OVER 1.1 TRILLION GONE PHEEW
…NRA TURNS CORRUPTION EPICENTER
By Ibrahim Alusine Kamara (Kamalo)
The 2024 Auditor-General’s Report does more than expose weak systems at the National Revenue Authority (NRA). When the figures are added together, it reveals the true scale of the damage: over NLe1.1 billion in assessed, collectible, or protected revenue was lost, unpaid, untraced, or improperly waived in just one year.
This is not speculative money. These are amounts clearly identified by auditors as due to the state, yet allowed to slip through the NRA’s fingers.
The losses begin with unpaid and underpaid domestic taxes. The audit confirmed NLe43.9 million in taxes not paid at all, and NLe338.9 million underpaid, bringing total losses from weak compliance enforcement to NLe382 million. This alone represents hundreds of classrooms, health facilities, or kilometres of roads denied funding.
System failures added to the bleeding. Because the NRA failed to integrate its ITAS system with ASYCUDA World, importers exploited the gap to over-claim GST refunds worth NLe34.07 million. This was money paid out by the state based on false claims that should never have passed basic verification checks.
The audit also identified NLe29.39 million in GST and income tax collections that passed through transit banks but never reached the Consolidated Fund at the Bank of Sierra Leone. Once collected, this revenue effectively disappeared, with no clear trail and no accountability.
Duty waivers and exemptions turned into one of the biggest channels of loss. Import duties and taxes amounting to NLe118.23 million were waived without proper documentation, in direct violation of the Tax and Duty Exemption Act 2023. On top of that, NLe50.65 million in ECOWAS levies were wrongly exempted on goods imported from non-ECOWAS countries, without any evidence of ECOWAS approval.
Petroleum imports delivered another major blow. The Customs Service Department incorrectly applied petroleum pricing formulas, allowing Oil Marketing Companies to avoid paying NLe313.8 million in import duties, NLe7.8 million in excise duties, and NLe57.7 million in Infrastructure Development Levy. These errors alone cost the country nearly NLe380 million.
Even revenue that was properly assessed was left uncollected. The audit found 644 pending customs declarations in the ASYCUDA system with assessed duties worth NLe111.89 million, yet there was no evidence of follow-up or enforcement by Customs officials.
Payroll and statutory deductions added further losses. Undocumented payroll amendments exceeded NLe3.6 million, while PAYE and social security deductions totalling nearly NLe8 million were never paid to the relevant authorities.
When these figures are combined, the Auditor-General’s Report points to over NLe1.1 billion in confirmed financial exposure and losses at the NRA in 2024 alone. This total does not even include broader fiscal risks such as outstanding payments, domestic arrears, or long-term revenue leakage caused by weak enforcement.
At a time when nearly one-third of domestic revenue is swallowed by debt servicing, such losses are not just irresponsible—they are economically dangerous. Every lost leone forces the government to borrow more, tax harder, or cut essential services.
The audit makes one thing unmistakably clear: Sierra Leone’s revenue problem is not just about how much the NRA collects, but about how much it fails to protect.
In Part Four, we will examine the culture of impunity behind these losses—why no serious sanctions follow audit findings, how repeat failures are normalised, and why accountability at the NRA remains elusive despite the scale of the damage.