Prominent and disgusting among the acts of corruption outlined by Commissioner Justice Biobele Georgerill was that on Ebola Response. It was even surreal that funds meant to rescue dying patients from death could be squandered in a big way. That fraud had been revealed in the past by a previous Audit Report but was swept under the carpet while the government in power at the time wielded its unchallengeable influence.
The matter has now been uncarpeted thanks to the findings of a Commission of Inquiry.
Highlighting the fraud, Justice Biobele said that Le85,239,738, 225,94 and USD2,471,993.41 were misappropriated or unverified and had remained unaccounted for between the EOC/Ministry of Health and Sanitation: NERC, their several collaborators.
Commissions of Inquiry in Sierra Leone are not new. It is a way of auditing the outgoing governments and attempts to start on a clean state. There have been compromises here and there resulting in confiscations and returns of property sometimes defeating the development as a whole have gone into the development of individuals and their families and relatives.
The Ebola amounts misappropriated, that amounted to about one quarter of all funds misappropriated, could have been used to save thousands of lives lost unnecessarily to the disease. More medicines should have been bought and more vehicles and provisions for their maintenance made. More provisions should have been made to take care of Ebola survivors and orphans.
Embezzlement of public funds purposes of the Commissions.
After 58 years of Independence Sierra Leone ought not to be in the dire straits in which we find ourselves today. We do not deserve this with all our natural endowments. With 1.5 hectares of fertile and arable land, enviable mineral resources, one of the best natural harbors in the world the good Lord may have inadvertently got the wrong people to settle therein.
As a result selfishness and materialism have held away. Proceeds from resources that should have been used for ought not to have been extended to the Ebola funds which were wholly and solely for life-saving. It was done by sadists and Sierra Leone should have no place for sadists.
It is unfortunate that there has been a culture of embezzlement of public funds that has even become fashionable. We should be reminded of the fact that man’s inhumanity to man is one of the greatest thoughts of the universe.
Embezzlement leading to the direct deaths of thousands is treason and all those involved should be charged with the crime and should receive the appropriate penalty without exception. The present President should do well to distance himself from such a heinous deed.