By Chernoh Alpha M. Bah, Matthew Anderson, and Mark Feldman
On March 7, 2021, The Africanist Press reported how officials in charge of managing Sierra Leone’s retirement pensions and social security benefits could not account for over Le60.9 billion (more than US$6 million) for 2019 alone. A special internal audit into the financial status and operational activities of Sierra Leone’s social security agency, the National Social Security and Insurance Trust (NASSIT) discovered that NASSIT officials did not completely or accurately record workers’ contribution income in Fiscal Year (FY) 2019.
Auditors say they discovered a difference of Le60.9 billion between contribution income recorded in the NASSIT Financial Statement for 2019 and the amount recorded in the 2019 NASSIT General Ledger and Trial Balance. Whereas the NASSIT General Ledger recorded a total of Le631,293,248,084.87 (about US$63.2 million) in income for FY 2019; the NASSIT Financial Statement shows a total of just Le570,363,754,136 (about US$57.6 million), a difference of over Le 62 million.
In this second report, we continue to examine the findings of the special internal audit into NASSIT for FY 2019. An advance copy of the report seen by The Africanist Press notes that apart from the more than Le60 billion (US$6 million) that NASSIT officials could not account for, officials also illegally disbursed over Le 400 million (over US$40,000) in cash donations to organizations and individuals without clearly justified purposes and outside of the agency’s scope of normal statutory activities.
The audit report detailed payments totaling Le465 million (about US$46,500) made as donations to individuals and organizations in Sierra Leone. Members of the audit team said they could not understand the basis for those donations.
“We discovered that a total of Le465,310,000 (about US$46,500) was identified as donation payments made to various organizations and individuals,” they said, adding, “the audit team could not understand the basis upon which these payments were made, as they did not fall within NASSIT’s normal operations.”
The listed donations range from funds given to the First Lady, the military, professional groups, donations made to organizations linked to the president’s political party, and other contributions to entertainment events and social gatherings. Donations made by NASSIT from pension funds to organizations that may be linked to the president and the ruling Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) totaled Le158,810,000 (about US$15,800) between March 18, 2019, and December 3, 2019. These cash donations included a payment of Le33,310,000.00 (about US$3300) made on 18 March 2019, as a contribution towards the 90th anniversary of the Old Bo Boys Association (OBBA) – the alumni association of the President’s high school. Another cash payment of Le50,000,000 (US$5000) was made on December 3, 2019, to the Maada and Fatima Bio Foundation, the private charity run by the First Lady. Some of these cash payments to organizations linked to the president and other SLPP party leaders included a donation of Le12 million (about US$1,200) to the Bo Descendants Union, a payment of Le13,500,000 (about US$1,300) to the Pujehun District Descendants Union, and a payment of Le10 million (about US$1000) to Christ the King College (CKC) in Bo, the high school alma mater of some in NASSIT’s top management hierarchy.
We compared donation totals and discovered that amounts paid directly to organizations that are linked to the President and other SLLP members constitute the largest portion of the money disbursed by NASSIT from pension funds as donations. Total NASSIT donations to the military include a cumulative sum of Le15 million (about US$ 1,500) paid in smaller units ranging from Le200,000 to Le 1,200,000 (from about US$20 to US$120) and from Le1,600,000 (about US$160) to Le5 million (about US$500), with each regional division of the army (RSLAF) receiving at least Le5 million in donations from NASSIT. Compared to amounts reportedly donated to organizations in Freetown, Bo, and Pujehun, that are directly or possibly linked to the President and his ruling party; military donations, for instance, were almost ten times less than the combined totals received by the First Lady and the President’s high school alumni association.
Likewise, total payments that qualify as humanitarian donations from NASSIT in 2019, accrued Le70 million (about US$7,000). These payments included Le20 million (about US$2,000) paid on 22 November 2019, to the Southern Province Women’s Network (SPROWNET) for 16 days of activism against gender violence, and another Le15 million (about US$1,500) to the Sick Pikin Marathon paid on December 31, 2019. Other payments in this category included Le10 million (about US$1,000) each to the Advocacy for Children, the Junior Doctors Association, and the Faith United Brethren. Again, the combined total of all these humanitarian donations are about half the combined amounts paid to all organizations that are directly or potentially affiliated with the President or members of the SLLP. An almost equal total amount of Le73,250,000 (about US$7000) was paid to professional organizations like the Sierra Leone Bar Association (Le20 million), Radio Democracy (Le25 million), and the West Africa Insurance Company Association (Le10 million).
We studied the pattern of these reported donation payments by NASSIT in 2019 and discovered that NASSIT gave bigger donations, ranging from Le20 million to Le50 million, to organizations and institutions where there could be vested interest as opposed to organizations with known or established serviceable needs to poor communities and vulnerable populations. For instance, NASSIT’s combined payments to Radio Democracy and the Sierra Leone Bar Association in 2019 alone totaled Le45 million; an amount that tripled the annual NASSIT reported donation to the national army (Le15 million), and that exceeded the combined total of reported donations made to four humanitarian organizations, including the Sierra Leone Red Cross Society (Le5 million), the Advocacy for Children (Le10 million), the Junior Doctors Association (Le10 million), and the Faith United Brethren (Le10 million). In fact, we discovered that the listed NASSIT donations included a total of Le148,250,000 (about US$15,000) in payments for entertainment events attended or hosted by NASSIT staff in senior management positions.
