Dangerously Harmful, If…

-As UN Vows Withholding Funding To Liberia; With All Attendant Negative Consequences

UN Assistant Secretary-General and Resident Coordinator in Liberia Yacoub El Hillo without missing his words is sounding a stern caveat that the withholding of funding by partners for its (UN) programmes in Liberia will also become a realty with all attendant negative consequences.

While troubled-Liberians considered such looming reminder as ‘dangerously harmful’ to the growth and development process of the nation with emphasis on the UN sponsored projects undertaken by its (UN’s) partners including government’s; Mr. Hillo again made it crystal clear that  in extreme situations where the cash advance modality is not being used correctly by implementing partners, the UN agencies, the fund and progrmmes may discontinue and revert to Direct Implementation Modality (DIM) to avoid risk of delays in programs implementation,” he said.

Of late, in a letter to Minister of State for Presidential Affairs Nathaniel F. McGill and signed by Resident Coordinator in Liberia Hillo, the Liberian Government was informed that explicitly, guidelines and high operational standards to safeguard UN funds against misuse and integrity risks are yielding principles underpinning their work.

 According to the Resident Coordinator, “for implementing partners to receive cash in advance, they must be micro assessed to ensure that they have good financial management capacity (i.e. Accounting, procurement, reporting, internal controls etc.) and a system for recording accounting transactions and appropriate filing of financial documentation.”

He continues that “under the National Implementing Modality (NIM), we expect that implementing partners assume full responsibility for the effective use of the resources advanced to them and for reporting, fairly and accurately, on project progress against agreed work plans in accordance with the reporting schedule. They are expected to maintain documentation and evidence that describes the proper and prudent use of project resources.”

At the same time, the UN diplomat said for the last few months several agencies have experienced challenges in getting timely and accurate reports from their government counterparts thereby delaying implementation of essential services and advisory support to the people of Liberia.

The UN Resident Coordinator added that “to this effect, we would like to request your Excellency to pass the necessary directive to all government implementing partners to expeditiously resolve any outstanding obligations, for us to be able to fully implement the 2019 workplans to achieve the planned development results.”

Hillo said, to strengthen national ownership and accountability for development results, the UN Agencies, Funds and programmes are gradually moving from Direct Implementation Modality (DIM) to National Implementation Modality (NIM) under Harmonized Approach to Cash Transfers (HACT) framework where cash is transferred to national implementing partners to carry out development activities agreed in the annual work plans.