Sierra Leone Telegraph: 17 August 2026:
An investigation by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) into corrupt-related activities at the National Revenue Authority (NRA) reveals that the ASYCUDA system had been seriously compromised, resulting in the loss of over 300 billion leones in government revenue. (Photo: Outgoing NRA Commissioner-General, Jeneba Bangura).
The ACC found evidence of deliberate and unauthorised deletion of customs declarations from the ASYCUDA system after payments relating to those declarations had already been processed.
According to the ACC’s report, dated 10th July 2026, the evidence gathered through system analysis, broker complaints, bank records, interviews and internal documentation established that these deletions did not occur through ordinary front-end operations but through backend technical access.
“These deletions could not have occurred through ordinary front-end operations and required backend technical access,” the report states, raising questions about who had access to such privileges.
The commission also found what it described as serious weaknesses in user access management, reconciliation procedures and supervisory controls within the ASYCUDA system.
Of particular concern, the ACC says dormant and unauthorised bank teller profiles remained active and were used to validate transactions long after the departure of the account holders from their respective financial institutions.
The report says the continued use of such profiles “significantly compromised the integrity of the revenue collection process” and created opportunities for the diversion of government revenue through official banking channels.
That inability to recover the deleted records, the ACC notes, demonstrates the extent of the system compromise and the absence of adequate safeguards for audit-trail preservation and disaster recovery.
Perhaps the most striking conclusion in the report is the commission’s assessment that the incidents were not simply isolated administrative mistakes.
The ACC concludes that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that the unauthorised deletions and related activities formed part of a coordinated scheme, facilitated by serious institutional control failures and possible collusion among certain functional and technical personnel.
Statements obtained from key suspects and management officials reportedly consistently confirmed that functional ASYCUDA staff did not have the authority to permanently delete declarations from the system. (Photo above: Jeneba Bangura, head of NRA).
According to the report, this points towards the possible involvement or collaboration of individuals with backend ICT privileges.
The ACC also identified a pattern of uncontrolled profile resets, inadequate monitoring and failures in daily reconciliation mechanisms, despite the existence of real-time payment visibility within the ASYCUDA platform.
The investigation did not end with the specific deletions examined.
The ACC says a broader database analysis conducted by an independent consultant identified additional control weaknesses within the ASYCUDA system.
Among the issues identified were a receipt-reference reuse pattern and a small number of declarations recorded as paid without corresponding cash-table records.
The commission, however, cautions that these additional findings remain subject to further verification before any monetary or evidentiary conclusion is drawn from them.
It is important to point out that the issues raised in the ACC report go beyond individual transactions. They point to questions about system access, institutional accountability, reconciliation, audit trails, banking controls, ICT privileges and the ability of the NRA to protect government revenue from theft.
For an institution responsible for collecting the bulk of domestic revenue, such weaknesses carry consequences far beyond the walls of the NRA.
The ACC itself stops short of determining the full financial loss and uses carefully qualified language regarding possible collusion and the involvement of individuals. But its conclusion that the activities were not isolated incidents or mere administrative errors demands serious attention.
Fritong Post believes the public has a legitimate interest in understanding the findings of an investigation concerning the management and protection of public revenue.
We will therefore begin serialising the ACC report verbatim and unadulterated, allowing the public to read the commission’s findings and conclusions for themselves, rather than relying solely on interpretations or summaries surrounding the matter.
More importantly, the publication will be undertaken with the newly appointed NRA commissioners in mind.
The new commissioners are stepping into an institution that the ACC has identified serious weaknesses in revenue systems, access controls, reconciliation procedures and oversight. They need to know the institution they are taking charge of. They need to be aware of the vulnerabilities that have exposed public revenue to theft.
The purpose of publishing the unadulterated report is to place the documented findings before the public and those entrusted with leading the NRA, so that corrective action, stronger controls, greater accountability and meaningful anti-corruption measures can follow.
The question now is not simply how much revenue may have been lost, but what will be done to ensure that weaknesses identified by the ACC cannot be exploited again.
Fritong Post will publish the ACC report in serialised form, verbatim and without alteration, as part of its continuing commitment to public-interest journalism, transparency and accountability in the management of public funds.
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