By: Ilyasa Baa
Owing to the call made by President Julius Maada Bio during the State Opening of Parliament referencing infrastructure for development, the Head of Infrastructure for Development has commenced on the spot checks on the building under construction by the Anti – Corruption Commission (ACC) to be used as office space by the commission.
Presenting his findings to this medium, after their assessment tour of the building, Chairman, Board of Directors, Infrastructure for Development, Charles Mambu told this medium that it remains 5% for the completion of the four – storey building on Tower Hill in Freetown. He said the contractor which is Guogi has done tremendously well with the project noting that 95% of the project has already been completed. “I am pleading with the Ministry of Finance and by extension President Bio to fast tract the payment so that the ACC would transfer and stop spending millions of Leones from the Consolidated Fund on paying just rent”, he said, adding that as a civil society watch consortium, they will be embarking on full scale assessments of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to see how they are doing towards infrastructure. He said there is need for MDAs and parastatals to own their offices instead of paying millions of Leones to landlords like the ACC has been doing to the Catholic Diocese which owns the building they are using currently.
Mr. Mambu highlighted that from the look of things the ACC has been running the building project according to what was outlined initially and that the materials used in the construction were standard.
It could be recalled that in 2017-2018, the Infrastructure for Development formally wrote to the government of Sierra Leone in respect of the huge sums of money the government is spending on renting offices. The Consortium has been calling for MDAs and parastatals to construct their offices instead of paying huge chunks of cash on rents.
