By Septimus Senessie in Kono
Chairman of the Kono district council was called in for questioning by the police in Freetown on allegations that he “converted food donated by the World Food Programme, WFP, for Ebola victims for selfish benefit.”
Aiah Abdulrahman Koninga was invited at the Criminal Investigations Departmenton Pademba Road after authorities in Freetown were asked to account for 300 bags of rice and an equal number of bags of bulgur they got from WFP.
Local Unit Commander of Motema Police Division in Kono,Chief Superintendent Ansumana Kabba, told Politico that “we have in our custody as exhibits 97 bags of bulgur and one and half bag of rice believed to have been the WFP food donated to the district through the district council chairman.”
He said the food was seized from a private house at Joe Town in Nimikoro Chiefdom where the district council chairman, who is also chairman of the district Ebola taskforce committee,had allegedly concealed the donation.
Meanwhile, Reverend Tyjan Kandeh, who manages the anti-corruption commission office in Kono, told a news conference in Kono on Monday that “the district chairman and his deputy, councillor Solomon Gbondo, were invited to make statements to the commission because they received humanitarian food aid on behalf of the people but failed to hand over the consignment to the Ebola taskforce for distribution”.
He said the two local council officials took upon themselves to distribute the food, adding that “it is a crime for the officers to keep public donation in their private houses when there is a district warehouse that has been temporarily set aside for the safe keeping of Ebola food stuff.”
In another press conference organised by civil society organisations at the UN Conference Hall in Koidu town, chairman Koninga told CSOs and journalists that the whole Ebola rice saga started after he allegedly refused to give some portion of the rice to the youth group recommended to him by the minister of transport and aviation, Leonard Balogun Logus Koroma.
He said the rice and bulgur donation from WFP was his council’s initiative and that he had the sole mandate to decide where to keep and distribute them.
He said he kept the food in the private house of his development officer at Joe Town because he thought it was the right place for that purpose, adding that “I havedistributed the food to the ACC, Office of National Security, local chiefs, police, soldiers, the media, health workers, people with disabilities, war-wounded and amputees”.
But speaking on telephone from Freetown the minister of Transport and Aviation, denied the chairman’s allegation, saying that, “the only youth group I sent to the chairman was a drama group that wanted assistance to support them with funding to dramatise Ebola sensitization in the district”.
Meanwhile, Chief Administrator of the Koidu City Council, Alhaji Alhaji Bangura, has distanced his council from the current Ebola rice saga, saying that“my council is not aware of any WFP donation of food to Kono district and my council and staff are not part of the current Ebola rice Saga.”
(C) Politico 30/09/14
