County & Social Development Funds: Bong, Grand Bassa Counties Have the Most Uncompleted/Abandoned Projects

The General Auditing Commission(GAC) Audit Report on the Compliance Audit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) for the Period July 1, 2017 to December 31, 2021 has revealed that funding provided by the Government of Liberia for county development fund and concession companies as social development funds for county development projects in Bong, Grand Cape Mount and Grand Bassa Counties are mostly being spent on projects that are either uncompleted or abandoned.
The GAC audit report revealed that the combined county and social development funds disbursed to the 15 counties from July 1, 2017 to December 31, 2021 amounted to US$15,043,192.29 . However, during the audit, the GAC observed no evidence of supporting documents such as; expenditure/financial reports, payment vouchers, invoices, receipts, delivery notes, contracts, service completion certificates, etc.) for the expenditures relating to these disbursements.
During physical verification performed of the projects in ten (10) of the 15 (fifteen) counties, namely Nimba, Bong, Grand Bassa, Grand Cape Mount, Lofa, Rivercess, etc indicated that projects amounting to US$4,230,132.64 were either abandoned or uncompleted.
Further, the GAC observed no evidence that adequate quality control and monitoring of projects were conducted during the planning, implementation, and turnover of all projects.
A county by county analysis of the GAC report revealed that the Government of Liberia disbursed US$2,619,539.55 to Nimba County. However, projects amounting to US$553,299.40 constituting 20.36 percent were observed to be either uncompleted/abandoned as of the time of GAC’s field verification.
Government disbursed US$1,366,863.77 to Bong County. However, projects amounting to US$1,250,263.80 constituting 91.47 percent were observed to be either uncompleted/abandoned as of the time of GAC’s field verification.
Government disbursed US$1,548,032.00 to Grand Bassa County. However, the GAC observed during field verification that projects amounting to US$1,668,532 constituting 107 percent were uncompleted/ abandoned. The high rate of projects uncompletion in Grand Bassa county means that rollover project brought forward to the audit periods remain uncompleted. Grand Bassa County appears to have the worst uncompletion rate of county and social development funds projects.
Further, Government disbursed US$528,128.00 to Grand Cape Mount County. However, projects amounting to US$329,448.17 constituting 62.38 percent were observed to be either uncompleted/abandoned as of the time of GAC’s field verification.
Rivercess County received US$739,972.00 for projects during the audit period. However, during field verification, the GAC observed that only US$6,276.85 of its projects were considered uncompleted/abandoned constituting 0.85 percent. Rivercess County had the best completion rate among the counties reviewed by the GAC during the audit, followed by Lofa County which received US$585,053 and an uncompleted/abandoned project amount of US$54,200 constituting 9.26 percent.
In the past, several factors had hindered the smooth implementation of county and social development funds projects, this had resulted in significant number of uncompleted/abandoned county projects including slow disbursements of funds by the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning for project implementation, the lack of clear authority for the implementation of county projects between County Legislative caucuses and County Administrations, some of the companies awarded county project contracts have been shell companies fronting for county officials and county legislators who receive money and fail to perform.
In some cases, contractors have been selected without taking into consideration the contractors’ capacity to complete the projects. Also, some of the contractors have complained that county officials and some legislators have demanded kickbacks which have limited their abilities to complete the projects within the project timelines. These have resulted in projects delays and uncompleted/abandoned projects.
Given the significance of the matters raised in this report, the GAC is urging the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives and the Honourable Pro- Tempore and Members of the Liberia Senate to consider the implementation of the recommendations conveyed in this report with urgency.