By Mustapha Sesay & Crispina Taylor
Former minister of health, Miatta Kargbo, and former Permanent Secretary, Sadiq Kapuwa, have denied instructing Charles Mambu to use money meant for loan repayment.
Mr Mambu, the Director of the civil society group Health for All Coalition (HFAC), is in front of the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) for payments his organization received as part of efforts to fight against the Ebola epidemic.
He became of interest after his name appeared in the damning Auditor General`s report last month which revealed that millions of US dollars went unexplained.
The renowned civil society activist and an accountability and transparency campaigner has previously told the Committee that he received Le 160, 900, 000 and 200, 000,000 as loans to be utilized in the fight against Ebola. He informed the Committee that he took the loan from the ministry because the United Nations children agency - UNICEF, which was supposed to fund his project, was cash constrained at that material time. Thus, Mambu said, he took the loan with the promise that he would repay after receiving the funds from UNICEF, even thought it was against government police.
The HFAC boss went on to tell the Committee on Tuesday that when he eventually received the funds from UNICEF, the ministry officials instructed him to use the money to scale up his “sensitization and social mobilization” campaign against Ebola.
But two of the former health officials present at the hearing strongly denied the allegation by Mambu, both repeating the same words when handed the microphone: “I did not authorize him to convert the money to scale up intervention.”
After he was squeezed for over a minute by the PAC Chairman, Chernor Bah, as to what he planned to do with regards the loan, Mambu promised to repay the over Le 300,000,000.
But how and when he would repay was not mentioned and the MPs did not ask.
Earlier, MP Hassan Sheriff had accused Mambu in a previous hearing of “participating in criminal activities by taking loan from a government institution that is not mandated to give loan.”
Sheriff also questioned why all the cheques from the Health ministry were in Mambu’s name and not in the name of Health For All Coalition.
During the Tuesday hearing, the Ministry of Transport and Aviation was also presented a receipt indicating payment of Le 67, 500, 000 as withholding tax for the procurement of used vehicles, which was not paid earlier by the dealer. This tax was paid as a direct order from the PAC as way of retrieving all taxes that had been evaded by contractors involved in Ebola projects.
It was also revealed that plans were underway to bring in the four stranded ambulances from Dubai port. The vehicles were part of 20 ambulances initially procured by the Health ministry at a cost of $1, 050, 000. But the four were left behind because of poor arrangement between the Health ministry and the contractor.
Kawusu Kebeh, director of development at the ministry of Finance, explained at the hearing that he was called up by the Emergence Operational Centre to ensure that the ambulances were fit for the purpose before they were shipped. But his report indicate only five were fit for the purpose.
© Politico 17/03/15
