In Sierra Leone, Anti Corruption Breezes into Jubilee Committee

y Abdul Fonti & Aruna Turay Feb 24, 2011, 17:28	Email this article  Printer friendly page
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The Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) has commenced investigation into the activities of the 50th Independence Anniversary Planning Committee; sources at the ACC have confirmed.

As investigation intensifies, former Deputy Chairman of the Committee, Dr. Julius Spencer, has confirmed to have received a letter from the ACC dated Tuesday 22nd February 2011 instructing him to submit all of his traveling documents to the Commission.

In a telephone interview with the Awareness Times Newspaper yesterday, Wednesday 23rd Feb

ruary 2011, Spencer said he has complied with the instruction of the ACC.

“I have already submitted the requested documents to the Commission,” Spencer said, while confirming that he is being investigated with regards expenditures of the 50th Independence Anniversary Planning Committee.

Although sources at the ACC suggest that similar instructions for the submission of travelling documents to the Commission have reached the sacked Coordinator and Executive Secretary of the Anniversary Committee, William Konteh and Yeniva Sisay-Sogbeh respectively, the two sacked officials have denied the assertion.

ACC Boss

Konteh and Sisay-Sogbeh told this writer yesterday that they were yet to receive such instructions from the ACC.

The Accountant and Procurement Officer of the Committee, Brima Kamara and Kutubu respectively have also been invited by the ACC for questioning, ACC sources told the Awareness Times.

Yesterday evening, Kutubu said he was yet to receive the ACC invitation, but confirmed that Kamara, the accountant, had already been served the letter. The Accountant was however, unavailable for comment as at press time.
 
The ACC probe into the finances of the Committee came in the wake of several calls by the citizenry seeking the intervention of the Commission after the finance sub-committee that was set up to investigate the status of the Committee’s finances unearthed massive financial irregularities.

Julius Spencer

Earlier, Dr. Julius Spencer resigned from the Committee. Few days after this, President Koroma sacked the Committee’s National Coordinator and his Executive Secretary.

The aforementioned committee members stand accused of misappropriating funds amounting to over five billion leones.

Meanwhile, the ACC Boss, Joseph Fitzgerald Kamara, has commended the Managing Director for Citizen Radio, veteran journalist David Tam Baryoh, for the latter’s famous radio ‘good governance programme’ called ‘Monologue’.

In a recent radio interview, the ACC Commissioner said the introduction of Tam Bayoh’s ‘Monologue’ programme has been of tremendous help to the ACC. According to him, Tam Baryoh and a couple of forward thinking journalists have been exposing corrupt individuals through their individual mediums.

The ACC boss cited the ‘patriotic role’ played by Tam Bayoh and his monolog programme in exposing excesses at the 50th Independence Anniversary Planning Committee. Kamara said the revelations of Tam Baryoh have been very vital in the ACC investigation.

The ACC Commissioner also used the forum as an opportunity to assure listeners that the ACC will leave no stone unturned in fighting corruption in Sierra Leone. He further informed that there are more ‘big fishes’ to be ‘hooked’ by the Commission, while adding that the Commission is presently looking into several complaints of alleged corruption in public offices such as the Freetown City Council, the Sierra Leone Football Association, the Sierra Leone Immigration Department, the Sierra Leone Library Board and that of the Sierra Leone Teachers Union (SLTU) among others.