Investigation conducted by Sierra Leone’s anti-graft agency into corruption allegations against First Lady, has been called into question. A huge number of Sierra Leoneans believe that Madam Fatima Bio was never properly investigated.
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) started showed blunders from the outset of the investigation. First Lady’s investigation began in February, this year after a US-based media agency, Africanist Press accused her of grand-scale corruption.
In its publications, Africanist Press alleged that Madam Bio received millions of US dollars in support of the ‘Hands Off Our Girls’ campaign. The campaign was launched by Mrs Bio over a year ago to cut down on incidents of sexual penetration of girls in Sierra Leone.
The launch of the ‘Hands Off Our Girls’ campaign came after a controversial declaration. Of a state of emergency by President Julius Maada Bio. The campaign attracted huge funds that came from local and international donors.
Another allegation raised by Africanist press was that huge amount of money running into over 30, 000, 0000, 0000 (thirty billion Leones) was spent on a three-week stay in Lebanon by the First Lady and her husband, President Bio.
The couple left Sierra Leone at the height of the Corona Virus pandemic without anyone knowing the whereabouts of Sierra Leone’s first couple. Owing to such serious allegations, ACC was called upon to investigate Fatima Bio with an objective of humbling her in court if evidence is found against her.
It was clear that ACC took sides with Madam Bio since the allegations came up.
ACC’s errorneous
investigation came about after an announcement that the commission would first look at the financial activities of Sierra Leone’s former first lady, Sia Nyama Koroma.
Sierra Leoneans in and out of the country as well as donor community were taken aback by ACC’s wrong step. The proposed action was one of the hottest topics for discussion among the public.
ACC Commissioner, Francis Ben Kaifala came under fire for taking sides with Mrs Bio. Civil Society Organizations also expressed similar concerns. A cross-section of Sierra Leoneans called for the withdrawal of the matter from ACC.
For too long, Sierra Leoneans have foreseen the result ACC was going to release after the investigation. The conclusion let out by the ACC resonated with what the people of Sierra Leone had earlier predicted.
The following conclusions were made by the ACC upon completion of the investigation. The ACC concludes that office of the First Lady is not a public office according the Anti-Corruption Law. Ben Kaifala submits that the office is not created by any specific law.
First Lady’s office, according to ACC, is recognized and accepted as a “Conventional Office” within Sierra Leone’s governance architecture. Owing to such acceptance, an occupier of the Office of First Lady has access to public funds, including travel per diems, projects and other state responsibilities.
ACC admitted in its conclusions that Office of the First Lady received billions of Leones for travel, medical and other attendant costs for the past 14 years.
The investigation further indicated that Office of the First Lady had been engaged in charity works for the past 14 years. Public funds, according to ACC, was used to carry out projects such as: ‘Women’s Initiative for Safer Health,’ bed nets projects, ‘Hands Off Our Girls’ campaign among others.
It is also ACC’s conclusion that all payments received by Fatima Bio complied with section 39 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016. In its last conclusion, the ACC recommended that issues of procurement, donations and public funds be dealt with by the Auditor-General’s Department.
It could be deduced from the conclusions that ACC maintained a position it took from the start of the investigation. First ladies have come and gone, but none had been accused of siphoning off public money.
It is the current First Lady, Fatima Bio that is accused by Africanist Press publications of stealing money donated and allocated to her office. The People of Sierra Leone expected that the whole investigation had to be directed to the one accused and not other first ladies.
The investigation was taken too far, a factor that made ACC lose focus on the targetted personality. A member of the public who spoke to this press on condition of anonymity said Fatima Bio’s investigation would be never completed until another government comes in.
He also told this press that in future investigations, the First Lady would be roped in not only for corruption offences but also money laundering offences. He ended by saying that ACC’s investigation was neither credible nor independent.
The ACC Commissioner, he went on, was appointed by the President. It goes without saying that Ben Kaifala might incur the wrath of the President for going after his wife. He therefore argued that only a different government would expose Fatima Bio’s shady deals with donor money.
Apart from the investigation of the First Lady, ACC had dented its image for quite too long. The commission was at loggerheads with the Auditor-General, Lara Taylor Pearce following publications in 2018/2019 audit reports of misappropriation of public funds by New Direction Government.
Lara Taylor Pearce is head of Audit service Sierra Leone, an agency that audits accounts of public institutions. After the audit reports came out, instead of investigating those named therein, the ACC overnight turned itself into public a relations agency for government. The commission went further in discrediting some portions of the audit reports thus presenting Madam Pearce as having an Axe to grind.
Ben Kaifala’s PR strategies for government defeated an earlier stance he took by saying: “gone were the days when audit reports were treated as mere opinions.”
The statement implied that any allegation raised by ASSL would be investigated to establish whether a corruption offence had been committed or not. But the allegations raised by ASSL was never investigated meaning ACC had gone to bed with government. It is therefore no surprise to see Fatima Bio exonerated by ACC after billions of Leones had been stashed away.
However, future investigation when government changed hands could not be ruled out.