GAME OVER: 90 Days And no Evidence Against Suspended Auditor-General

The whole world in general, but Sierra Leone and Sierra Leoneans in particular, will recall that on 11^th November 2021 the Bio led administration sent shock waves in the governance landscape the world over when the SLPP government suspended the Auditor-General, Mrs. Lara Taylor-Pearce, and one of her four deputies, Mr. Tamba Momoh.

The reason advanced at the time was that they were to be investigated for “professional performance of the lack there of”.

Since that fateful day, except for the announcement by State House that a tribunal had be constituted to investigate the allegation, and that the members had already been sworn in, nothing, absolutely nothing has happened to date.

The government has failed woefully in 90 days to put forward any specific and credible allegation against the two well respected, competent and professional accountants.

Citizens and the donor community have questioned this unprecedented and wrongful action of government, and the absence of a substantive Auditor-General has cast doubts on the willingness of the state to submit itself to a credible audit of the way it has accounted for and managed public resources.

The current government has shown itself unyielding to audits and prosecution key personalities complicit or allegedly complicit in financial leakages and corruption. As it stands, none of the suspended AG’s audits of this government, 2018 to 2020, has been debated and properly scrutinised in Parliament.

Nightwatch Newspaper reports that, while it is a foregone conclusion by now that PAOPA’s 2018 Manifesto is a rhetoric filled scam aimed at conning the people into voting for Bio, we are nonetheless constrained to inform the president that for his fight against corruption to be taken seriously this government must be willing to also prosecute current public servants for corruption and allow institutions that provide oversight or query such servants to do their work unhindered or cowed.

Now more than ever the president needs men and women around him that can and will tell him the truth, even if and when it hurts. He does not need the kinds of advice that will not only embarrass him but also the country and people of Sierra Leone.

We are still calling on the president to reinstate the two diligent public officers, and sack those who misled and wrongly advised him, to save Sierra Leone from a year on non-accountability and poor governance.