The unexpected transfer of Professor David Francis from the Chief Ministry to Foreign Affairs Ministry is symbolic of a response to the people’s call by President Julius Maada Bio. Office of the Chief Minister is the most important ministry in the Bio administration.
Former Chief Minister, Professor David Francis supervised all ministries and answerable directly to the President. His office overshadowed Office of Vice President.
Professor David Francis is now Minister of Foreign Affairs, but is not free from credibility problems, a situation that has made Sierra Leoneans to raise questions of how he would woo international cooperation and support for Sierra Leone. Despite his serenity and calm composure that offered the Chief Minister an image free from corruption, Chief Minister’s hand was caught on the loot by a US-based media agency, Africanist Press.
Africanist Press lately has produced publications accusing the Chief Minister of corruption on a grand scale. The publications noted that the Chief Minister illegally spent over Le30 Billion on public relations scheme embarked upon by the New Direction Government.
Public relations firms, according to the Publications, received the said sum for an image branding of PAOPA Government abroad. Favourable rankings enjoyed by the New Direction Government have been linked to the elaborate public relations campaign financed by the former Chief Minister.
The situation of good rankings continues to provoke the thought of Sierra Leoneans as to why a non-performing government continues to receive accolades and impressive rankings abroad. It boils down to the huge finances poured into the scheme by the former Chief Minister.
Apart from funding a big public relations campaign for the New Direction Government, the Chief Minister was also accused to have embarked on illegal withdrawals of state finances. The publications noted that in realising his dream, the Chief Minister maintained a permanent batch of cronies at State House who did the bidding.
The illegal withdrawals ran into billions of Leones. As the Chief Minister was about to reel of the effect of the scathing publications, another one also came out accusing the Chief Minister of spending billions of Leones just to furnish his office.
Evidence by way of receipts and documents of the illegal financial transactions done by the Chief Minister were contemporaneously published alongside the corruption allegations.
Despite the damaging publications, the Chief Minister remained mute. The people of Sierra Leone believed that the allegedly corrupt acts of the Chief Minister also smear the image of State House.
A consortium of local civil society organisations: Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law, Restless Development and Christian Aid has pointed accusing fingers of corruption in the Office of the President.
The allegation which is the first after decades labelled Office of the President as the third most corrupt public institution in Sierra Leone. Many Sierra Leone blamed the Chief Minister for the corruption allegations against State House.
Many said the publications in the Africanist Press against the Chief Minister were largely responsible for the corruption allegations against Office of the President.
Not too long, Afro-Barometre in collaboration with Institute of Governance Reform also accused Office of the President as a corrupt institution.
Perhaps, one of the most damaging allegations was the US$1.5M bribe allegedly offered to the Chief Minister by the suspended Iron Ore miner, SL Mining. The journalist who ventured to investigate the corruption allegation was arrested and detained on Chief Minister’s orders.
In all these allegations, the Chief Minister who is in charge of strategic management of Office of the President could not respond to any of the allegations. The allegedly corrupt actions of the Chief Minister brought the entire machinery of government under pressure.
Professor Francis expected to set the pace for a life of probity in the public service. Of all machineries that came under the spotlight for the actions of the Chief Minister was the ACC.
The ACC, quite recently, won high accolades for its aggressive stance against corruption in Sierra Leone.
Its head, Francis Ben Kaifala was honoured as Chief Anti-Corruption Network in West Africa. Sierra Leone was also favourably rated in corruption perception indices.
But, the favourable rating dropped drastically owing to Ben Kaifala’s failure to investigate the Chief Minister after concrete evidence of corruption was published by the Africanist press.
The Chief Minister, once the greatest asset to the New Direction Government has recently relegated to a liability. He has failed to keep his head above waters.
However, the corruption allegations against the Chief Minister beat down the imagination of many Sierra Leoneans in light of the role played by Prof Francis in the early days of the New Direction Government.
In April, 2018 after PAOPA Government took over state governance, Prof Francis was head of a team that authored and produced a Governance Transition Team Report. The report was a complete disfavour to the former government of President Ernest Bai Koroma.
The report accused the past government of embarking on a criminal racketeering enterprise landing the country into a huge debt burden ever seen in post-independent Sierra Leone.
The report also accused the administration of former President Koroma to have embarked on high levels of tribalism and regionalism. The Chief Minister noted that most of the appointees of the civil and public service during the Koroma administration were done on the basis of tribe and region.
Since former President Koroma hailed from the northern region of Sierra Leone, most of the senior public and civil servants that enjoyed rapid promotions were from the north. The report also indicated that the south-east regions of Sierra Leone were marginalised in terms of development.
The report said the north-west was much more developed under the Koroma regime than the south-east.
However, the allegations of misappropriating public finances were the most serious. The scathing allegations prompted the New Direction Government to hurriedly set up commissions of Inquiry to look into the spending activities of the past government.
The commissions have come and gone, and defaulting civil and public servants have been nailed. They are required to pay back what they had allegedly stolen from state coffers. Others have been referred to the Anti-Corruption Commission for full-fledge criminal investigation.
Despite the ferocious fight against corruption by the New Direction, Chief Minister remains government’s biggest SACRED COW. Considering the ruins on his image, Sierra Leoneans wonder about the goodies the Chief Minister would bring home to Sierra Leone as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
See next edition.