Agnes Macaulay revealed this while updating the committee on the status of repayment of outstanding imprests issued to ministries, departments and government officials, totalling over D30 million.
The FPAC 2019-2021 report confirmed D31.7 million as outstanding imprest with only D2.5 million recovered by the Accountant General.
Giving an update on the issue, she said “as of 30 September 2024, we have an outstanding imprest of D21,726,841. As part of the outstanding imprest, we have imprest whose cycle has not completed, which means that these were actually not outstanding, which amount to D417,614. We also have an amount of D575,000 which is classified as imprest that does not exist,” she revealed
“These were raised in error, and as such are not to be considered as outstanding imprest. These were totaled to D36,452,927. Therefore, the outstanding impress is D21,726,841.”
She stated that “at the moment, from the last update that we gave, we were able to recover from staff an amount of D4,820,468. We also have evidence that we have fully recovered or retired D8,913,053. These were retirements received from individuals with outstanding imprests,” she disclosed.
When asked about the method used in recovering the imprests, she responded that “the recovery method we are using is the payroll system. We are recovering from their salaries. And the ones that we are not recovering are not in active service, so we are not recovering those ones since 2007.”
The chair of the Committee, Hon Alagie S. Darboe said he wanted to know the mechanism drawn to ensure those who are not in the payroll are effectively recovered.
She responded that “I want to recall my earlier submission, where we requested the support of the committee, in terms of those that are not within our reach, so that together we can be supported in recovering some of these items.
“But as we speak, there are some names on this list that are deceased, and basically in terms of how do we handle these, I think we would need your guidance on this,” she said.
“There are also other people that we don't know because obviously, this is from 2007 to date.
“But we are happy to report that as of now, 2024, we do not have any outstanding imprest, apart from these imprests that are coming way back as 2007. At the moment for 2024, we do not have any outstanding imprest.” she clarified.
“We will continue to do the deduction. But the ones that are not on the payroll, if they are deceased, it will be difficult to identify those ones through knowledge.”
The ones that are still alive, we identify them, and then try to build a mechanism of how to recover. At one point, we will suggest to the Attorney General to advise whether legal action can be taken because those are all part of options that can be taken. But we have to categorize them and build a mechanism that we should take and how to recover.”
