By Mustapha Kamara Jr
The Political Parties’ Registration Commission (PPRC) has said they will cease mediation into the matter between the national executive of the Sierra Leone People’s Party and Alie Essa Bangura, a former member of the party.
Its commissioner, Justice Tholla Thompson, said the complainant Amb Bangura’s representatives abruptly decided to abandon the negotiations process to go to court.
He said the PPRC had stopped looking into the matter because they didn’t have the mandate to make any judgment on the matter while it was being heard in court.
“The PPRC is not a court of law. Our mandate is to supervise, monitor, regulate and settle party and inter-party disputes. Since I took office as chairman that is what we have been doing,” Justice Thompson said, adding that it was the policy of the commission not to mediate on any matter that was in court but to wait for the outcome of that court process.
He explained that the commission had received two complaints by aggrieved supporters of Alie Bangura in August 2013 and in June 2014, which the commission was trying to settle amicably in previous months.
Those complaints, he said, were alleged elections malpractices during the party’s convention held in Bo and the other complaint was the expulsion of Alie Bangura from the party by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the opposition SLPP.
“To settle disputes the commission, having investigated the first complaint, launched a report in December 2013, which highlighted that indeed there were irregularities in the conventions and therefore recommended that a committee be set up to comprise members of the NEC of SLPP to investigate the matter further and resolve it peacefully.
He added that regarding the second complaint there was an expressed concern by members of NEC that Amb. Bangura should redraw the complaint he had made in the Supreme Court. The Committee had said that Bangura was expelled because he took the party to court. It was even said to have indicated that they would review his expulsion and settle the matter amicably, but claimed that Amb. Bangura had refused the proposal.
The PPRC chairman recently told journalists gathered at the commission’s office on Tower Hill in Freetown that “it comes as a shock to the institution to hear that both factions are no longer interested in the ongoing mediation, after the commission has made some strives to settle the dispute”.
“Political parties should not think the Commission is an NGO,” he lamented, adding, “rather all political parties should understand that the PPRC is an institution created by the 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone to regulate political parties and therefore should be treated with utmost respect”.
(C) Politico 07/07/15
