By Tabora Bojang
A report by the National Audit Office on the government’s financial statements for 2025 has strongly flagged a catalogue of irregular spendings, including a colossal D329,505,582 vired from the Contingency Fund to finance routine budgeted activities, and predictable expenses such as travels, trainings and supplier payments, contravening the legal framework governing the Fund and distorting the original budget intent.
According to the auditors, mismanagement of the Contingency Fund to cover predictable expenses creates fiscal risk potentially forcing the government to take on loans and leaving it without resources to finance actual emergencies when they occur.
It added that expenditures from the Contingency Fund are permissible only under unforeseen circumstances and require parliamentary consideration, which it said, was not done in the use of the D329,505,582.
The auditors cited Section 153(2) of the Constitution which states that, “where any advance is made from the Contingency Fund, a supplementary estimate shall be presented, and a Supplementary Appropriation Bill shall be introduced for the purpose of replacing the amount so advanced with ninety days of the advance being made”.
It also cited the 2016 Financial Regulations which stipulates that ”where the circumstances are such that expenditures cannot be postponed pending consideration by the National Assembly, application may be made to the Minister for an advance from the Civil Contingency Fund to cover recurrent expenditure.”
The auditors demanded a “plausible explanation” as to why funds are being vired from the Contingency Fund.
Ministry of Finance responds
In response, the Ministry of Finance admits that virements from the contingency budget line should be strictly reserved for emergency expenditures and that the “referenced virements were undertaken to address unforeseen budgetary pressures that were essential to ensuring the smooth operations” of the government.
However, the auditors maintained that the justification of unplanned budget pressures does not demonstrate that the expenditures met the conditions for the use of the Contingency Fund adding that use of the Fund should be restricted to only those expenditures that are truly unforeseen, urgent and impossible to plan for.
All the virements were made from the Centralised Services budget as follows: D26M vired on 23 January 2025 but approval not provided, D47M vired to Ministry of Youths and Sports for the remodelling and rehabilitation of the Independence Stadium, D10.4M vired to Office of the Vice President (OVP) for travel expenses, D59,467,752 vired on 26 June 2025 with no explanation provided, D2,445,000 vired to the OVP for travel expenses, D20M vired to Office of the President to cater for expenses related to cabinet sitting, D120M vired on 3rd July 2025 with no explanation provided, D1,177,300, vired to the National Human Rights Commission NHRC to prepare TRRC White Paper, D1,939,922 vired to the Office of the President for travel expenses, D494,508 vired to Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Turkey Embassy to cover accommodation for the Vice President and delegation for transit at Istanbul airport during the trip to Tokyo International Conference, D30M vired on 14 November 2025 but approval was not provided, D10M vired on 25 November 2025 but approval was not provided and D500,000 vired on 3 December 2025 also approval not provided.
