The Rise of Corruption

The most busy man in Sierra Leone is Mr. Abdul Tejan-Cole. Mr. Cole, head of the Anti-Corruption Commission has a job which entails investigating and bringing to book people, especially high ranking officials of government, for corruption crimes.

Under the present government of President Ernest Bai Koroma, corruption has become endemic, and there is no need hiding the fact that this is a menace that has become widespread as soon as the present government of the All people’s Congress assumed power.

Not that corruption had not been existing under the past government. The fact of the matter is that corruption, since the days of the brief rule of Albert Margai’s Sierra Leone People’s Party, has become a feature of the country’s political background.

This corruption was transformed into an ‘art’ form by Siaka Stevens of the APC when during his rule he coined various statements all justifying corrupt activities.

With the coming of Joseph Saidu Momoh, corruption became a free for all with cabinet ministers adding to the menace. In the end, the state nearly collapsed and even basic essentials like bread and rice became scare. Because of corruption, people had to queue for everything, including withdrawing money from the banks. Corrupt activities were carried out to such extremes that it pervaded the war, such that supplying arms and ammunition to front line troops was not done.

This corruption inevitably resulted in the disgraceful overthrow of the APC government and the institution of a military regime under the National Provisional Ruling Council of Valentine Strasser. Three commissions of inquiry, established by the military government, headed by respected Sierra Leonean judges, investigated the various corrupt crimes carried out by the APC and it was gross, to say the least.

Sierra Leoneans were  therefore relieved to see the back of the APC, a party which was seen as the bastion of corruption.

Today, the APC is back. Although the party has been rebranded as a new organisation, with a new leader, barely two years in office, it has again emerged that the APC is basically the same APC seen under the leadership of Siaka Stevens to Joseph Momoh and now to Ernest Koroma.

Daily, the people continue to see clear instances of corruption at play and these are issues that cannot be hidden under any carpet. The truth is that the APC is once again engaged in their old ways.   

The recent decision to sack two ministers which was taken by president Koroma  has not been of any consolation to right thinking Sierra Leoneans who are again seeing the replay of an unfortunate practice. Sacking the Minister of State in the Office of the Vice President and the Health Minister is just a tip of a huge iceberg.

The people will want to know what the president is doing in connection with the present Minister of  Marine Resources Madam Afsatu Kabba, who while Minister of Energy and Water Resources, engaged in a corrupt activities in single handed giving a contract to a company without going through the right procedure.  The Anti-Corruption made investigations and on the verge on indicting her, the president is said to have stepped in and she was instead transferred to another ministry where she is again manifesting her old tricks.

There is also the activities of Mr. Victoh Foh, convicted in a corruption case by the very APC government, thus showing the extent of his own corruption. The fact that a corrupt government can go ahead to convict one of their own shows that Mr. Foh was engaged in a serious form of corruption. This same Victoh Foh is one of the confidants of President Koroma and Secretary General of the new APC. What can one expect from such an individual if not corruption?

There is also the issue of Mr. Birch Conteh, former Minister of Mines who helped destroy the national Diamond Mining Company (NDMC). Even before rebels of the RUF overran Kono district in October of 1992, Birch Conteh had already destroyed the NDMA and till date, the workers have never been paid their benefits nor has the company officially laid off  its workers because Conteh together with other corrupt cohorts had milked the company dry. These are the types of people now advising president Koroma.

Essentially the government of Ernest Bai Koroma might only last a single term and will end up losing in the votes because the people have certainly started losing confidence in a leader who surrounds himself with corrupt individuals whom he has great respect and consideration for.

The president is surrounded by corrupt elements, each working industriously to perpetuate their nefarious activities. The leadership of President Koroma is akin to that of the late J.S. Momoh, who was also surrounded by corrupt individuals who later caused the disgraceful fall of a government which had been in power for over three decades.

Clearly, the Mr. Tejan-Cole has his hands tied, in a government which has the same corruption characteristic existing from the days of Siaka Stevens. There is no way he can be given the chance to nab these corrupt elements, because in doing so, the president might end up with the original men and women who started the campaign with him.

I pity president Koroma, because in such a situation, every case of corruption is being meticulously recorded and the people are just waiting for the day when his period as president is over, that will be the time when the reckoning will come and he will have to give his stewardship to the people and to his conscience.

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