In its 4th report for Liberia, the global extractive industry transparency initiative (LEITI) revealed that on the overall, the total reported as received by the agencies of the Government of Liberia between July 1, 2010 and June 30, 2011, amounted to US$117,802,566.90 with an unreconciled net difference of US$278,904.90 (0.24%).
The unreconciled difference is after taking out the amount received from small scale miners and pit sawyers amounting to US$632,541.35.
The report covers financial year July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011. It was released on May 15, 2013.
The auditors said they expected payments to be supported by flag receipts. “We therefore decided that all payments by companies to Ministry of Finance (MoF), for example, must be traceable to the database provided to us. For this reason, where we noted differences between a company’s payment and that of an Agency, we verified that the companies’ payments (flag receipts) can be traced to the Ministry of Finance database,” they said.
According to the LEITI auditors, where a government agency reported a higher amount than the company and those payments were all traced to flag receipts in the MoF database, they adjusted the company’s amounts to agree with those of the agency. Where the company’s payments were higher and supported with flag receipts, they traced the receipts to the MoF database and when found, they adjusted the agencies’ figures accordingly. However, where the company’s stated payment was higher than that of the agency and they could not trace those payments to flag receipts in the MoF database, they adjusted them to agree with the agencies’ stated amount.
Therefore, in the Agriculture sector, companies paid US$18,330,499.66, but government agencies reported receiving US$18,281,719.70, with a difference of US$48,779.96. In the Forestry sector, companies paid US$5,408,592.18. Yet, government agencies reported receiving US$5,616,076.23, with a difference of (US$207,484.05).
Companies in the mining sector paid US$43,798,764.75, but government agencies reported receiving US$44,223,697.12 with a difference of (US$424,932.36). Also, In the oil sector, companies paid US$49,911,073.86, government agencies reported receiving US$49,681,073.86 with a difference of US$230,000.00.
Overall, the total paid by companies amounted to US$117,448,930.45; total reported by government agencies stood at US$117,802,566.90 with a total difference of (US$353,636.45). Of the US$353,636.45, amount received from pit sawyers and small scale miners stood at US$632,541.35; and when deducted, the grand difference became US$278,904.90.
Regarding the Forestry Development Authority (FDA), the report further revealed that the total amount declared by the companies as due was US$274,650 which when compared to the amount declared by the FDA of US$12,688,636.82 results in a difference of US$12,413,986.82. The auditors said their computations also revealed a total of US$14,541,964.22 as the amount due.
The auditors said the National Port Authority and APM Terminals also received total payments of US$748,922.48 and US$497,311.80 respectively from a number of companies for which flag receipts were not issued. Furthermore, APM Terminals did not submit templates showing payments made to NPA, nor did NPA submit templates of receipts from APM terminals and onward payments to MoF. On its part the MoF also did not provide templates to show receipts from NPA. The amounts received and paid by NPA and APM Terminals could therefore not be reconciled.
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