News

By Crispina Cummings

Minister of energy and power Oluniyi Robin Coker Monday told the committee on appointment in Parliament that the country’s main power supply grid, Bumbuna hydroelectric dam, was down to 8 from 25 megawatts.

He said the dam was being powered by 2 turbine machines to supply electricity in mainly Freetown and Makeni before one of the engines broke down, bringing total output to 8 megawatts.

President Ernest Bai Koroma has appointed the long serving Secretary General of the ruling All Peoples Congress party, Victor Bockarie Foh as Sierra Leone’s ambassador to the People’s Republic of China.

A State House press release also announced the re-assignment of Ambassador Abubakarr Multi Kamara from China to the United Nations as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and permanent representative, taking over from Lawyer Sheku Toure.

By Aminata Phidelia Allie

National publicity secretary of the embattled United Democratic Movement (UDM), Editayo George Temple has said that the Political Parties’ Regulation Commission was so weak that it compromised their case against the party leader.

He called on government to “offload” the commission’s leadership for leaking confidential documents tendered as evidence to the commission in a matter that was brought before it by the executive of the party against “our rouge leader, Mohamed Bangura.”

Final appeal arguments in the case of The Prosecutor versus Charles Ghankay Taylor, the former Liberian President indicted on 7 March 2003,are scheduled for Wednesday, 23 January 2013 at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Between April and May 2012 Charles Taylor was found guilty on all 11 counts and sentenced to a prison term of 50 years.

A press statement from the Special Court in Freetown Monday says this is the last time that lawyers for the prosecution and the defence will argue a case before the Court.

The cash book for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) new and renewal registrations, collections, bank statements and pay slips were not brought into accounts and therefore not submitted for audit, according to Audit Service Sierra Leone.

The final report on public accounts for the year ended 31 December, 2011, tabled in parliament on 18 January this year by the Deputy Speaker and Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Chernor Maju Bah, MP,alleged that record keeping at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MoFED) was generally bad.

Joseph F. Kamara, ACC boss

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) yesterday announced that it was investigating allegation of misuse of donor funds at the Ministry of Health and Sanitation totaling US $ 1, 099,640.