By Josephine W. Lagawo
In the 2022 Auditor General Report, the auditors said that while auditing the Ministry of Gender and Children Affairs they found out that the sum of Le 23, 940,000 was paid for eighteen months period to a ghost worker.
That there was no evidence that the request for the removal of the late Kadiatu Samai from the payroll was made.
According to the auditors, they recommended that the senior permanent Secretary in the Ministry should inform the Director General of Human Resource Management Office (HRMO) and the Accountant General on the death of the late woman and that her name should be removed from the payroll and for which evidence of the communication should be submitted to ESSL
Mohamed Mustapha of Audit Service Sierra Leone pointed out that the human resource management Office was officially informed of the death of Late Kadiatu Samai , the death benefit was prepared and sent to HRMO for processing and payment.
That the copy of which was sent to the Director General of HRMO is available for inspection, informing him of the death of Kadijatu Samai on June 11th 2021 and was submitted and verified.
That despite that, salaries were still paid into the account of deceased staff on December 2022.
Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Gender and Children Affairs told the committee that there was memorandum dated June 11th 2021 reporting the death of Mrs. Kadiatu Samai.
Mohamed Mustapha from Audit Service said they are not querying the memorandum what the auditors are querying is the running salary of the deceased salary.
The Permanent Secretary said that it is the HRMO and the Accountant General department that are responsible because their work is to report the death of any staff.
The Deputy Chairman, Hon PC Kargobai Desmond Mahayei said they will have to report to HRMO and Accountant General Department to do follow up on the issue.
