The Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) has recently asked the Mayor of Freetown City Council (FCC), Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, to pay back all monies owed to the council with regards the reported high air flight tickets and per diems running into millions of leones for some of her staff under the Mayor Delivery Units, as was reported in the latest Auditor General’s Reports released by Audit Service Sierra Leone (ASSL).
This information was made known by the head of Public Education and Outreach at the ACC, Patrick Sandy, during an interview with a local media house.
Responding to questions on the latest ACC investigations, Patrick Sandy noted that the investigations on the FCC mayor’s activities commenced recently following some allegations made against her delivery team regarding financial irregularities on key council projects. Sandy said after going through some documents made available to the commission he noticed that the mayor did not take most of her projects and proposals through the right channels before implementing them, adding that after concluding their preliminary investigations they gave the mayor two options: either refund the said monies or face court indictments.
He continued that there are lots more to fight against nationally, adding that the said allegations have placed the Mayor Delivery Units under bad light. The ACC mouthpiece also noted that there is a case for the FCC mayor to answer and that she is not the only local council official under the ACC spotlight.
Sandy continued that they conducted further investigations based on the ASSL report, and revelations about financial and other irregularities at local councils had been channelled to the relevant authorities, including the Moyamba District Council, Port Loko District Council, among others.
Meanwhile, some civil society organisations are calling on the ACC to carry out comprehensive investigations on the ASSL reports instead of being selective when choosing their cases. According to Lawrence Williams from the Fritong Post organisation, there are other ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) that have issues similar to the FCC mayor’s, but the ACC has not done anything to bring them to book. He highlighted issues such as ghost workers and withdrawing monies from imprest accounts without any supporting documents, which are some key issues that run across several MDAs nationwide.