By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
The Commission of Inquiry (COI) report has ordered all those who took “unsecured” loans from the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank to repay them.
The COI was established as a result of recommendations made by the Governance Transition Team report that was done by a committee appointed by President Julius Maada Bio immediately after he assumed office in 2018.
Three judges independently conducted investigations and put together their findings which were presented to President Bio on Wednesday.
The judges were, Justice Biobele Goergewill, Justice Bankole Thompson and Justice William Attuguba.
The investigation covered all government ministries, departments and agencies. The timeline of the investigation was between 2007 and 2017.
Justice Georgewill said during the launch of the report:
“Le7, 100, 159, 352. 29 is still outstanding as debts due payable to the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank from the unsecured loans to politically exposed persons and or their businesses.”
“All amounts recommended to be paid or refunded shall be refunded and paid into the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Government of Sierra Leone within 30 days from the date of the ratification of the recommendations by the Government of Sierra Leone,” he added.
The report was launched on Wednesday, at the Peace Museum by all three judges.
Justice Georgewill oversaw the probe against the SLCB.
The over a yearlong hearings and investigation revealed “gross abuse of power by people in public offices.”
The bank’s weak requirement system for loans was also exposed during the hearings.
“The bank can’t go after their assets or their personal effects. This is because they didn’t use their assets to secure the loan,” a bank official said during the proceedings last year.
Bockarie Kalokoh, a former Finance Director at the bank, said during the hearings that the debts were a major reason why the bank had to be recapitalized in 2015 by funds from the National Social Security and Insurance Trust.
Former President Ernest Bai Koroma, his Vice Presidents, Victor Foh and Samuel Sam Sumana, were all named as debtors at the bank during the hearings.
Last year, a former Managing Director of the bank, Idrissa Aloma Kamara, who dished out some of the loans, claimed that some top officials had repaid the loans after receiving their benefits from the government.
However, Kamara didn’t have supporting documents at the time to back the claim.
SLCB officials who testified during the hearings in Justice Goergewill’s commission said one of the guarantees they had to loan moneys to politically exposed people were their retirement benefits.
In July last year, the Ministry of Finance announced Le33 billion in payments of benefits for the former government officials.
The current government still owes former officials Le33 billion more. They will have to decide whether to pay them or divert the payments to the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
A total of 127 former officials were investigated, 26 were acquitted and 84 indicted for various offenses, including misappropriation of public funds and assets and failure to account for state resources.
The indictees include 20 people who served as ministers in Koroma’s cabinet. They also include two former Central Bank Governors, three former lawmakers, and 10 former Permanent Secretaries.
Once the paper is discussed and accepted by the government, all debtors will have 30 days to repay the bank or forfeit their properties, the reports states.
During the launch, Justice Biobele Georgewill said implementing the recommendations could go a long way to abolish the culture of impunity in the country.
“It is my hope that the Government of Sierra Leone, under the leadership of Dr. Julius Maada Bio, will find these recommendations helpful and useful in addressing and checking the grave ills of corruption on the economic and financial stability of the Republic of Sierra Leone and to recover all stolen, misappropriated and or unaccounted funds and assets through an assiduous implementation of these recommendations, which in my humble view would go a long way in changing the narrative in public governance in Sierra Leone,” he said.
President Julius Maada Bio said the findings in the report illustrated what he had always felt about corruption. He also said it should serve as a warning to those presently in public office.
“As I have maintained before, this must be the last Commission of Inquiry in our history. As a nation, we should have learned and applied the singular lesson from these commissions – that persons who hold the public trust must serve honestly, justly, fairly, and diligently; and that as a country, we must put an end to a culture of rampant thieving, abuse, waste, and impunity. So, these commissions should serve as a warning and a deterrent to serving officials,” he said.
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