By Thomas Dixon
FREETOWN, Mar. 10 (SALONE TIMES) – The recent audit report has described Pavi Fort Construction Company as a non-credit Worthy Customer as it owes huge amount of money to various Banks in Sierra Leone.
The Audit Report made this statement when it was talking about credit facilities that was given to the construction company by state owned Sierra Leone Commercial Bank (SLCB).
“A loan of Le8.3 billion was issued to a customer (Pavi Fort). The customer was seriously indebted to the banking industry of Sierra Leone to the sum of Le40 billion from four other commercial banks,” Audit Report Revealed.
That the sum of Le3.7 billion had been written off according to review of the credit reference report obtained from the Bank of Sierra Leone and that the management of State-owned Sierra Leone Commercial Bank should ensure proper credit evaluation of potential borrowers, and lending funds should be allocated to prime (creditworthy) customers and must comply with provisions of the New Banking Act of 2019 and the prudential guidelines.
The Auditor in his report noted that there was neither a response from management, nor an action taken to implement the recommendation and as such, the issue remains unresolved.
It could be recalled that the issue of unsecured credit facilities from the state-owned Sierra Leone Commercial Bank (SLCB) was one of the issues dealt with by the Commission of Inquiry that was set up by the Government of President Julius Maada Bio.
