By Sorie Ibrahim Fofanah
The Public Relations Officer of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), Sylvanus Blake says the Commission has recovered over 45 Billion Old Leones over the past five years from graft-related cases.
Speaking to Politico in an interview on the 5th of October this year at the ACC Integrity Building, Blake said the money includes the 2.36 Billion Old Leones recently recovered from Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) based on the 2021 Audit Reports.
This he said did not include those corrupt cases that the court levied fines on convicted corrupt persons. “For those court fines, they were sent directly into the National Revenue Authority (NRA),’’ he said, adding that monies recovered by the ACC were paid into their account. “So if you add the court fines, it would be above 50 billion Old Leones,’’ he stated.
He said the ACC recovered the 45 billion Old Leones from corrupt people, which he said had been given in ‘cheque’ to the President.
He stated that over fifty percent of those monies were recovered based on reports made by the Audit Service, saying the Special Audit Reports for 2015-18, 2019, 2020, and 2021 were recovered from those reports. “It is an indication of a working process,’’ he said.
Blake said there were over twenty-one thousand and twenty-six (21,026) issues that captured their interest in the 2020 Audit Report, noting they had not finished those issues when the 2021 Audit Report came out.
“But that would not make them dead. We can still go to those files,’’ he maintained, noting they can charge matters to court where they thought it is necessary.
Speaking about transparency at the different MDAs, Blake said they do inform the public through their press releases -naming institutions and persons who are of interest to the ACC, and that they conduct systems reviews and monitor the compliance of ‘best practices‘ of MDAs.’
He said they have introduced an ‘Integrity Score card’ which he noted is a new ‘paradigm’ that the ACC and its partners would use to monitor MDAs and grade them based on their compliance to recommendations made by the ACC.
“If a particular MDA passes the scorecard, that would be informed by what the Monitoring Report says and it will be published to the public,’’ Blake stated.
He said the ACC has informed MDAs about the ‘integrity scorecard,’ so they would not claim not being pre-informed about its existence.
“Every public institution, including us at the ACC, ought to be put under public scrutiny,’’ he noted.
Copyright © 2023 Politico (06/10/23)
