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FCC Chief Administrator responds to Mayor of Freetown

14 April 2021 at 17:38 | 1622 views

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FCC Chief Administrator responds to Mayor of Freetown

I am in receipt of your memo to which I was asked to respond.

Issue No.1
"Deep dissatisfaction with the performance of the Chief Administrator of the Freetown City Council and the lack of sound working relationship between the Mayor, the Councilors and Council Administration"

Response No 1
Your Worship, let me remind you that when I took office as Chief Administrator effectively on the 1st of December 2017 l inherited a cash balance of the Freetown City Council’s own source revenue of Le50,907,542 (Fifty Mllion Nine Hundred and Seven Thousand Five Hundred and Forty-two Leonies). Whilst this meagre amount was the cash balance, the following were inherited as liabilities of the FCC:

I. A backlog Le909,770,300 (Nine Hundred and Nine Million, Seven Hundred and Seventy Thousand Three Hundred in salary. Service benefits to retirees.

II. Huge arrears in the payment of end of service benefits to retirees.

III. Accumulated leave allowances from 2015 to 2017.

Iv. Huge outstanding payment to service providers which had undermined the
credibility of Council to suppliers and contractors.

In the context of all of these, the workforce was demoralized.

Let me also remind you that being at the top of management of the council when the then Mayor was out of office during the electioneering period, I undertook a number of reforms in order to build a robust internal control system. These reforms include but were not limited to:

I. Introduction of banking outlets (Zenith Bank and Commerce Mortgage Bank) at the Freetown City Council.

II. Replacement of receipt books and certificates with ones with better security safety.

III. Replacement of handwritten demand notes with electronic versions all in a bid to minimize leakages and optimize tax collection.

As a result Freetown City Council revenue mobilization in Property Rate, Business License, Market Dues, Billboards and Banners, Parking Fee, etc. hit an all-time high.
So, before you took office in May of 0lp2018, council had:

- Paid salary backlog for November and December 2017.
- Paid salary from January to April of 2018.
- Paid leave allowances to staff 2015 to 2018.
- Paid 85 percent of all outstanding end of service benefits to retirees.
- Procured 120 pairs of boots to the Metropolitan Police.
- Provided for the first time identity cards to all 484 staff of council.
- Paid 90 percent of all outstanding commitments to contractors, suppliers and media outlets.
- Provided Loan facilities to devolved sectors to implement activities that were time bound and
- Granted Loan facilities to staff of Council.

As a result of these developments, public confidence in doing business with FCC was restored.

It is therefore incomprehensible to me to say you are dissatisfied with my performance for a role that I have performed with and without supervision. As part of my achievements also are the consistent record of UNQUALIFIED Audit opinion (ie. Audit report that reflects best practice in Council) for the period 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively.

With regards the sound working relationship. I wish to state that ever since you came to office you have persistently shown neglect and lack of recognition for the office of the Chief Administrator and other core staff of the Freetown City Council by implementing programs /projects with the Mayor’s Delivery Unit (MDU), the unit that you created in 2019.

Each time l point out the need for clarity in the functional relationship between the MDU whose staff are not employed by the Freetown City Council, the outcome has always been dissension between us.

Also, you have been constantly disregarding the roles and responsibilities of the Mayor and the Chief Administrator. For instance. in several meetings including meetings with the Local Government Services Commission you have always reiterated that you are the head of Administration even though section 13 (2) says:
Council Chief Administrator shall be the secretary to the council and head of administration to the council. So, for there to exist a sound working relationship it is imperative to adhere to the rules and regulation set in Local Government Act of 2004 and the Revised 2015 human Resource Guidelines.

Issue No.2
"No attempt to implement basic performance management measures within FCC despite my specific and repeated requests that you do"

Response No.2
As you are aware, Performance management basically aligns individuals, team, and organizational goals to optimise achievement. It also values reward and recognition.
What we are currently witnessing is a parallel administrative structure wiihin Council
(Mayor’s Delivery Unit) which has led to a good number of staff being redundant. The work of the Staff of Bailiff. Valuation and sometimes the Information, Education and Communication Officer to name a few are either outsourced or assumed by the MDU; this has led to low morale amongst staff of FCC.

The failure of the Office of the Mayor to make known to management, Financial emoluments to the Mayor’s Delivery Unit undermines the spirit of reward and recognition in the work place.

Furthermore your constant pattern of engaging staff of FCC and issuing specific assignments /instructions without reference to my office undercuts my authority and hence the basic performance measures within the FCC. Therefore, in the interest of a sound performance management framework. It is important that you let me run the Administration and you supervise the process as prescribed in the LGA 2004.

Issue No.3
"That you have repeatedly failed to discharge basic Chief Administrator duties and that there was no council meeting January 2021."

Response No.3
My response to your first issue above indicates that your position that I have repeatedly failed to discharge basic Chief Administrative duties is not the reality. With regards the issue of no council meeting in January of 2021, I would like to remind you that January meeting was held on the 28th of January 2021 and the minutes are available as proof.

Issue No 4.
"There is no evidence of regular budgetary reporting against expenditure and revenue, and also your absence or distraction by your phone during the strategic planning and budget review process."

