By Ralph Sesay
Mr. Shiaka Sannoh, Chief Executive Officer, Small Medium Term Enterprises Development Agency has testified as CW 8 in the ongoing probe into the activities of the Ministry of Trade and Enterprises under the administration of President Ernest Bai Koroma.
The witness noted that he was appointed as CEO of the agency in November, 2018 and that upon his appointment his predecessor Mr. Raymond Gbekie gave him scanty handing over notes via email which, according to him, was not exhaustive to have covered all the activities of the Agency.
He continued that pursuant to this handing over, he wrote to the Minsitry of Trade and Industry ,the supervising Minsitry of the Agency, calling for an internal audit exercise of the allocation of SME loans to a number of SMEs across the country.
Mr. Sannoh tendered to the Commission a letter in which the former CEO had requested for a soft loan of Le 1.550 million Leones for allocation to SMEs.
The current CEO of the Agency also disclosed to the Commission that even though he did not inherit a handing over note to ascertain the operations of the loans, he was aware that based on an interview with the Senior Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Trade that the Bank of Sierra Leone had a loan scheme managed by the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank through the Ministry of Trade.
He concluded by noting that in December 2018 an audit exercise was undertaken of the operations of the SME loans but up to the period of his testimony a report was not delivered to his Agency by the auditors.
Defense counsel for Persons of Interest, Mr. Amadu Koroma Esq. representing the former Ministers of Trade and their deputies spoke on the issue of handing over notes.
He tendered a six page document as the former CEO (Mr. Raymond Gbekie’s) handing over notes.
The witness was asked to read certain portions of the handing over notes and a number of sub sections as they relate to the development of a three-year Strategic Development Plan and many other activities under the management of Mr. Gbekie.
The current Chief Executive Officer is the eight witness in the ongoing probe at the Justice Biobele Commission of Enquriy.
The issue at hand is the allocation of billions of Leones to support the development and growth of SMEs in the country by the former APC Government.
A Police Inspector who testified at the last hearings indicated that there was rampant fraud in the allocation of the loans and that certain business addresses and individuals mentioned to have benefitted from millions of Leones were non-existent, as indicated in a list presented to him for investigation.