Indicting Freetown Mayor by Visibly Corrupt Anti Corruption is a Threat to Existential Democracy
By Abu Shaw
The biased SLPP Anti-Corruption Commission ACC has indicted innocent Freetown Mayor but has ignored SLPP thieves like the First Lady and others.
Fatima Jabbe Bio, the First Lady of Sierra Leone aka ‘Mob Justice’ who got this nomenclature for preaching mob justice for citizens who disobey or criticise the SLPP government, has been caught skirts down by the Africanist Press siphoning millions of US dollars of public money in the last four years. Fatima initially publicly denied any involvement in financial malpractices but when the respectable US-based Africanist Press released documentary proofs to prove otherwise, Fatima Bio made a U-turn and shamefully accepted on BBC news that indeed her fake office had received finances from the SLPP government. That in itself was against the laws of Sierra Leone because her Office of the First Lady is not entitled to receive a dime from the Consolidated Revenue Funds. But the ACC led by President Bio’s stooge Francis Ben Kaifala paid deaf ears to Fatima’s thievery. (Photo: Freetown Mayor Aki-Sawyerr is more revered in the major democracies than President Bio. The SLPP regime’s jealousy has emanated from that purview).
Instead, the corrupt ACC has persistently attacked and molested innocent politicians like the Freetown Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr from the main opposition APC party to primarily smear their good names. Sierra Leone has no more democracy factually under the ruling SLPP government of President Julius Maada Bio. Today, the elected Mayor of Freetown Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, who received more votes in Freetown than even President Bio in the 2018 elections, is being targeted unjustifiably by the Bio presidency for one primary reason only i.e. to destroy and damage the reputation of the seating Mayor of Freetown because she is a member of the main opposition APC party. As a consequence, the failed SLPP government through the most corrupt Anti-Corrupt Commission ACC in Sierra Leone history has recently indicted the Mayor on very flimsy and ridiculous corruption charges.
This is the latest information coming from the overtly biased and criminal SLPP institution called the ACC. It is all geared towards the intimidation and harassment of the hardworking Freetown Mayor Aki-Sawyerr and other top APC party officials in general by the SLPP government’s devious agenda to eliminate the APC opposition from Sierra Leone politics. The Bio presidency, since April 4, 2018, when they took over State House after winning the 2018 elections in controversial circumstances, has orchestrated very cruel policies by bringing concocted charges of corruption against many leading APC officials like Dr Samura Kamara, who is the leading candidate for the APC flagbearer-ship for the 2023 presidential elections. Maada Bio wants to dislodge his main competitor the APC before next year and by indicting Dr Samura Kamara for corruption, President Bio thinks that would be the only way to stop the APC heavyweight from ousting President Bio in 2023.
It is ironic that the SLPP regime, which continues to lie to every stakeholder like the Millennium Challenge Corporation MCC that they are truly determined to fight corruption, has been caught pants down in fraudulent and financial malpractices never seen in the country’s history. This is the hypocrisy of the highest order by the SLPP regime. The no-nonsense Africanist Press has revealed high-level corruption in the SLPP government with documentary evidence to prove it but the inept and blatantly partial SLPP Anti-Corruption Commission chairman Francis Ben Kaifala has decided to ignore these provable corrupt practices just because it involves top SLPP government functionaries in the ruling SLPP regime. Ben Kaifala is only interested in investigating the opposition APC politicians, even if they are innocent, and most of them, especially those being targeted, like the Freetown Mayor, are innocent and never involved in fraud. (Photo: Maada Bio and his wife Fatima are the real thieves that should be facing the ACC but innocent people are chased instead).
President Bio’s office, the Office of the First Lady, the Office of the Chief Minister, and the offices of the Ministries, Agencies, and Department MDA under this SLPP regime have all been probed and the Africanist Press has unearthed corruption and named them as grossly involved in financial mismanagement. But the ACC under Ben Kaifala has always paid deaf ears to this vital information because it involves SLPP officials. Yet, the SLPP regime continues to lie that President Bio is sincere and honest in the fight against corruption. Everyone knows how the Bio presidency had and continues to intimidate and harassed and eventually sacked the revered Auditor General of the Sierra Leone Audit Office Madam Lara Taylor-Pearce whose investigations had discovered serious malpractices at State House and other government institutions. The forged receipts by President Bio’s office were uncovered by the Audit Office and that was why the corrupt regime dismissed the Auditor and her innocent Deputy Mr Tamba Momoh. Below is the press statement dated May 11, 2022, from the ACC regarding the Freetown Mayor’s indictment thus –
ACC Concludes Investigation into Issues Relating to Payments Made to Non-Staff Personnel in the Freetown City Council by Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyer
ANTI-CORRUPTION COMMISSION
CATHEDRAL HOUSE
GLOUCESTER STREET
FREETOWN
SIERRA LEONE, WEST AFRICA
Ref: ACC/PR/22/008 – 11th May 2022
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) wishes to inform the general public that it has concluded the investigation into the Freetown City Council (FCC), relating to issues highlighted on the Council in the 2019 Auditor General’s Report concerning payments of council funds to the personal staff of the Mayor. The 2019 Audit Report stated inter alia that, the FCC made payments totalling Two Hundred Million Eight Hundred and Forty-two Thousand Three Hundred and Thirty-three Leones (Le 200,842,333) for travelling expenses (Air tickets and per diems) to one Manja Isata Kargbo, Head of the Mayor’s Delivery Unit (MDU) who is not an employee of the FCC.
