By Lemuella Tarawallie
The parliamentary Public Account Committee (PAC) summoned some commercial banks last Friday for their non-adherence to the Committee’s Garnishment Order of businesses which are GST defaulters.
Hon. Ibrahim Tawa Conteh, the Committee’s Chairman, stated that the reason for the summon was that in July 2024, “Garnishment Orders were issued by the Public Account Committee during PAC’s hearings on the 2021 and 2022 Auditors’ Reports. He noted that the Committee realised that those actions were not implemented, “so the Committee wants the commercial banks to go and implement those actions to the fullest”.
He revealed that part of what PAC uncovered was that auditors from Audit Service Sierra Leone (ASSL) raised some issues with regards GST credits that were claimed by certain businesses but for which documents to support those claims the National Revenue Authority (NRA) made or already received were not made available to the auditors.
“So NRA was instructed by the Committee to issue Garnishment Orders to the banks to recover the monies as provided for by the Finance Act of 2022”, he stated.
Hon. Ibrahim Tawa Conteh made those statements during PAC’s hearing last Friday at the New Administrative Building, Parliament Building, at Tower Hill in Freetown.
A representative from the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank (SLCB) told the Committee that when they got the Garnishment Order, they engaged the customers involved to make them aware that they would not be able to access their accounts until their obligations were settled.
The SLCB representative said that in reality, it was very hard to get monies once they were deposited into the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
The Acting Manager of the Standard Chartered Bank, Victor Kargbo, stated that when they received the instruction on 3 July 2024, the bank identified only three names from the 11 names which the Bank of Sierra Leone sent to them and that they acted on the instruction at once.
The Operations Manager of Eco Bank, Alim Mohamed Sillah, told the Committee that when they received the Garnishment Order from the Bank of Sierra Leone (BSL) they acted on it. He added that out of 11 accounts sent to them, they garnished three.
A representative from Vista Bank disclosed that when they received the order on 3 July 2024, they identified three to four accounts and that on 4 July 2024 they remitted the monies to the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
Similar statements were made by representatives from Bloom Bank Africa Sierra Leone, First Bank Sierra Leone, Zenith Bank, and United Bank of Africa (UBA)-SL.
During last Friday’s PAC hearing, it was uncovered that out of 13 banks, which were instructed to carry out the Garnishment Orders through the Bank of Sierra Leone, it were only the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank, Eco Bank, Zenith Bank, Standard Charter Bank, Bloom Bank Africa Sierra Leone, Vista Bank-SL, and United Bank of Africa (UBA) that complied.