“Across all our audit entities, whether in ministries, public enterprises or schools, a pattern continues suggesting a need to mend the most basic elements of internal control as well as systems and procedures for record keeping…there is still a lack of awareness that as public servants we are all accountable to parliament and the citizens for managing public funds with due regard and probity”. Lara Taylor Pearce (Mrs) Auditor General
AUDITOR GENERAL’S REPORT SHAMES SALONE
We can safely describe the last seven days in this country as a week of shame. Newspapers have filled many column inches with details of the Auditor General’s report for the year 2011. Slowly but surely the message of the report is sinking in – we have the so-called “toughest anti-corruption law” and yet the Auditor General’s report has just torn to shreds every claim we make about fighting corruption in the country.
Even with the biggest salary ever in the history of Sierra Leone, JOSIE has failed to either prevent corruption or get those stealing from their grandchildren sent to jail.
Not too long ago, the Auditor General’s report was a secret affair – a kind of for the eyes of MPs only thing. We have read the full report and we are truly stunned.
Right through the establishment, the Auditor General found something wrong, beginning with the Ministry of Finance. Here’s a quote from Lara Taylor Pearce’s forwarding note to the Speaker of Parliament:
“…the very definition of what constitutes the government accounting entity needs to be considered, as at present all government bank accounts are not included in the financial statements of the Government of Sierra Leone…” Why is that so, we must ask?
This is one reason we say the report shames every Sierra Leonean. Good luck to those who think otherwise. And we should like to call attention also to a press statement issued by De Pa’s office about something very smelly at the Ministry of Health and Sanitation.
BIG PROFESSIONAL HEADS ROLL AT MINISTRY OF HEALTH
With the Ministry of Health, De Pa may now be running out of ideas as to what to do to clean up the place. In the next edition we shall tweet a few ideas for the benefit of De Pa’s government. Even the ACC has once declared that ministry and the Sierra Leone Police HOTSPOTS of CORRUPTION. Instead of taking the necessary steps to correct the situation, both institutions adopted defensive postures and embarked on some of the most badly organised Public Relations exercises anywhere in the world.
Is De Pa telling us that the ACC’s Systems Review didn’t help in anyway in tracking down people stealing donor money in the health ministry? How many of our children have died because of “official thieves” depriving them of even the most basic of health services? No ACC case can bring them back to life.
Here we quote a few lines from De Pa’s press release.
“The nature and weight of the said allegation makes it imperative that those involved should be suspended from office to preclude obstruction and interference with the conduct of the investigation”.
While none of those listed down as having been asked to stay home has been convicted of any crime, we have to say this looks like a kind of who is who in the ministry’s stealing game. If Sierra Leone was the donor to Guinea Bissau’s health care system, would we put more money there with such brazen corruption?
Who’s with us? No minister has been asked to explain anything as far as we know. Can we now ask De Pa why? Or we can invite Zainab Bangura from Barack Obama country as all of this happened on her watch. The other guys, including that Court Messenger from Kissi Tongi are still here.
Politico remains ceased of this matter.
NASSIT AND THE PENSION FUND DISGRACE: WHAT ELSE?
Staying with the corruption theme, the last few days have also been very difficult for the National Social Security Trust, NASSIT. They have also suspended some of their staff for making some illegal manoeuvres with pensioner’s monies. NASSIT issued a very confusing press release that opened them up to many more questions. We shall be asking them in the coming days.
There’s even talk now that a few people have been made scapegoats to save the skin of the big men in suits who have all kinds of facilities including endless overseas travels and weekly beach front entertainment.
We must warn that NASSIT is the last organisation to create doubts in the minds of the people about the safety of their investments. We are determined not to allow NASSIT to become another Wealth Builders project, no way!
CONNAUGHT HOSPITAL: GIANT RATS AND GARBBAGE TAKING OVER
We are seriously thinking about doing another project in the national interest for which we need your support. We want to hire a modern but local equivalent of the Pied Piper of Hamlyn town to help Freetown clear all those rats that look like squirrels from the network of gutters and darkrooms at the nation’s main referral hospital.
From outside the building looks nice but like a grave, the rottenness is inside the wards and sewerage system.
We visited last week and in one location alone, we counted seven rats operating in full view of hospital managers and patients, looking confident like Freetown’s greedy Land Lords.
We encourage all Sierra Leoneans to contribute to our fund-raising effort at ARATA BANK, No. 000222444333. Please donate generously to a worthy cause. Some of the monies will be used to clear the garbage creeping on Connaught hospital.
Our health system is in peril – huge donor money sent to immunize our children against killer diseases has been stolen allegedly by ministry officials and professional staff who have abandoned their oaths to serve humanity in favour of building houses at Hamilton and Mambo.
Many of our children now exist only in the form of statistics at the death registration office but the hapless Open Government Initiative gave the ministry of health one of the best scores on their politically-correct rogue index.
We can assure you that our fund will be managed in your best interest. DONATE NOW!
IMMIGRATION DEPARTMENT BRINGS IN GOOD MONEY – HELLO KHOLIFA.
We had a long discussion in the office the other day about the wisdom behind every revenue-generating department calling the media periodically to announce the monies they collect as if they are private sector corporations addressing shareholders. What’s the difference between what NRA and immigration do and the budget the minister of finance reads every December? People just want to show off.
For the people of this country, the fact that you zillions of Leones is not the issue. The real issue is: When will hundreds of women and children stop fighting to get clean drinking water daily at Leicester road and Muslim Brotherhood school gate, for example. Children don’t go to school just to fetch water for domestic use. Some girls are even raped in the process by sex offenders now prowling the area.
So while Kholifa and Haja Kallah may be speaking to their bosses, the rest of us don’t even understand what all the grandstanding and noise-making is about. Until a clear connection is established between taxes and the people’s living standards, these people should just keep quiet.
By the way, can Kholifa please use some of that money to build a new immigration office befitting our status? The immigration department is housed in the worst building in central Freetown. The last time we addressed this issue, we urged Kholifa to forcefully occupy the abandoned School of Science and Technology building at Hill Station.
Minkailu Bah has refused to take that project forward because it was started by the GREEN PEOPLE. Government money is going down the drains and Minkailu cares not.
We want to wake up one morning to find the place occupied by the immigration service and we shall shout LONG LIVE ALPHA KHOLIFA of the homeland – Port Loko
THE CASE OF THE RSLAF AND THE RELUCTANT MEDICAL DOCTOR
For weeks now, we’ve been investigating the case of a medical doctor who’s been hounded all over the place by the RSLAF. We have completed our investigations and in true journalistic fashion, we shall soon confront the RSLAF with our facts and then present the story to the people. That’s our job.
We must warn however that we shall go to the people with this story even if the RSLAF decides not to co-operate. We know how they operate – they are masters at what we journalists call stonewalling. It will not work this time.
We proudly call ourselves a democracy, a nation that respects the rule of law. We have a Human Rights Commission and bla bla bla.
At Politico, we have strong reason to believe that a medical doctor who served the RSLAF sometime ago and was gracefully retired from service is now being hounded for God Knows what, by his former employers.
The man is doing well in private practice and some people don’t like that. Our reporters will soon turn up at the MOD with a list of questions. Let there be justice!
