By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
One of the best things that can happen to Sierra Leone, at present, is for the Anti-Corruption Commissioner, Francis Ben Kaifala, and his investigators at the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to audition for a Nollywood comedy movie. That’s the best they could do under the current circumstance because they have transformed that once respectable institution into a circus.
How could any sane person indict someone for “misappropriation of public funds amounting to $2,560,000…” when that person never touched or had access to those funds for which he is being indicted? How could the ACC fail to indict Alie Kabba, the current Sierra Leone Ambassador to Egypt, and Nabeela Tunis, the current Minister for the Western Region, both of whom were Foreign Ministers at the time when the funds were allegedly misappropriated? The Africanist Press which broke out that story, with what seems to be irrefutable evidence which the SLPP government is yet to refute, was quite specific that the funds for the renovation of the New York Chancery Building of the Sierra Leone Permanent Mission to the United Nations were mismanaged during the first six months of the Bio presidency!
According to the Africanist Press, the “Foreign Ministry’s banking records show that all of the funds received from the Chinese government for the renovation of the Chancery Building [in New York] in 2018 were used as Daily Subsistence Allowances (DSAs), on flight tickets, and as relocation costs mostly to newly appointed ambassadors and other diplomatic staff posted by the Bio administration to various embassies in 2018”.
So it stands to reason that Alie Kabba, as the first Foreign Affairs Minister in the Bio administration must have allegedly authorized the misuse of those funds with the tacit approval of the Head of State. And it is even being alleged that those funds were finally depleted during the stewardship of Nabeela Tunis as Foreign Affairs Minister. And from the grapevine, it is also being alleged that someone from the SLPP has already refunded US$100,000 as part of his own loot from the US$4.6 million meant for the renovation of that Building. Yet, the Commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission is still keeping mum on that alleged refund (And surprisingly, lawyers associated with the APC are now claiming that they have laid hands on the receipt for the refund.)!
Although I am not a lawyer, but the first of the two indictments against Dr Samura Kamara is laughably laughable because it is funnily funny! Imagine him being charged with the offence “of deceiving a principal.” Deceiving who? When Dr Samura Kamara left as Foreign Affairs Minister in 2017, the funds for the renovation of the Chancery Building in New York were intact. And it was only after the SLPP took over in 2018 that the funds began growing feathers. So, trying to rope Dr Samura Kamara with those indictments is like inferring that he hoodwinked the then Government of Sierra Leone into refurbishing that Building and pocketed two million, five hundred and sixty thousand United States dollars from the deceit! That’s the skewed picture which Francis Ben Kaifala and his investigators at the ACC are trying to paint of him.
What is now clear is that it seems the SLPP’s fight against corruption is solely meant for members of the main opposition, the All People’s Congress (APC), not for those in the SLPP. And what I think the ACC should now be more concerned about is the Governor of the Bank of Sierra Leone (BSL), Professor Kelfela Kallon, who told a Parliamentary Committee that he wasted US$68 million of the tax-payers’ money to bribe hoarders of the local currency, the Leone, with the tacit approval of State House.
And you and I know that a bribe by any other name is still a bribe. And here is a situation in which the Bank Governor openly confesses that he gave bribes to carry out his official duties; yet the ACC is still giving that issue deaf ears. That’s why I’m still trying to come to terms with the death of the ACC’s “Pay No Bribe Campaign”? Has that Campaign been struck off the revised script given to the ACC by State House?
And I don’t know why the ACC is still shrugging off the allegation from Chernor Bah, of the Africanist Press, that the yet-to-be released 2020 Audit Report “allegedly indicts the President and his wife, the former Minister of Finance, and [that] State House officials do not want it released in its current form”. Like the Bank Governor’s error of judgment about state-sponsored bribery; the ACC should also be now looking at the grave allegation that during the auditing process it was allegedly discovered that “At least, five of the hotel receipts presented by the President’s Office to justify his travel expenses were fake. [As] The hotels denied issuing the said receipts. The President’s Office doesn’t want these specific details in the 2020 Audit Report;” which is why the Auditor General, Mrs Lara Taylor-Pearce, has been suspended ahead of the Report’s release!
But Ben Kaifala and his investigators are still feigning ignorance of those weighty allegations surrounding the Presidency. For them, as long as corruption has to do with members of the SLPP government; it will always be a “Buff Case” (in the Krio “savisman” colloquial). And this belief is not lost on Dr Samura Kamara who, in his maiden press conference on 5 October 2021 at his Wellington Street office in Freetown, noted that the fight against corruption by the SLPP government “has lately morphed into a political tool where its sail is directed by political winds, not by concrete evidence-based.” And he had even advised Ben Kaifala “to refrain from acting in a manner which will make even the dimmest of minds to reach the inescapable conclusion that his official actions are politically-driven”.
Indeed. Since he was appointed the ACC czar all his investigations or indictments always appear to be politically-driven. Ben Kaifala, on one occasion, unconsciously told a press conference that he was being puppet-stringed by President Bio, as he it was who instructed him to investigate the New York Chancery Building. So, with such information coming from the Anti-Corruption Commissioner’s own mouth; it will be safe to speculate that he has been going along with the scripts scripted for him by State House!
And I will be surprised if you are surprised at the manner in which the ACC has shamelessly become an appendage of State House. For Ben Kaifala appears to be the Defender-in-Chief for what seems to be state-sponsored corruption. He finds pleasure in taking photos with the First Family and government Ministers than doing the work for which he is being paid. Ben Kaifala and his investigators have transformed that institution into the harlot of Gloucester Street!
But what has amused me in this whole SLPP-ACC indictment charade is the stoicism of Dr Samura Kamara who is allowing Ben Kaifala to play the Roman Fool so that he will die by his own sword! And whilst the ACC clowns are trying to strangle themselves with toilet rolls; the APC 2018 Presidential Candidate is going about his business unperturbed.
It is on that note that I will end today’s One Dropian dropping with a section from the Statement issued by the “Samura Kamara 2023 Communications Bureau”, dated 25 November 2021, which states that, “…in his forty years of public service, his unblemished character has never been questioned both at national and international levels…” Can supporters of President Bio say such for their hero?
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