By Septimus Senessie in Kono
Three public officials and one civil society member have been released on bail after they were briefly detained and interrogated by police for allegedly stealing five solar panels meant for the rehabilitated under-five children’s hall.
Police at the Tankoro Division said the suspects, the district medical superintendent Dr. Tamba Lebbie, finance officer Thomas Bashiru Sesay and chief security officer at the government hospital Ibrahim Kamara, as well as the deputy district coordinator of Health Alert, Sahr Joseph Ansumana were also being investigated by the anti-corruption commission, ACC.
Meanwhile, a certain Mr. Suma, the owner of Breakthrough Design Construction Company in charge of the rehabilitation of the hospital could not be found.
Sahr Nabieu, the public education assistant in the ACC sub-regional office in Kono, said that in the early hours of Sunday 12 January, 2014, they got an intelligence report from an unnamed source that the medical superintendent and the finance officer were being assisted by three other people to steal the five solar panels from the store where the contractor had stock-piled his building materials in the dwelling house of the district medical superintendent, Dr. Lebbie.
He recounted that on the following morning, 13 January, they raided the hospital and the dwelling house of Dr. Lebbie where they found the five solar panels under his bed. He said they then removed the items and took them to the police station as evidence for police investigations.
The ACC man also alleged that they also found out that a good number of solar panels, apart from the five in police custody and other assorted building materials which were removed during the rehabilitation process, were stolen by the hospital authorities. He accused the civil society man of connivance.
A crime officer, Inspector Abdulai Kemokai, confirmed the detention and release on bail of the public officials on condition that they must report to the police on a daily basis until investigation was completed.
He also confirmed that they had in their possession some evidence brought in by the ACC officials and described the matter as “serious”, adding that it was wrong to keep government property in a private dwelling house.
He said they were also interested in knowing about the remaining solar panels because they also had intelligence that some other solar panels and assorted building materials that were removed during the rehabilitation process had not been accounted for.
Meanwhile the suspected medical superintendent, Dr. Lebbie, declined to comment on the matter despite several attempts by Politico to have his side of the story. But his finance officer, Mr. Sesay, confirmed that he was ordered by the medical superintendent to take the solar panels to his dwelling house "for safe keeping".
He said they had involved the Health Alert deputy district coordinator, and the chief security officer at the hospital to serve as their principal witnesses to the removal of the solar panels from the hospital. Although the civil society man denied the claim, saying that he went to the hospital unofficially to see a patient when he ran into them, he was quoted as saying in earlier radio interviews that the suspects had done nothing wrong by removing the solar panels.
The chief security officer said he intercepted the medical superintendent and finance officer and asked them to log in the items before they could take them out of the hospital compound but that he was ignored.
(C) Politico 21/01/14
