The thorough audit of Sierra Leone's Public Accounts for the 2023 fiscal year has uncovered huge financial irregularities involving over 233 million US dollars were uncovered in the recently released audit of the government.

The irregularities affected transactions of governmental ministries, agencies and state departments were spotted in 157 audits carried out across key sections of 63 Ministries and Departments, 67 Public Enterprises and Commissions, and 22 Local Councils.

Among others spotted irregularities include unpaid statutory deductions, Poor asset and store management, Mismanagement of expenses under the Inaccurate payroll and salary practices and differences in Procurement and contract management. Revenue collection problems were also discovered.

Ministries and Departments alone accounted for irregularities involving over 152 million USD while local councils reported discrepancies involving approximately 4.76 million USD. In addition, donor-funded projects and public enterprises contributed to financial mismanagement to a staggering USD 76.4 million. This audit report has since been submitted to the parliament.

The audit report revealed the following under-collections in revenue that amounted to NLe34,527,680.85: Revenue that has not been transferred from oil marketing and mining companies into the Consolidated Fund. A tax liability of NLe114,727,344 owed to government did not reflect in the records.

About US7,460,427 loss in government revenue due to contractual failure also came up. This include failure of royalties. to the state and exemption from taxes as per agreement without ratification. Irregularities in Expenditures amounted to NLe 18,129,006.37, and slightly above US$3 million lacked important supporting documents hence very little could be said about the authenticity of the amounts. Loans of NLe 200,599,603 owed by public enterprises are yet to be paid.

- Payroll Affairs: Unsupported changes of payroll as per audit in mode of payment with the document as well as approval amounted to NLe3,931,942.12. Also, it paid salaries to retirees without the requisite extension letters totaling NLe56,424,942.07.

The report revealed damning failure in internal controls and compliance mechanisms in the government institutions. The report recommended verification processes for employee records with special attention to retirement age and national identification numbers.

The audit serves to remind government officials once again of the urgency and necessity of taking corrective actions regarding the shortfalls in the management of public financial matters.