Response No.4
There is evidence of monthly budgeting reporting against expenditure and revenue submitted for every Council General Meeting. Also, budgeting reporting has always been submitted to you at your behest by the Finance Department therefore your concern about regularity is unclear.

With regards my absence or distraction by my phone during the "strategic planning and budget review process " I will like to state that I was never distracted by phone Or absent. I followed up all of the deliberations.

Issue No.5
"That you have consistently either opposed or disengaged entirely from, the FCC effort to reform property tax in the city, even though the intervention is carefully designed to be fair and transparent and ultimately aims to raise revenue for FCC and Freetonians."

Response No.5
Your Worship, as my record suggests, I have never disengaged entirely from FCC’s effort to reform property tax in the city. My frustration has been with the lack of due processes and procedures and the neglect of my office. For instance you secured £1,000,000.00 (1 Million Pound Sterling) for Property Tax reform and singularly directed it to international Growth Centre (IGC) without making full disclosure to either Parliament, Councils or Staff of FCC of the project documents, funding agreements, contract award, monitoring and supervision system to ensure transparency, accountability and sustainability of such projects. On to this date I regularly receive phone Calls from tax payers demanding answers on
an ongoing property tax survey being conducted by IGC for which I have zero knowledge. In addition, you have replaced Core Staff (the valuation officer) of FCC with the MDU Staff (Rosetta Wilson) to lead in the property Tax reform process. Also the distribution of Rates Demand Notes for 2021 a core function of the Bailiff Section has been unilaterally outsourced by you to a company called Unimax without the knowledge of Council and thereby rendering the Valuation and Bailiff Section redundant.

Issue No.6
"I find it incomprehensible that you continuously and openly disregard the very clear resolution of Council in respect of the two LGSC staff postings whilst the matter is still reviewed by LSC and MLGRD".

Response No. 6
Your Worship, my position on these staff postings is very clcar; as the Chairman of Local Government Service Commission advised in the meeting we held in your office some three weeks ago. "That no Permanent Secretary will reject a staff transferred by the Human Resource Management Office to a Ministry because the Minister does not wish to work with the Staff." So he gave the same advice I gave the Councillors previously that if the Councillors were not willing to accept the two Staff then they should have written to the Local Government Service Commission and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and regıster their discontent. Also there is no record of Chief Administrator rejecting any staff transferred to their Council, So I am still wondering which legal instructions I disregarded that are considered as insubordination.

Issue No.7
"So that we are absolutely clear about the lines of responsibility that bind us, I reminded you that Section 11(3) (a) of the LGA 2OO4 States that the Chairperson Mayor) "shall supervise the Local Council Chief Administrator" and that Section 33(1) states that the Local Council Administrator shall be responsible to and subject to the general direction of the Local Council. Furthermore, section 31(5) states that the Chief Administrator shall ensure accountability and transparency in the
Management and delivery of Local Council’s services and therefore expect and demand my full support."

Response No.7
Your Worship, I do recognize my roles and responsibilities as stated in LGA 2004. In addition to what you have stated, section 31(4) states that a Local Council Chief Administrator shall
(a) Be responsible for the financial and other resource management and the day-to-day administration of the Local Council.
(b) Be responsible for the implementation of all lawful decisions of the Local Council.
(c) Assist and advise the Chairperson in the performance of his functions
(d) Supervise and coordinate the activities of the other staff and Departments of the Local Council
(c) Have custody of all documents and records of the Local Council; and,
Section 33(2) states that the other staff or a Local Council shall be responsible to the Local Council Chief Administrator.

But in the discharge of my duties Your Worship, I have encountered continuous bottlenecks by you not accepting my role as Head of Administration. So.over the years you have directly been engaged in holding regular meetings with Junior, Intermediate and Senior Staff and demand that they report to you directly without my knowledge and hence distorting the official line of reporting.

With regards to Section 31(5) which states that the Chief Administrator shall ensure that Accountability and transparency in the Management and delivery ot Local Council:s services, the 2019 Audit Report of FCC noted that the Transform Freetown Priorities is the Development Pian of the Council and should form the basis for the preparation of the Council’s budget.

There was however no evidence that these annual milestones from the Transform Freetown Plan were linked to the 2019 budget of the Council because there was no disclosure as at the time of audit.

Additionally, Statement 9 of FCCs Financial Statement (Expenditure by Administrative Units) for the year ended 31st December, 2019 does not contain Transform Freelown Priority Projects implemented or to be implemented by other agencies. And to this date your office have not disclose to FCC and it’s management, the recruitment process, financial emoluments paid to the Mayor’s Delivery Unit despite several recommendations made by both the Human Resources Officer of FCC and the Anti-Corruption Commission.

AIso, it has also been observed by Council administration that you have been operating a separate bank account called BDO Account at Rokel Commercial Bank Limited for donor funding for which no disclosure has been made nor is the Chief Administrator a signatory to the account.

These and many more are issues of transparency and accountability.
Your Worship. I would like to mention that I am committed to working with you with the aim of archiving our common objective of the development ot our City of Freetown.

Festus. A Kallay
Chief Administrator FCC

Photo: Festus Kallay

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