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By Thomas Dixon
The recent Auditor General Report has exposed that over 3.6 Billion have not been accounted for by the National Minerals Agency (NMA) and the Ministry of Mines.
“We reviewed the documentary analysis submitted by the Mining Cadastre at headquarters, and noted that a deduction of 0.75% from the 3% generated from Precious Mineral Trading, in respect of the Mining Community Development Fund amounted to Le3,671,342,355.06,” the report revealed
The Auditors explained that from discussions with the Directorate of Precious Mineral, they (the Auditors) were informed that the above amount was meant for mining communities.
The Auditors revealed that they observed that this amount was not transferred to the mining communities.
“We recommended that the DG and Finance Director, should ensure that the sum of Le3,671,342,355.06 is transferred to the beneficiary communities and evidence of transfer forwarded to the Audit Service Sierra Leone,” they noted.
According to NMA’s response, DACDF represents one-quarter of the 3% export tax levied on the value of artisanal diamonds exported from the country and the allocation of this 0.75% of total artisanal diamond export value depends on the proportion of artisanal diamond mining licenses a chiefdom has hosted out of the national total.
They furthered that the Directorate of Precious Minerals Trading (DPMT) deposits 0.75% of the export value of artisanal diamonds to a designated NMA bank account, from where it is subsequently transferred monthly by the NMA Directorate of Finance and Administration into a (Joint) MMMR/MLGRD DACDF bank account.
That NMA has consistently made transfers to the DACDF MMMR account since January 2012 to April 2020 but it is the Ministry of Mines that does the disbursement and not the NMA.
That this was put on hold by the NMA Board on the 58th Board meeting as the NMA had not received any activity or monitoring reports to show how these monies have been spent or which specific community projects were undertaken for the past years.
“The undisbursed funds are in the NMA bank accounts and would be disbursed when the issue is resolved,” NMA noted.
The auditors were however not satisfied with the management’s response and therefore described the issue of over 3.6 Billion as “unresolved.”