The Report further claimed that the said amounts paid were not budgeted for by the Council nor did they receive appropriate approval. The ACC comprehensively conducted the investigation into the issue, during which persons of interest were interviewed, including the Mayor of Freetown City Council, the Chief Administrator of the FCC, the Consultant Team Lead in the MDU, Manja Isata Kargbo, the Human Resource Officer of the FCC, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD), among other staff of the FCC and the MLGRD. (Photo; The ACC Chairman Ben Kaifala is Maada Bio’s puppet who has disgraced the ACC nationally and internationally).
The investigation confirms the following:
- That the MDU was a private unit within the Office of the Mayor that did not go through normal administrative procedures for its set up and was entirely done by the Mayor without any approval from the Ordinary General Meeting of Council, and was done without any recourse to the MLGRD, and there was no legal basis under the Local Government Act of 2004 for such.
- That Manja Isata Kargbo was not properly employed by the FCC. She started work as a volunteer in the Mayor’s Office and later was singlehandedly contracted by the Mayor as a Consultant Team Lead in the MDU on 1st November 2018 without observing the Council’s normal recruitment procedures and without going through the administrative and Human Resource apparatus of Council.
iii. That on various dates in 2019, Manja Isata Kargbo received the total sum of Two Hundred Million Eight Hundred and Forty-two Thousand Three Hundred and Thirty-three Leones (Le 200,842,333) as travelling expenses while accompanying the Mayor on her foreign trips: Fifty-two Million One Hundred and Fifty-eight Thousand One Hundred and Seventy-six Leones (Le 52,158,176) for a trip to Copenhagen, Denmark for the C40 World Mayors Summit; Fifteen Million Nine Hundred and Two Thousand Leones (Le 15,902,000) for a trip to the United States of America for the TED Women; Fifty-eight Million Nine Hundred and Forty Thousand Leones (Le 58,940,000) for a trip to Durban, South Africa for the Global Parliament of Mayors; Twenty-eight Million One Hundred and Forty-four Thousand One Hundred and Forty-eight Leones (Le 28,144,148) for a trip to South Carolina, United States of America for the Ground Breaking IAAM Charleston Structure and Bloomberg City Lab; Thirty-three Million Nine Hundred and Ninety-four Thousand Leones Six Hundred and Thirty-eight Cents (Le 33,994,638) for a trip to United States of America for the International African American Museum and Mayor’s Migration Council; and Sixteen Million and Thirty-three Thousand Leones (Le 16,033,000) for a trip to Paris, France for the C40 Women in Climate Change. Manja Isata Kargbo however refunded the sum of One Thousand, Two Hundred, and Fifty Dollars ($ 1,250) in its equivalent in Leones out of the One Thousand Four Hundred Dollars ($1,400) paid to her in Leones for the said trip.
- That for the trip to Copenhagen, the Foreign and Protocol Officer mistakenly paid Manja Isata Kargbo the sum of Five Hundred Dollars ($500) instead of Four Hundred Dollars ($400) when a request for additional two days per diem was made.
- That these payments were improper payments as captured in the Auditor General’s Report.
- That the Commission takes note of the Administrative Inquiry Report into the Management of the Freetown City Council commissioned by the MLGRD in November 2021, which stated as follows;
4) That the issue of the MDU is the greatest threat to peaceful coexistence at the FCC. The introduction of the Unit in the governance structure of the FCC has caused ill feelings in the minds of the FCC functionaries.
5) That there is a need to critically re-examine the position/status of the MDU within the Council with a view to abolishing it and transferring roles and responsibilities to regular Council staff.
6) That a cumulative sum of Two Hundred Million Leones (Le200,000,000) was paid from the Council account to a non-Council staff (an MDU staff) for various overseas trips. These payments were not provided for a part of the expected Council expenditure. Therefore, the payment contravenes the Local Government Act 2004.
7) That the MDU staff who was paid a cumulative sum of Two Hundred Million Leones (Le200,000,000) for the overseas trip be made to repay the amount within a period to be determined by the Council.
8) That these findings are consistent with our separate and independent investigation of the issue and similarly confirm the findings in the Audit Report aforesaid.
The Commission, therefore, had directed that the Consultant Team Lead in the MDU, Manja Isata Kargbo, and the Mayor Yvonne Aki Sawyerr jointly pay back the sum of One Hundred and Eighty-seven Million, Nine Hundred and Four Thousand, Eight Hundred and Thirty Leones (Le 187,904,830) in lieu of criminal prosecution. That the Mayor and Madam Kargbo had through their lawyers communicated requesting that they do not repay the said amount, but the Commission has rejected the same and they are now under obligation to pay while prosecution is being considered.
Courtesy: PATRICK SANDI, DIRECTOR, PUBLIC EDUCATION AND OUTREACH – For further inquiries on this and other ACC matters, please contact Sylvanus Blake, Assistant Public Relations Officer, at +232-78-832-131 or by email at [email protected]
