KPMG’s leaked report dirties SLBC
More controversy has risen on the KPMG leaked audit report following recent developments that the 65 pages report was not actually a draft but a final printout. It is said that the auditing firm did submit copies of their final printout to the Ministry of Information and Communication and the Board of the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC). (Photo: Gbanabom-Hallowell, Director General, SLBC)
Even though the auditing firm has declined to make a public statement on the issue as to who is responsible for leaking the document to the press, they have an affirmative answer to the rising questions by not taking responsibility for the act since the document was no longer exclusive on their side.
The issues rising from the audit have premises on financial impropriety and mismanagement much saying that there is not a head-cut at the SLBC in terms of who controls the proceeds the corporation is making.
The report covers a reviewing period between 2010-2012 fiscal year financial run at the SLBC, a period which is overshadowed by change of management from the merger of former United Nations Radio and the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Services (SLBS), the transition team management, the caretaker management and to the incumbent Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation management team.
The KPMG audit report exposes grey areas for corruption, fraud and conspiracy to deprive the corporation of finances accrued from it service sources. For example, to-date nobody is able to account at the SLBC what has happened with the money accrued in the SABI DANS fame project that was being sponsored by Airtel, one of the leading telecommunication network providers in the country.
Testaments of the auditors on assignment at SLBC for the audit report were parallel on the financial flaws. Much as they encounter difficulties in reconciling figures of expenditure budget and their disbursement appraisals as data facts were unbalanced to say the least.
Now the report is saying that flaws were extant in the SLBC’s financial management much as the corporation is doing less to put protection clauses in place and bring to book those among them that are mischievous to an extent depriving the corporation of its much needed revenue.
Probity and change of guard occupy the stake of problems at the SLBC. If for example the audit report says that there is dearth of information relating to financial management it goes long to determine that lots of things are not reported which are now being requested for probity. The SLBC was established to divorce its dependence at the central government who in turn would want to put their mouth where their money is. Yet we continue to see a situation whereby almost all major appointments are being done by the government.
The challenge management is facing at the SLBC is that they don’t have a free hand to hire and fire workers for competence or lack of it. What has happened is that the kingpins of financial improprieties at the SLBC belong to the ‘untouchables’ who would embezzle the corporations cash and then lead their colleague starving workers into strike protests in demand for salaries.
The KPMG report’s financial incompetence clause against the SLBC merely said the right persons are lost in the wrong places which the corporation must locate to record its much needed success in the country and the sub-region.
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