The 2023 Audit Report, by the Audit Service Sierra Leone (ASSL), has revealed a scathing account of how Netpage, the company currently producing the country’s E-passport, evaded royalty payment to the Government of Sierra Leone pursuant to section 1 (1.4) of the Contract Change Note.
The Report states that: “HID CID Limited is required to pay the Government of Sierra Leone a royalty of 9% per sale of each e-passport” but that the “Government did not receive the royalty payment of US$744,993 for 82,777 e-passports produced”.
The said issue, the Report adds, was also highlighted in the 2022 Annual Auditor-General’s Report but that nothing was done to address it. This, the auditors say, “could lead to a shortfall in government revenue.”
ASSL recommends that “Netpage should pay the outstanding royalty due to government for the period under review into the Consolidated Fund, and submit evidence of payment to the ASSL.”
ASSL also slams Securiport of not paying revenue collected from the issuance of E-Visas, noting that: “revenue collected from e-visa issued by the Securiport was not brought to account.” It says a review of the “printout submitted by Securiport showed that 4,827 e-visas were issued in 2023”, but that “Escrow bank statements and cashbook were however not submitted for audit inspection, making it difficult to ascertain the total revenue regenerated from the issuance of e-visas”.
Audit Service adds that further verification to confirm the number of e-visas issued proved futile, as the Immigration Department failed to submit the relevant documents.
ASSL also accuses the Immigration Department of having “ghost staff”, noting that a total of twenty seven (27) staff were not available for physical verification.
The Report avers that, “we observed that 27 staff who were paid a total annual net salary of NLe394, 204as at December 2023, did not avail themselves for verification. Therefore, we could not ascertain whether these employees exist. The absence of staff during physical verification can be interpreted to mean, they are illegal (“ghost”) or non-existing employees being added to the payroll. This could have resulted in the loss of public funds.”
The report concludes by calling on the Human Resources Officer to ensure that the 27 staff whose names did not appear on the Immigration Department’s staff list to make themselves available for verification.