By Amadi Abadi
There is some serious integrity crisis at the YWCA Vocational Institute following a vacancy announcement of Vice Principal by the principal preference was paid on female candidates and practicing Christians and this did not go down well with would be applicants especially males and non-Christians.
There have also been able allegation of maladministration, lack of confidence in staff members, breach of procurement procedures and poor management of the SKILLS DEVELOPMENT FUND by the principal of the institution Mrs. Willette J. Siatta. The SDF was an initiative by the Government of Sierra Leone and the World Bank and YWCA Vocational Institute was chosen as one of the institutions to implement the project. The purpose was to train youths in skills that would enhance middle level man power.
One allegation made against the principal is that she has marginalized the project coordinating and procurement committee.
A source alleged that money was withdrawn to organize a workshop without respect to the procurement process and that at the end of the workshop participants signed for stipend but that the space indicating the amount they signed for was blank. Another allegation is that the SDF committees set up by the Board of Governors are no longer showing interest in the project for reasons which have not been disclosed.
Some teachers of the institute who are working as Trainers or trainees (TOT) claim that though they are aware that the project budget approved and signed by the principal for them to be paid monthly apart from their monthly salaries they do not received any payments from SDF. It was also revealed that the bursar of the institute tendered her resignation letter because the principal lacked confidence in her. The principal denied all the allegation in her response the principal said “you have not named your sources but there is a teacher here who cannot manage a Diploma class of twenty students but he wants to became vice principal his incompetence has made us fail to submit results to the NCTVA.” Miss Siatta also said that “we also have a retired teacher whom we brought in to assist but he has also disappointed me; this man had been the principal of a private school called PEDMAL and under his administration the school collapsed.
We are managing to pay him but he wants to mislead me to pay teachers from SDF when no provision is made for that. A female teacher Mrs. Isatu Fillie said something similar.
“The man is not a teacher here but we are paying him he wants to mislead us to do the wrong things we cannot accept that If we allow him to mislead us, he will be around to suffer the consequences. We have been averted and we have no queries neither has the SDF secretariat received any complaints about us.”
Mrs. Fillie is the No 2 focal person of the SDF YWCA Institute an aspirant with the position of vice Principal, She sums to be a confidant of the principal.
On further investigation it was revealed that the male teacher whom the principal blamed for poor management of twenty diploma students one Mohamed Swaray and the man whom she alleged that PEDMAL fell under is Sandow Sebe Nika .
Mr. Ninka was on his way to a family meeting when we tried to contact him.
But he briefly said ‘I cannot mislead the principal if she says I am behind the allegation being made against her it is because I had written a letter to her in whom I raised concerns regarding the management of the SDF.