March 18, 2021
By Mohamed M. Sesay
In connection with a missing twenty thousand (20,000) Euro donated by the German Government towards Barefoot Solar Project since 2018, Honorable Members of Parliament on the Committee on NGOs, the Sierra Leone Police and the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) have yesterday 17th of March, pledged to jointly expedite the process of speedily investigating the matter and recoup the money.
Providing a background about the money, Opposition Whip Hon. Hassan A. Sesay intimated that on Tuesday the 23rd October 2018, one Dauda Brima reported on behalf of Dr. Jaccob Oladipo, a Member of Bintumani Germany-Sierra Leone Friendship, that sometimes in August 2018, an unknown person used the email account of the Administration Officer of Barefoot Women Solar Engineer in Freetown instructing him to send the sum of 20,000 Euro into a Swedish bank with an account name Barefoot women Solar Engineer in Sierra Leone with account number, 6768489845401IBANHE7060000000489845401.
This criminal act was done on the pretext that the instruction was from the partner knowing same to be false. He added that on receipt of the report by the Sierra Leone Police in 2018, statements were obtained from complainants and a witness with regards to the matter under investigation.
Hon. Hassan Sesay further stated that the matter has dragged on for a long time which has become a concern to the entire leadership of Parliament.
It was disclosed that the initial complainant in the matter Dr. Jaccob Oladipo has now become a suspect. Both his Sierra Leonean and German passports were impounded but later released for him to travel to Germany.
Hon, Sesay called on the intervention of the Director of the Financial Intelligence Unit in order to safeguard the name and reputation of the country.
In his response, the Director of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) David N Borbor expressed delight to be called by Members of Parliament to be involved with this matter.
He said their role at FIU is to assist law enforcement agencies in terms of investigation of both predicate offense as well as money laundering. He added that in their course of investigation on financial institutions on crime generally, they can spontaneously send information to the law enforcement agencies including the Anti-Corruption Commission and the Sierra Leone Police.
Regarding the matter under review, Director Borbor stated that the FIU received a letter dated 26th of February 2021 from the Scientific Support Department of the Sierra Leone Police indicating that Dr. Oladipo residing in Germany remitted the sum of 20,000 euro to an account operated and maintained by the Barefoot Women. The Police also provided indication of the originating and corresponding bank and the receiving bank, the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank.
As part of their mandate, FIU sought to find out whether the aforesaid money was indeed remitted into the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank.
Director Borbor added that a division within the unit looked into the issue by checking their data base relative to transactions above 30 million Leones. This was done to ascertain whether the 20,000 Euro was actually paid into the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank but no trace of it was found.
He suggested that what they really need to do at this stage if at all the money was diverted, he asked the committee to give them ample time in order to cross examine the banking industry if the money landed into any account within the banking industry. He added that they are also going to look at possible linked accounts to the Barefoot Women main Account in order to get at the bottom of the investigation.
“We will also profile the signatories to this account if by some errors of deliberate omission somebody might have directed the payment into their personal account. But in terms of our findings, we have not seen that amount made its way into the account of the Barefoot Women Sierra Leone Commercial Bank. And what I have gathered from our conversation it seems that the money is still in Sweden. What I also want to ask is whether Barefoot Women has authorized the opening of a bank account in Sweden,” he observed.
He concluded by further requesting the originator of the Barefoot Women Account for swift copy of every transaction that they do which would actually help the Unit to move quickly with investigation.
The Chief Superintendent of the Sierra Leone Police Joseph Lahai said after they received the complaint regarding the missing sum meant for barefoot women, they launched an instantaneous investigation and that the evidence they got from the initial stage of the investigation caused them to seize the passport of Dr. Oladipo from travelling out of the country and heo became the suspect of the investigation. Superintendent Lahai further confirmed that Dr. Oladipo received money from Germany on behalf of Barefoot Women organization.
He added that the forensic investigation further proved that most of the email messages sent relating to the money in question was actually sent by Dr. Oladipo eventhough he denied sending those messages. Going into the cyber investigation proper, Superintendent Lahai also asserted that Dr. Oladipo claimed that they hacked his email account which all proved to be a hoax adding that, the internet protocol address proved that the mobile phone of Dr. Oladipo was used to send those messages and also going into the longitude and latitude all proved the exact location of Dr. Oladipo when he was sending those messages.
The chief Engineer of Barefoot Solar Energy Project Haja Nancy Kanu appealed to members of parliament, the Sierra Leone Police and the Financial Intelligence Unit to expedite the investigate process to get to the root cause of the transaction. She added that there is another consignment, a forty feet container belonging to the Barefoot Women which they have not still received from a man referred to as Pa Alhaji.