The main opposition, All People’s Congress (APC) should be on their guard as president Maada Bio and SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) have a poor track record of setting up committees aimed at resolving impasses or stalemates.
Given SLPP’s history, SLPP-led government under president Bio is sometimes not genuine when it comes to setting up committees to look into issues of national importance with the tendency to further divide the country owing to the outcome of such committees or tribunals.
Does APC trust that president Bio and his party will do the needful as recommended or resolved in the communiqué from the dialogue between the SLPP and APC to settle the impasse that has resulted from the announcement of Maada Bio winner of June 24, 2023 presidential elections?
Many are of the opinion that despite the promises made, the committees to look into the electoral dispute will go the same way as other committees set up by the Bio regime since 2018.
At the end of the investigations, Bio always gets what he desires.
After his controversial victory in 2018, President Bio, in an effort viewed as his first diversion tactics against the APC, set up a Governance Transition Team (GTT), after accusing the past APC government headed by President Ernest Bai Koroma 2007-2018 of high-scale corruption.
The investigation was aimed at deflecting public attention from APC’s refusal to accept the 2018 elections result which worked well for Bio as he went on to complete his first term despite APC’s doubt that he won the elections in a free, fair and credible manner.
Meanwhile, because the committee was established to look into the financial decisions by vote controllers under the Koroma regime, the committee moved at a breakneck speed to investigate and finalise its report recommending the establishment of the Commissions of Inquiry (COIs) that castigated the entire regime under EBK as a ‘criminal racketeering enterprise.’
The GTT report which was spearheaded by Bio’s first chief minister, Professor David Francis, resulted into a government White Paper that recommended criminal prosecutions of those from the old regime found wanting of corruption or being involved in financial crimes by using money far from their intended purposes and not being able to account for money entrusted to their care in their work for the government and people of Sierra Leone.
Although the GTT report left much to be desired, as the report was tilted on SLPP’s side.
It formed the basis for the pillage of state resources by duty bearers of the SLPP-led government who took advantage of the overt focus of the nation’s anti-graft agency, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) on members of the past regime under EBK to make spending decisions by their cohorts under EBK resembling a walk in the park.
Owing to the committee’s main objective of unearthing and exposing former thieves of the people’s money under the APC regime, the result was fast tracked and the decisions that resulted, including but not limited to the court cases and forfeiture of property and reclaiming of cash from those APC public servants found wanting.
Travel bans on past government employees and the investigation Koroma himself was swift and final.
Meanwhile, some of the recommended cases in the White Paper are ongoing which still presents a cause for concern for many former government employees caught in the White Paper drag net.
Still hitting high notes from the SLPP regime’s success at going after past government employees, a revelation by the US-based Africanist Press into the activities of the former chief minister, David Francis almost dampened Francis’s fervour as he was accused of accepting a bribe of $1.5 million from SL Mining aimed at garnering enough influence for the mining company to operate in the country.
Although there was possibly a strong case against Francis who was also accused of flouting procurement regulations in securing office equipment and spending billions of Leones in securing the services of an international public relations firm aimed at making the SLPP palatable to the international community, he was never investigated.
Although ECO Bank where the alleged US$1.5 million was reportedly stashed, refused to cooperate, the president’s decision to remove Francis from the chief to the foreign affairs ministry, and his subsequent drop from Bio’s government for his second term regime gave some credence to Africanist Press accusations.
The SLPP government and president Julius Maada Bio’s foray into setting up committees to look into issues of national importance was tried and tested several times.
In 2019, the President set up a committee to investigate the killings at the Pademba Road Prison where security officers from State House allegedly opened fire and killed scores of inmates that were reportedly attempting to break out of the prison using inmates’ anger and fear of a suspected COVID-19 case as the cover for such a ploy.
The investigation into the Pademba Road massacre was to form the basis for other investigations into state security officers opening fire on protesting civilians across the country from 2018 to 11th September, 2023.
However, because of the sensitive nature of the investigation including but not limited to the actual number of inmates or protesters that were killed, the report was not accepted as being credible as it attempted to shift blame for the killings on those that lost their lives, while it made no effort to investigate and prosecute those who shot and killed the country’s compatriots.
The report from the committee set up to look into killings of inmates at the Pademba Road Prison is a clear indication that government cannot be expected to fairly investigate its own activities.
Another committee, this time a tribunal, was set up to look into the affairs of the suspended Auditor General, Lara Taylor Pearce and her deputy Tamba Momoh who were axed by the president for refusing to take orders from the President regarding audits of his office and the offices of his wife and the vice president of the republic.
After several meetings, the tribunal made up of three former judges is yet to come to a conclusion on the matter citing among others lack of funding to properly execute their work.
The tribunal is in effect still active although we do not think Lara and Tamba will have any luck in hell to be reinstated to their offices and all backlog salaries and other perks or emoluments sorted out.
After his second controversial win at the polls in yet another presidential result impasse, the 2018 impasse petition was not addressed by the judiciary until 2022, four years after, the president set up a committee to look into the country’s electoral management system.
However, the work of that august body was bastardised by the regime when it made the vice president who was a candidate in the past election head of the committee against all advice and sound logic.
How can Sierra Leoneans take a report from that committee serious seeing that a player had been made a referee?
Today, the nation, based on the communiqué that resulted from the dialogue into the disputed June 24, 2023 elections, is once again looking up to the president to set up committees to look into the alleged election fraud.
However, based on the this regime’s track record setting up such committees which always resulted in what the party hopes to establish despite the facts, will they do so in good faith, especially if the recommendations go against their party’s expectations?
Remember, these recommendations are not legally binding on the SLPP.