By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
A new inquiry into the Ministry of Information by the Commissions of Inquiry (COI) has shown that the brother of former President Ernest bai Koroma received $700,000 on behalf of his company to do consultancy work in the construction of NATCOM Head Quarters at Southridge, Hill Station.
Thomas Koroma, owner of TS and Company, bided for the consultancy and was exclusively introduced to the then Director General of NATCOM, Mohamed Bangura by Frank Manja, a board member.
Bangura who was also Chairman of the Procurement Committee, claimed he was pressured by Frank Manja and the clout of Thomas Koroma to award the consultancy services to TS and Company.
In his testimony at the Commission Room No.2 on Monday, Bangura said: “At the time which we are talking about (December 2014), we had very serious issues with the then President, Dr Ernest Bai Koroma, in relation to the termination of the monopoly of the international gateway. So, I came under pressure from particularly Frank Manja, one of the board members who kept coming to my office and expressing concerns that if the contract was not awarded to TS & Company we will create more difficulty for the board and management.”
Bangura said the other bidders were not introduced to him and that having found out that Thomas was the brother of President Koroma, he had to make sure that he was “fairly treated”.
When asked by State Counsel, Robert Kowa, what he meant by “fairly treated”, Bangura said: “ I was very much insistent that we followed due process but at the same time I was surprised to note that Thomas Koroma’s company submitted the bid for proposal for the building.”
During cross examination by Defense Counsel, Ady Macualey, Bangura said he came to know later that Thomas was a qualified engineer but explained his reservation.
“I was surprised, because I had always known that Thomas Koroma had his own construction company and not a consultancy,” Bangura said.
Macauley, who is representing former NATCOM Board Chairman, Momoh Konteh, questioned Bangura’s decision to award the contract despite his concerns. But Macauley’s question was preceded by Bangura’s explanation of how they came to award the consultancy contract to TS and Company.
“We had an evaluation committee that carried out an assessment of similar work done by TS and Company,” he said, adding: “I did not personally evaluate the proposal of TS and Company. I had to rely on those who did the evaluation.”
During his cross examination, Lawyer Macualey then asked Bangura: “You had the power to question whatever you didn’t agree with in the evaluation committee report. Did you as the Chairman of the Procurement Committee disagree with any issue in the report?”
Bangura replied: “I personally did not have any issue raised in the evaluation report until such issues were raised by other members of the evaluation team.”
Thomas Koroma who later took to the stand agreed that he was awarded the contract and defended his qualifications for the job. He said he was an architect and that that qualified him to do consultancy on construction jobs.
According to a document titled Letter of Acceptance of Technical and Financial Proposal, the total worth of the construction project was $7 million. As per the same document, the consultancy group should get 15% of the total cost of the project. But Bangura said they had to renegotiate for 10% of the total, which is $700,000.
NATCOM is the telecommunication regulator in the country. The institution was recently implicated in some dubious acts by the Technical Audit that was conducted by the government earlier this year.
© 2019 Politico Online
