation of account balances such as bank, creditor, debtors account balances.
He said as opposition they believe that if what he refered to as “unprecedented” removal of the Auditor General attracts the two-thirds majority in Parliament, it will significantly affect the conduct of credible and independent audit and other accountability processes in Sierra Leone.