By Umaru Fofana
President Julius Maada Bio has ordered the indefinite suspension of the Auditor General, Lara Taylor-Pearce and one of her deputies, Tamba Momoh.
He has also called for the setting-up of a tribunal to investigate the Audit Service for “professional performance or the lack thereof”.
No further details were given in the skeletal letter received yesterday.
Neither the composition of the panel nor its scope or duration is yet clear. But the decision comes as Mrs Taylor-Pearce and her team were preparing to present their annual audit report in December.
State House could not be reached for them to justify or clarify the decision. But the highly-respected Mrs Taylor-Pearce has denied any wrongdoing saying she will fully cooperate with the investigations when they begin.
In a written reaction to Politico, she said: “I can confirm that I was handed a letter signed by the Secretary to the President to the Chairman of the ASSL [Audit Service Sierra Leone] Advisory Board, stating that the Attorney General has been asked to set up a tribunal to look into the ASSL for professional performance or the lack thereof. Further that myself and Mr Tamba Momoh, my deputy should be sent on suspension with immediate effect”.
She continued: “I have not been told what the remit of this tribunal is or what wrongdoing we are supposed to have committed, neither have we been told who the members of the Tribunal are or will be.
I should state that ASSL has always maintained the highest standards at all times and we deny any wrong doing in the exercise of our mandate. At all times we have upheld international best standards. I remain ready to cooperate with any tribunal guided by my legal representative, and to defend my reputation anywhere, anytime”.
Public reaction as is evident on social media has been swift and mostly condemnatory of the president’s move. Civil society has expressed shock and indignation.
“News about the suspension of the Auditor General is shocking”, says Ibrahim Tommy – the Executive Director of the Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law (CARL).
He said “most Sierra Leoneans who have followed her job over the last decade, or so, believe that she has done quite a good job in producing high quality audit reports on the government’s financial statement”.
Tommy said that the tribunal must be given a specific mandate and a quick time frame to carry out their task bearing in mind that in at least one instance in the past one such tribunal involving a judge took several years.
Andrew Lavalie of the Institute for Governance Reform (IGR) said the move regrettable and setback.
He said that Mrs Taylor-Pearce had been “a beacon of integrity” in the country, and her suspension coming just weeks before the release of her next audit report made the move even more disturbing.
Lara Taylor-Pearce has been in the audit business for 30 years and was appointed Auditor General in November 2011.
Her reports have been consistently hard-hitting against successive governments over how the state’s resources are appropriated.
Arguably the height of her work was the real time audit during both the Ebola outbreak in 2014/15 and the current Covid19 pandemic which exposed gross misappropriation.
Copyright © Politico Online 12/11/21
