By Septimus Senessie in Kono
The Anti-Corruption Commission has nabbed three education officials in Kono district following an investigative story published by Politico a few weeks ago. The three are Sahr Patrick Fillie (supervisor of schools), Sorie Nfatorma Brima (a former principal of the Experimental Secondary school and the head teacher of Experimental Primary school, Sahr Eric Jabba.
Accused of embezzling school fees subsidies amounting to millions of leones, they were arrested and detained for several hours last week at the Tankoro Police Division in Koidu.
According to the sub regional manager of the ACC in Kono District, Rev. Bob Kandeh, the three people were preliminarily investigated for the use of school fees subsidies and it was discovered that there was a lot financial mismanagement by the three men. He said that 99% of receipts shown to the commission on how the 2011, 2012 and 2013 school fees subsidies were used by the three were not signed and stamped from the business houses they claimed to have done the transactions with.
Kandeh said the supervisor of schools was arrested because he allegedly connived with the two teachers to defraud the government. He said evidence showed that the supervisor was asking the teachers of the above-named schools to ‘’give him his own share of the subsidies anytime it arrived”.
Asked how much the total money was, the ACC district manager said that they could not tell, adding, ‘’our investigators will be in the district to further interrogate them and at the end of the investigations we will arrive at the total amount that was embezzled.’’
He further said that they had received many complaints from schools all accusing that the district education office of conniving with some head teachers to defraud the government, as well as the excessive misuse of school fees subsidise in the district. Kandeh added that they had received reports of supervisors of schools at the education office conniving with head teachers to “inflate the actual numbers of pupils in class to receive more fees subsidies and later go into percentages with them.” This, he said, they were also investigating.
© Politico 16/10/13
