By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
A raid by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) of Sierra Leone has exposed a corruption ring at the District Health Management Team in Bo, with the arrest of three people.
Those arrested are suspected of running an illegal scheme through which they collected cash from unsuspecting nurses with the promise of facilitating their enrolment into the official government payroll.
ACC officials say the nurses paid Le250, 000 each for an application form.
The District Health Sister 1 and two other midwives were arrested in the raid on Wednesday.
In a statement from the anti-graft agency on Wednesday evening, it said its agents recovered Le25, 422, 000 and 248 forms from those arrested.
Many nurses have been clamoring for years to get PIN codes, which is the key requirement for a government employee to be included in the payroll system.
The long wait for this opportunity has led to many pursuing desperate methods like bribery.
The ACC says investigation is ongoing with the Bo incident.
“The three (3) suspects are in the Commission's custody and witnesses have been making statements and assisting with the investigations,” the statement reads.
The development has once again put health authorities in Bo on the spotlight over what seems like an inherent culture of corruption in the healthcare delivery system of the district.
The ACC is currently prosecuting the Medical Superintendent of the Bo Government Hospital, Dr Belmoh Samai, on charges of converting the hospital’s generator for his personal use.
Last month a report by the African Young Voices (AYV) television exposed another corruption ring by nurses in the government hospital who reportedly collected money from beneficiaries of the government’s Free Health Care programme in the pretext of buying fuel for the hospital generator.
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