By Septimus Senessie in Kono
The Anti-Corruption Commission in Kono District, Eastern Sierra Leone, is presently investigating executive members of the Kono Student Union (KONSU) over alleged embezzlement.
KONSU is an association comprising students in tertiary institutions across the country who acquired lower level education in Kono District. The students in each tertiary institution formed themselves into a unit, resulting into 27 units.
The ACC launched the investigation just a day after the 27 unit heads unilaterally passed a vote of no-confidence on the national KONSU executive headed by Sahr Charles, a final year student of Milton Margai College of Education and Technology.
Charles and his members were kicked out of power for alleged financial mismanagement and corruption at a meeting organised at Bungalow New site in Koidu Town. They have since been replaced with a new set of executive body headed by Josiah Edison Kondewa, a third year student at the FBC.
According to Julian Jonjo, a student of Institute of Advanced Management and Technology (IAMTECH) in Kono, who headed the interim executive that presided over Kondewa`s election last Thursday, the sacked executives collected monies that they failed to account for.
“The Charles-lead government late January this year collected about five million Leones from unit heads as capitation fees and failed to make it known to the general membership and the Financial Secretary who is the custodian of the union’s monies,” he said.
Jonjo also alleged that since Charles and his members took offices in 2014 following embattled elections, they failed to give financial reports to the general membership.
The Secretary General of Unit Heads of KONSU, Christopher Jimmisa, said reasons for the impeachment and the ACC actions against the previous executive were also based on allegation of “embezzlement” of over seventy million Leones donated to the union for the conduct of the 2014 summer lessons.
Jimmisa further alleged that Sahr Charles and his administration had sold the quota of scholarships offered to the union by the Israeli-owned diamond mining company OCTEA to non-Kono students, thereby “depriving the actual beneficiaries.” He cited Section 17 (e) Sub-Section 7 of the 2007 constitution of the union which mandated executive members of the union to give a three-time financial report each year to members to enhance “transparency and accountability.”
Jimmisa claimed that they had never been informed about the financial status of their union during the tenure of Charles, which he said warranted their impeachment and expulsion from the union and by extension, court action, in accordance with Article 19, Sub-Section 3 of their constitution.
When approached, the sub-regional office of ACC refused to speak to Politico. But Mr Jonjo told the publication that the Commission in Kono had started their preliminary investigations on the matter on Tuesday, February 10, and that the commission had assured them of their total commitment in bringing to book defaulters should the union be ready to forward the necessary evidence.
Speaking to Politico on telephone from Freetown, the Financial Secretary of the Union, Bondu Jimmy of the Institute of Public Administration and Management (IPAM), confirmed that since they took over the leadership of the union in 2014, she did not read out any financial report to the membership of the union because “no money was given to me as the custodian of finances in the union.”
She said they went to Kono to give financial report to their colleagues in the union, but that the then president, Sahr Charles and a few of his allies in the executive did not give chance to do so “though we were aware of the fact that it was breach of our constitution.”
When contacted, Charles was dismissive of reports that he`d been impeached. “I am still the president of the union,” he claimed.
Although he did not disclose the sum of money collected as capitation fees from unit heads, he said the money in question was in the custody of the Secretary General of the Union, Sahr Anthony Kpaka.
Mr. Charles denied all other allegations against his government, describing them as “malicious.”
However, his Vice President, Sahr Ezra Kellie, offered apologies for “the poor leadership” they provided. Kellie was earlier this month suspended by some of his colleagues in the last executive who accused him of acting in an unconstitutional manner.
“Our leadership was not sincere, transparent and accountable to the membership of this union,” he told Politico.
© Politico 17/02/15
