By Political staff writer
The Executive Director of the Institute of Governance Reform, IGR a research organization based in Freetown has moved to quell what he called ‘rumors’ that his organization and two other groups – Fambul Tok International and Campaign for Good Governance ‘received Le1.8 Billion Leones in bribes from the government to coordinate the Government-CSO Dialogue series’.
Andrew Lavali said he received several calls from friends and family seeking clarification on whether they received Le1.8 billion Leones in two equal installments. ‘We categorically reject these rumors and slanderous insinuations’, he said.
In a statement widely circulated on social media, Lavali said ‘while the motives behind the rumor are unknown, the public is hereby informed that this information is untrue and should be dismissed as slanderous lies, misleading and outright disinformation to raise public suspicions about us, divide local CSOs and heighten public mistrust of watchdog organizations’.
According to him ‘IGR, CGG, and Fambul Tok have not received Le1.8 Billion from any public official or institution as a bribe to co-opt or manipulate the national dialogue or whatsoever’. He said ‘the office of the Vice President paid Le160m ($16,000) in August 2020 and again paid the same amount in October 2021 to facilitate meetings with 100 CSOs drawn from all districts across the country. These monies were utilized for travel expenses for our CSO colleagues, their accommodation, feeding, documentation, conference room rental, report preparation, and general meeting expenses’.
The IGR Executive Director said the three coordinating organizations were not paid for their services in facilitating meetings and ‘the two successful dialogue events in 2020 and 2021’.
Lavali said citizens ‘must help promote integrity in public policy conversation by demanding facts and rejecting politically motivated falsehood’.
As we went to press last evening we were unable to get comments from some CSOs that had earlier contacted us on the issue.
Copyright © Politico Online 08/12/21
