The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has in a statement issued on Tuesday, February 9, 2021, informed the public that it has commenced an investigation into payments and expenses of public funds by the Office of the First Lady, Madam Fatima Maada Jabbie Bio.
The ACC said in the statement that its attention had been drawn to reports in the Auditor-General’s Report 2019 and various releases on traditional and social media on issues of budgetary allocations and expenditures of funds relating to the Office of the First Lady of Sierra Leone.
“The Commission wishes it to be known that it had commenced full and comprehensive probe into the Office of the First Lady, past and present, dealing with matters of budgetary justifications for allocations and expenditures of State funds to that entity and the legal and regulatory framework, if any, for them,” the Commission stated.
The Commission says “Preliminary findings show that the entity known as ‘Office of First Lady’ had been receiving Billions of Leones of State funds yearly, spanning 14 years to date – and most of the payments were either directly made to the holders of that office or channeled, through the Presidency, as normal presidential official expenditure signed-off on by respective Secretaries to the President.”
“We are similarly reviewing Section 39 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016; which gives the State, authority to expend State funds to unallocated Head(s) of expenditure to a certain threshold, to ‘necessary’ public cause(s), and whether such threshold was used and/or breached in making payments such as the ones under review, over the years,” the Commission said.
It added: “We are therefore at the stage of collecting and analyzing records of accounts, official approval documents and any legal or regulatory framework around such payments; and the conclusions reached will assist in determining progress on the issue.”
The Commissions says that it will also interview persons of interest in that regard, where necessary and thereafter keep the public fully informed on findings, conclusions and next steps.
The Commission reassured the public of its commitment to protecting public funds and to address all levels of corruption throughout Sierra Leone without fear or favor.
Following alleged reports of corruption issues from the Office of the First Lady, the Africanist Press had earlier on published in two previous reports, showing how the Office of the First Lady, Madam Fatima Jabbie Bio allegedly received nearly Le 30 billion (almost US$ 3 million) of government fund in less than three years after the inauguration of the President Julius Maada Bio, after the general election in the country.
The Africanist Press claimed that “a total of Le7, 890,755,000 (over US$789,000) that was disbursed from the country’s Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) to the organization Hands Off Our Girls during the first six months of the Bio administration were instead all spent between June and December 2018, allegedly on office furniture, electronic equipment, fuel, travel tickets, and hotel accommodation costs for the First Lady’s foreign guests.”
The First Lady has denied such allegations.
By Hasbin Shaw
10/02/2021. ISSUE NO: 7999