President Bio, if you want to fight corruption, it is a noble job. No decent person will hate you for that. We, the media personnel, have been writing volumes demanding action against corruption. Therefore, we have nothing against anti-corruption crusades and commissions of inquiry. However, even a good thing can be done badly.
Your White Paper did not affect some of the kingpins of Sierra Leone’s corruption. You cannot convince anybody that you did not know that certain Sierra Leoneans have lived their whole lives in corruption and that while serving the government, they engaged in wholesale corruption.
The scandal reports and cases are there for you to have used. But President Bio, you deliberately chose not to investigate or punish certain individuals because they were Mendes or Southeasterners or were Northerners who sold out after the APC lost power in 2018 or had family relationships with Vice-President Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh.
You cannot fight corruption with tribalism, regionalism, and special interest considerations as the yardstick. You needed to have been fair to all men and women. Everybody deserves fair and unbiased treatment. When you pick-and-choose whom to investigate and whom to let off the hook because of the tribe, region, party, or other vested interests, you destroy the credibility of the process.
Also, since the penalties are very harsh and will impact the lives of the accused forever, the evidence must be so convincing that men will applaud. The rules of evidence must be followed in each and every case. How did your commissions determine that certain people were living beyond their emoluments? Did they try to find out whether these people had other means of subsistence, like family legacies and businesses? Some of the people whose homes were seized had longstanding and lucrative businesses. Did your commissions find out whether they were also living off the earnings from these businesses?
Sierra Leoneans, by nature, live beyond their means. That has always been a problem. Look at how some dress – women with expensive gold chains, and dresses and men driving flashy cars and building homes – but their salaries are meagre. Men and women spending money lavishly in night clubs and social events and yet have very low-paying jobs
It has always been an issue in Sierra Leone for people to be ostentatious, even when poor. Our people are considered magicians because they live big, in spite of the deplorable salaries and unbearable cost of living. Will Ben Kelfala stop somebody on the street and accuse him of corruption because his flamboyant and bourgeoisie lifestyles are not commensurate with his salary?
Politicians are human beings too. Their behaviours mirror the mores and ethos of society. They too live above their means of subsistence, just like the man-in-the -Street. But before we assume that they must have been corrupt to live such cavalier lifestyles, we should find out first if they had other sources of living. What if somebody owns a fishing or clothes company bringing him additional income and making him live ostentatiously and even building houses? Is that corruption?
I am not against your corruption fight, Mr. President. If done with the right motive and no tribalism, regionalism, or witch hunt, it is a laudable exercise. But the keynote of commissions of inquiry and white papers should be fair to all persons, regardless of tribe, region, party, or family affiliations.
I have lived long enough (Thank God) and I have witnessed many commissions of inquiry in my lifetime. I followed the 1967- 68 commissions of inquiry set up by the National Reformation Council (NRC) led by the late Head of State, Brigadier AT Juxon-Smith. They had the Forster, Dove-Edwin, and Percy Davies Commissions of Inquiry.
The values that typified these commissions were fairness to all persons, regardless of tribe, region or party, adherence to the rules of evidence, and efforts to link every adverse action against persons of interest to concrete evidence, instead of assumptions. Because of these factors, nobody complained that it was a witch hunt or politically and tribally-motivated exercise.
Homes have been asked to be confiscated and millions have been ordered to be paid back to government coffers. We hope the process of enforcement will be fair and legal and all appeal cases must be judiciously heard on the basis of merit
