On Wednesday, the Office of the Vice President addressed the Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) of the National Assembly, providing the committee with an update on resolutions that were still pending from September 29, 2022, and September 14, 2023.
All issues raised in the audit report and suggested for police inquiry have been sent to the Inspector General of Police, who is presently looking into them, according to Mr. Ousman Ceesay, Deputy Permanent Secretary at the Office of the Vice President.
According to Mr. Ceesay, “We only received one comprehensive report on the Covid-19 fund on NDMA, and the Ministry of Justice was consulted for legal advice on the matter.” The parliament is being informed on some of the other aspects of the audited accounts for central government answers, while others, such as the Account General, are reportedly closely collaborating with the parliament.
He pointed out that the Attorney General’s office had not yet provided input on a few audit-related issues.
We anticipated that following the presentation, we would be able to review some of the responses pertaining to those institutions and determine who was responsible for what and when.
Mr. Ceesay also updated the committee on the postponed answer to a list of government projects that the National Assembly had asked for. According to him, the Office of the Vice President has requested project listings from all government agencies but has not yet verified whether or not they have been submitted.
The necessity of thorough input was underlined by Committee Chair Hon. Alhagie S. Darboe, who also pointed out the lack of information from the police and other institutions.
“The police feedback we received is still unsatisfactory, even for those that are being investigated. By dissecting all developments around the resolution where steps are taken and not, you should be able to provide actions you have done against those institutions found deficient if you are required to submit a report,” he said.
In cases where no action has been taken, Hon. Darboe noted that a follow-up should have taken place two to three months later to evaluate the progress of those resolutions and make appropriate adjustments.
Hon. Kebba Lang Fofana, a member of the committee, emphasized that the Office of the Vice President ought to play a central role in offering input on every resolution issue.”The resolutions no longer emphasize what has been done and what has not. In order to triangulate it against any comments obtained from those individual institutions, we are expected to get the whole report, which will have acted as a baseline for this assembly. While the Office of the VP will focus on all of them as part of their monitoring, the different institutions will focus on the resolution points that impact their respective ministries, departments, or agencies,” he said.
Their issue, according to Mr. Ceesay, is to make sure that the National Assembly and pertinent institutions communicate effectively about decisions that call for collaboration. He pointed out that they want to create a clear framework since, although some of the resolutions the vice president gave at the plenary have been put into effect, there are still certain issues that require further attention, including the COVID-19 fund reports.
“It will be easier for us to take the ultimate responsibility to provide you with a full report if we have one line of reporting and are responsible for overall coordination,” he stated.
In closing, Mr. Ceesay asked that the meeting be rescheduled so that he could collect enough data and provide the committee a more thorough report.
