Sierra Leoneans ended last week on another brouhaha wherein a sitting SLPP MP, Hon. Tawa Conteh of Constituency 132, west of Freetown precisely Lumley, Juba and some parts of Goderich had questioned the transparency and accountability of the House of Parliament in terms of managing funds allocated to it by the Ministry of Finance for oversight responsibilities and also to attend to the general welfare of MPs.
The sitting MP and the Clerk of the House were involved in bitter allegations and counter allegations on accounting for funds allocated to the House by the Ministry on FM 98.1 Good Morning breakfast program.
The SLPP was directly calling for accountability in the management of funds allocated to Parliament for oversight functions and other related matters.
His premise was that as a representative of the people it was obligatory on his part to question how the Clerk of Parliament manages funds amounting to billions of Leones.
The SLPP MP was also clear that even though government had made a total allocation of over twenty billion Leones to Parliament, only five Committees had gone on oversight and that the condition of toilets and sanitation in Parliament is deplorable even when Parliament is alleged to be spending whooping sums on water.
Hon. Tawa had literally questioned the lack of transparency on the side of Parliament.
This is not the first time Hon. Tawa is calling his colleagues to order; during the debate on the 2020 Finance Act he had also entreated his colleagues to clean-up the house if ever they are serious about fighting corruption.
The vibrant MP had gone down the books of many Sierra Leoneans when he also openly challenged the passage of the Finance Act 200 especially with the clauses having to do with the provision of a non-accountable imprest for the President, Vice President and Speaker of the House respectively.
Hon. Tawa is deemed by many as very genuine and determined to ensure that Parliament and Government go by the dictates of the New Direction People’s Manifesto which had promised fiscal discipline and an effective management of the economy.
The exchange between the Clerk of Parliament and Hon. Tawa on FM 98.1 Good Morning Salone Program accusing each other of corruption was damning for a government that is professing to be fighting corruption.
What is the ACC doing to trace the lead that has been provided by Hon. Tawa.
The Clerk who was also trying to defend his integrity and that of Parliament against one of its kind, had also accused Hon. Tawa of corruption and also doing nothing with allocations given to him by Parliament quarterly.
The Clerk has even threatened to expose Hon. Tawa more to his constituents with regards funds allocated to him for his people.
The Clerk of Parliament has responded that his books are clean and that his financial reports on the allocations to Parliament are clean and that whooping sums of the said allocations had gone directly to MPs, but that the cost was charged on Parliament.
The allegations and counter allegations were not a surprise for many Sierra Leoneans as Parliament has remained a sacred cow that has always ran away from accountability and transparency.
In the last Parliament under Speaker S.B.B. Dumbuya which Paran Tarawalie was also part of, the Executive Director of CHRDI, Abdul Fartomah, was summoned and detained on the orders of Ibrahim Bundu and the leadership of Parliament just because he had written to Parliament requesting information on how they had spent colossal sums of money from donors and the Government of Sierra Leone.
The said matter died down and the so-called civil society was not able to rise to the occasion to condemn Parliament.
Despite this, Parliament had also failed to account for millions of Leones disbursed as Constituency Development Fund.
The MPs had literally used such monies as pocket monies.
Mohamed Bangura of the APC had at one time stated disgracefully that they used such monies to sympathize with their constituents when they are bereaved (tell berin ossh).
When the New Direction came there was an attempt to fool people that the CDF would no longer be used by MPs to take care of their personal spending, but should be used to build or rent constituency offices but whether these offices were built, Parliament has not told us.
But from the disclosure of the Hon. Clerk, Paran Tarawalie, Hon. Tawa has not built his own office and so also many others would not have built theirs.
So what is New in the Direction in Parliament?
The ACC should remove its one sided lens from the APC to the current officials especially Parliament.
Sierra Leoneans have all the right to know what obtains in Parliament.
We should change from the old direction to a New Direction and Parliament should be part of such reforms.
The current efforts at threatening Hon. Tawa with sections 77 1 (k) within party circles that his actions are un-parliamentary, have no place in our democracy.
For us Hon. Tawa Conteh is a hero and if the accusations against him are true let the accuser prove it.
As we go press it was revealed authoritatively that the ACC has invited Hon Paran Tarawalie and Hon Tawa Conteh to answer questions surrounding the various allegations and counter allegations they made against each other.
CHRDI has also written a letter requesting the ACC to investigate the allocation of Constituency Development Fund to all MP’s in the last nineteen months.