By: Audrey John
Led in her evidence in chief by CSP Juan M.S. Bull Esq, the second prosecution witness, Christiana Parsons, Validation Manager of Logistics Solutions and Services (LSS) has on Tuesday 7th June 2022 testified before Magistrate Sahr Kekura of Pademba road court No.1 in Freetown against Bockarie Musa, manager of Logistics Solutions and Services.
The witness stated that she knew the accused and her responsibilities as a validation manager includes to review the jobs of the validation officers based on the required document uploaded in their system by customers, access credibility of their jobs, generate final Cargo Tracking Note (CTN), accepts certificate of the validation processes if they are okay but reject final validation certificate if the processes are not okay.
According to her, the essence of the CTN contains detailed documentation of shipments imported into Sierra Leone and exported out of Sierra Leone which have the name of the consignee, the shippers and the vessel name from port to port. She said LSS have a website called www.ctn.slngs.com which can be accessed by customer to create an account for him or herself.
She said customer cargo using this website will follow the instructions in uploading the required documents which is a business registration certificate and the customer will have to send his account creation into their system which will be approved by officer Yasmin.
Madam Parsons disclosed that on the 19th of July 2021 whilst she was on duty in the said office, she saw several CTN applications waiting for CTN generation in the system in favor or marine plus including other files from various customer names registered in their system.
The witness said after she finished working on the other files of the various customers, she noticed that the applications waiting for CTN generations in favor of marine plus were missing from the system.
She added that she immediately checked to know who was working on them and realized that the assistant by the name of Ivan Johnson have the same validation manager access like her. She revealed that the said Johnson, who has been on his annual vacation at home which started on the 1st of July 2021, has been working and generating CTN certificates in favor of marine plus without her knowledge or approval.
Parsons stated that she became upset about her findings and went directly to the deputy CTN manager’s office which is occupied by Precious Luseni who is her immediate line manager and who also doubles as the CTN account manager.
The witness stated that after her discussions with the said Precious, on the 22nd of July 2021, whilst in her office, she saw another set of applications waiting for CTN generation in favor of marine plus. “When I saw that status, I refused to generate the final CTN certificate”, she added. She further stated that she completely ignored the applications in the system because she was hoping that the owners of the system will contact her in case there is a delay in approving their certificate and in view of that her internal investigation will ask them to tell her where they paid their CTN certificate plus but unfortunately, she did not receive any call from the consignee or their representatives instead she received a what Sapp message SMS from the accused wherein he asked her to facilitate a list of eight BL numbers at around 11:00am on the 22nd of July 2022.
The witness disclosed that the BL number is an official document which involves details of everything shipped into Sierra Leone given to the consignee by the shipper. She stated that she ignored the messages of the accused and decided to check each BL number in her own system to know the status of the application he is asking her to facilitate.
Parson said when she checked, she observed that ball the BL number the accused sent to her were the ones waiting for CTN generation in favor of marine plus which she had previously decided not to generate the CTN certification.
According to her, after some hours of ignoring the files in the system, she decided to check and it was at that time that she observed that her assistant, Ivan Johnson had generated the final CTN certificate in favor of marine plus and on the 23nd of July, she observed that some CTN files were approved without her knowledge.
She revealed that she deactivated the marine plus account so that they will not submit and she further extract report from the system to know how many CTN certificates were generated and her finding was that 47 certificates were generated in favor marine plus from the period of 13th July 2021to 23rd July 2021 and their total value was $35,840.
The accused, Bockarie Musa is standing trial on a count charge of conspiracy to defraud-contrary to law and five count charges of embezzlement-contrary to section 17(1) of the Larceny Act of 1916. Police alleged that the accused, on Tuesday 13th July 2021, at Logistics Solutions and Services Office at No.48 Upper Big Waterloo Street in Freetown, conspired together and with other persons unknown to defraud the said office the sum of Le352, 150,000.00 and at the same place, on different dates, embezzled over Le190, 000,000.00 received on account of the management of Logistics Solutions and Services.
CSP JMS Bull Esq appears for the state in the matter whilst C.A Bangura Esq is defending the accused person. The matter was adjourned to the 21st of June 2022.
