March 16, 2021
Albert Baron Ansu
There is an interesting development unfolding in the country akin to the scenario of the hunter becoming the hunted. Thanks to the Anti-Corruption Commission linking key opposition figures to defrauding the state in Constituency Facilitation Fee; it is a sad day for country’s opposition.
The opposition has been predisposed to running with the pack of lies derived from dirty data. Both the All Peoples Congress and National Grand Alliance did not make a sober reflection on the wild allegation of shoddy analysis that was rendered to make the government look bad. It has been a sour grape means of attempting to take away the gloss from the verified good governance ranking of the Bio administration as endorsed by the Millennium Challenge Compact.
The audit report opposition media mistreatment could have burn out in its drab rendering of reprinting figures lacking in provable corruption analysis. But here we are with verified information of graft and sleaze in the operations of influential lawmakers Chernor Maju Bah, Kandeh Yumkella et al.
What are these Honorable Members of Parliament saying now? Their voice is certainly hoarsen and must give them time to speak to the issues from an opposition standpoint in the collective guilt narrative. We want to hear them say the ACC has lied and put the reputations on the line.
Now, the ACC might have diluted the charge, reducing it to a preventive rather than a prosecutorial issue. It is a subject for another analytical episode and we accept that explanation momentarily.
But today, we are talking about how the lawmakers who have been hollering all over the place about corruption frittered resources meant for their constituents. In the shifting moral high ground upon which these lawmakers stood to cuss and accuse the government of corruption; there is the compelling need for them to come clean and explain to us what and where they spent the undisclosed hundreds of millions of Leones. This is question begging for answers. The constituents need to know where the projects are and what procurement standards were applied.
The issue cannot be consigned to fiscal lapses. It is an abuse of office, diverting public fund to personal use. The evidence is in the fact: these lawmakers did not produce documents on how the monies have been used over a period of time. Their constituencies are dire needs of basic services, access to water, and health care, good roads. We have to have determination of how much is actually involved before it can be hushed up as a procedural lapse rather than a siphoning of public resources. They have been using public funds and could not retire expenditure as best financial practice dictates; what is that? It is a crime against the state.
We want to the opposition leaders to find their lost moral voices; lest they have nothing to oppose. Until they clear their names they should keep quiet when it comes to discussing corruption in this country. The people of Sierra Leone note this Anti-Corruption Commission disclosure as a betrayal of public trust; and there is seemingly no hope for oversight responsibility from those placed under the charged. It has turned out to be a plain truth that lawmakers that carried a veneer of sincerity had been complicit in the looting spree that had festered over the years.
In this case, we are hoping that ACC Boss Francis Ben Kelfala is not being cowered to water down the parliamentary investigation. He is going places and proving his relevance which ought to be the sustained intrepidity rather than an act of cherry picking. For in any case, it must start with allegations that must be pursued painstakingly to indict or vindicate. He cannot be accused as accusing all lawmakers as being corrupt, but to make it look like the political party leaders are beyond reproaching is actually a stunner…And chips are coming down!