Time has come for authorities to unveil the filth service providers in the whole gamut of public contract award have been hiding in their files. In a statement from the department of Treasury, Financial and Monetary Cooperation, signed by the Secretary General of the Ministry of Finance, a total of 1,023 service providers have been summoned to prove the validity of the receipts representing the money they paid in request for contract awards. The decision to revisit service providers is triggered by the improprieties observed in the whole process and the urgency for authorities of the ministry of Finance to cleanse the sector. The whole issue has to do with fraudulent activities in which a whole network of actors seems to be involved. A careful verification at the level of the department of Treasury, Financial and Monetary Cooperation indicates inter alia a number of signposts translating the existence of such activities. According to Finance authorities, some of the abnormalities are: existence of files not backed by any receipt, receipts without references, receipts with serial numbers that do not march with the ordered stock, receipts showing cash payment instead of bank deposits and receipts issued after registering several contract files.

The consequence of this fraud is already weighing heavily on the State reason why it is important to identify the valves through which these practices have been passing. The statement, however, does not say how much has been lost from the state coffers as a result of this. The issue for now, maybe, is not very much knowing exactly how much has been lost but understanding that the fraudulent practice is a financial crime which has far reaching consequences on the economy of the country. The deployment of a joint team from the department of taxation and that of treasury is one of the spotty efforts to cleanse the sector. For their job to be well carried out, it may be important to first identify how these practices came about, for, this could jolly be the handiwork of a network of a well-established arrangement between service providers and representatives of the administration.