I think people have been trying too hard to discredit the reports of the three commissions of inquiry and mobilize negative public sentiments against it. While some have apparently not even taken time to read the reports or the accompanying white papers, they have employed a number of clever but flawed or downright false arguments to support their stance that the commissions amount to political witch hunt.
I’ll attempt to expose the flawed reasoning in these arguments as follows:
i. ) Only persons critical of the government have been found wanting.
This is false since one of the most vocal critics of the current regime, Sylvia Olayinka Blyden was exonerated by the same commissions. Alimamy Petito Koroma, a former APC flagbearer aspirant and former Minister of Public Works was also found blameless as was Dr. Mathew Teambo, a former Minister of Labour and Social Security.
Furthermore, at least one current Minister who served in the last administration is required to refund more than 22 million dollars to the state.
ii.) Former President Koroma was a businessman before he became president so he should be able to own the houses that have now been recommended for confiscation .
The anti-corruption act which mandates asset declaration by public officials renders this argument untenable. By his own declaration in August 2008, the former president said he had roughly 62 million Leones locally plus €12,000 in a foreign bank. Between 2011 and 2018, the former president, according to evidence tendered to the COI, received about 1.5 billion Leones from RITCORP as dividends. His total official income (salaries, pensions and dividends) during his tenure was about 4.5 billion Leones(USD450,000.) Meanwhile the commission determined that he owned a property in Makeni, which acoording to evidence by the contractor who built it (not the valuer please…) cost over 3 million dollars. The money for the said house was paid by a Chinese company to EACON(the construction company).
If you argue that this was a gift, the law mandates that he should have said so in his exit asset declaration. He did not.
I’ll not even mention the other houses which were also recommended for confiscation.
iii) Officials in the current regime are also corrupt so they have no moral ground to call others out for corruption.
While this may or may not be true, what is clear is that such a view is nothing but an insincere attempt to legitimize impunity for corruption. It adds little to the conversation and only reduces it to minuta. There are many ways we can report corruption and if all the institutions are not doing their job, we can only look forward to more commissions of inquiry in the future.
When proceeds from corruption are returned to the state, it is us, the citizens who benefit. We therefore have a sacred responsibility to support the fight against graft and abuse of office, no matter who is involved.
Happy Sunday!
©️ Joel Abdulai Kallon