Details of an internal audit report leaked to The Africanist Press into NASSIT’s operations for FY 2019 describes these payments made to various organizations and individuals by NASSIT as fictitious and outside the scope of the institution’s sanctioned charitable efforts. “There is the risk that payments made by NASSIT as donations may be fictitious,” the auditors said in the report, a copy of which the Africanist Press has seen. Auditors also say that “NASSIT may not have benefitted from such payments.”
The Africanist Press triangulated evidence from this special NASSIT internal audit report with other records on the financial operations of various agencies in the Maada Bio administration to corroborate the evidence in the internal audit report on NASSIT regarding these donations. We examined, for example, documents on fundraising activities by the Office of the First Lady obtained by the Africanist Press, and we discovered that the stated Le50 million paid by NASSIT to the Maada and Fatima Bio Foundation was a financial contribution made in response to solicitation letters sent out in late 2019 to business organizations, government agencies, and individuals by First Lady Fatima Jabbe Bio requesting money in exchange for presidential dinner tickets in the name of the Hands Off Our Girls Campaign. We found, from the First Lady’s Office records, that the listed NASSIT Le50 million donation was part of the hundreds of millions in monetary contributions made by various business organizations and individuals in response to the First Lady’s solicitation letters given in exchange for dining opportunities with the president.
In a previous report on February 7, 2021, Africanist Press published evidence showing how Sierra Leone’s First Lady, used her husband’s influence and position as President to solicit funds from private organizations, business individuals, and government agencies in exchange for business favors and meeting opportunities with the President, in explicit violation of the anti-corruption laws of the country.
Section 31(3) of the Anti-Corruption Act of 2008 makes it a serious offense for “any person who solicits, accepts, or obtains an advantage from any other person for himself or for any other person in order to make use of his influence, real or fictitious, to obtain any work, employment, contract, or other benefit from a public body.”
Thus, we discovered that the Le50 million NASSIT financial contribution drawn out of pension funds and listed as part of the institution’s 2019 list of donations, was actually money paid to the Maada and Fatima Bio Foundation, in exchange for dinner tickets in December 2019 instead of a real donation. A similar payment of Le10 million, for example, was also made on February 24, 2020, by the Chief Minister’s Office to the Maada and Fatima Bio Foundation; a late payment in respect to the same solicitation letters from the First Lady’s Office, for which NASSIT gave Le50 million.
We also discovered an equally similar trend in the listed donation of Le33,310,000 (about US$3,300) made to the Old Bo Boys Association (the president’s high school alumni association and another high school in Bo, Christ the Kings College, the alma mater of some of the officials in top positions at NASSIT). A cumulative sum of Le20 million (US$2000) was paid to CKC and COBA, another high school in Bo. Thus, we discovered that a combined total of Le53,310,000 (about US$5,300) from pension funds were paid as donations to help fund activities by OBBA, CKC, and COBA in Bo and Freetown; events at which both the President and senior management members of NASSIT were special guests of honor.
In a letter addressed to NASSIT, auditors have demanded that NASSIT leadership should provide evidence justifying the payments listed as donations in 2019, which auditors now consider to be outside the scope of the agency’s statutory obligations.
“The Director General of NASSIT in collaboration with the Director of Finance should ensure that appropriate explanations with supporting evidence must be provided to justify donations made; otherwise, the amount expended should be refunded by the Director General,” they stated. NASSIT officials have refused to comment on the details of the internal audit findings when contacted by Africanist Press ahead of our first report on March 7, 2021. An email correspondence addressed to NASSIT officials has still not been acknowledged by officials of the agency despite promise of doing do. Last Sunday, NASSIT’s head of public affairs, Mohamed Bangalie, told Africanist Press via WhatsApp that he could not readily respond to the issues raised in the report because of the long weekend holiday.
“These are allegations that need clarification from those handling the transactions,” Bangalie said, adding, “you have quoted claims and figures on some of our transactions that require reference to documents, files and persons that cannot be reached today or tomorrow.”
On their part; however, auditors say it is unlikely that they will be able to issue an unmodified audit opinion if the stipulated international auditing standards are not complied with by NASSIT and their financial statements are not adjusted accordingly. NASSIT was established in 2001 by the Social Security and Insurance Trust Act, a law passed by the country’s parliament to provide retirement and other benefits to meet the contingency needs of workers and their dependents. Like any social security system, NASSIT provides old age pension and old age gratuity, retirement grants, invalidity pension, invalidity grants, survivor’s pensions, survivor’s grants, and other benefits prescribed by the 2001 Social Security and Insurance Trust Act. Under this program, NASSIT collects a mandatory 15% monthly tax from each worker, including teachers and nurses, whose monthly salaries are less than Le2 million (US$200) a month.
In summary, we conclude in this report that strong evidence, discovered by Africanist Press, indicates a deliberate and vast misuse of pension funds by NASSIT to support activities of organizations linked to the president or potentially affiliated with members of the ruling SLPP party, including the Maada and Fatima Bio Foundation, the private charity run by the president’s wife.
We publish, on the Africanist Press website, documents showing the evidence on which this report is based. We have attached both the list of NASSIT-Donations-to-Various-Organizations and the graphic analysis of NASSIT-Donations.
