By Stephen V. Lansana
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has recovered the sum of Le 8.6 billion [old Leones] from just a single case that involved the Sierra Leone Road Authority (SLRA), and some staff from the Ministry of Finance, the ACC Commissioner, Francis Ben Kaifala Esq told pressmen on Wednesday, January 24, 2024.
The ACC Commissioner said that some of the monies are in the boxes. “This is monies recovered on behalf of the people of Sierra Leone. This one, we did not rely on anybody to recover it for us,” he said. “We have recovered it and we are giving it back to Sierra Leone.”
“These are monies stolen in just one case: The SLRA and some staff of the Ministry of Finance,” he said, clarifying that “it is not the entire staff of the Finance Ministry but some staff at the said Ministry like the Finance Minister and Mr. Matthew Dingie, the Financial Secretary mean good for this country as they started the investigation.”
He disclosed that the stealing happened between August and December, but they only knew about it in December. “This money has been recovered within a period of three weeks,” adding that he did not know how the persons in question got the money to refund what was stolen and he didn’t want to know. “All I want is to ensure that the people of Sierra Leone get back their money.”
“We have what we call the forensic investigation method. So, the Ministry at that time said that money was Le 6.5 billion [old Leone] because they (Ministry of Finance) limited its investigation to December, but when we [ACC] started our investigation, we (ACC) started from August and we found out that there was about Le 2.3 billion that was channeled through a different account,” he added.
He said that the Ministry of Finance brought to their (ACC) notice that some payments which were to be made to an accounting firm had been intercepted by some people and they had withdrawn the money which was supposed to have gone to an account at Rokel Commercial Bank.
“They sent the money to Kabala Community Bank and they withdrew it,” he said, noting that the Ministry of Finance did their own investigation and they forwarded the report to them and based on the report, they moved very swiftly and less than two hours they arrested those involved including their ring leader Emmanuel Smart, Deputy Director of Budget of MoF.
He said that the first thing they did was to tell them to refund what was stolen. “Let me make this clear, when we asked people to refund what was stolen, it doesn’t mean other consequence will not follow,” he clarified.
He stated that the Ministry at that time narrowed the scope of their investigation but the ACC widened the scope.
He said that the monies will be deposited into the recovery account and it will be handled over to the ministry of finance.
It could be recalled that this case came about when the Ministry of Finance conducted an internal audit review on several payments made in favour of Edward Davies and Associates Ltd, a Consultancy Firm hired by the Sierra Leone Roads Authority (SLRA) for work done on the construction of the Kenema-Pendembu Road, they discovered that the payments had been diverted to a fictitious account opened at the Kabala Community Bank.
According to the statement from Ministry of Finance issued on January 12, 2024, the Principal Accountant of the Accountant General’s Department (AGD), John Ellie and six other senior government officials in the Accountant General’s Department, Ministry of Finance (MoF) and the Sierra Leone Road Authority (SLRA) had been detained.
The names of the staff that are involved in this diversion of funds are: Jacob Tenga Sessie, Deputy Director of Budget of MoF, Emmanuel Smart, Accounting Officer of SLRA, Starlyn Kemoh, Accountant of AGD, Ibrahim Bangura, Senior Accountant of AGD, Joseph Johnson, Accountant of AGD, John Ellie, Principal Accountant of AGD, and Philip Yomba, Senior Accountant of AGD.