By Thomas Dixon
FREETOWN, June 24 (SALONE TIMES) – The Anti-Corruption Commission of Sierra Leone last Friday 18 June finally came out with a statement on the investigation into allegation of corruption in the Office of the First Lady.
It could be recalled that recently leaked documents about unlawful money that were spent by the First Lady of Sierra Leone on her offices in which she expended without following laid down rules.
According to the Statement from the ACC, they confirmed that there is no such Office as Office of the President in the laws of Sierra Leone but that it has been recognized and accepted as a Conventional Office within the governance architecture of Sierra Leone and had accordingly been accorded avenues to access Public funds, including travel per diems, projects and official responsibilities like State Dinners and entertainment for over 20 years.
“With respect to specific payments made to First Lady Mrs. Fatima Bio, the Commission confirms that it was done in compliance with Section 39 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016; that gives the State, authority to expend State funds to unallocated head of expenditure to a certain threshold, to “necessary” public cause(s) in the interest of the Public and that the said allocations were confirmed to be the exercise of the discretion provided by law to the Minister of Finance,” the ACC release states
Instead of prosecuting for breach of basic procurement rules by the Office of the First Lady, the ACC shifted the responsibility to the Audit Service Sierra Leone by stating, “other issues of expenditure, including prudential financial management, procurement issues, the interface between charitable donations to the said office with public funds, etc. will be dealt with within the framework of the Auditor-General’s Report 2019 and, we will be giving due deference to those recommendations and act on them accordingly.”
That based on the above and upon analyzing the records of accounts, official approval documents and the legal and regulatory framework concerning payments made to the Office of the First Lady since 2007 to date, that they can confirm that there is not, at this stage, any criminal responsibility in the process of payments to, and expenditures relating to, the Office of the First Lady.
That the probe has been accordingly closed by the ACC while the issues pertaining to the audit recommendation have been referred to the Prevention Department of the Commission for follow-up on the compliance by the Office of the First Lady with the Audit recommendations and other related Prevention work in that regard.
