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Dr. John Idriss Lahai has blamed the First Lady, Fatima Bio for the High Court’s decision to discharge the corruption matter of former Executive Director of the Sierra Leone Maritime Administration (SLMA), Paul Sobba Massaquoi.
Massaquoi was arraigned together with five other senior staff of SLMA following an indictment by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) for corruption charges in 2021.
One of the charges against Massaquoi was that he abused his office when he failed to follow due process in the awarding of a contract to a construction company named Kodami in 2020.
Massaquoi, however, had denied all allegations made by the ACC.
After several court sittings and witnesses led by the Commission, the court discharged the matter in the latest turn of event.
Reacting to this, Dr. Lahai lashed at the First Lady, accusing her of involving in the matter. He furthered that the former Maritime boss is the First Lady’s “handler” in handling all of her “illicit shipping activities”.
He went on to state that the First lady wants President Bio to reinstate Massaquoi at his former position.
He also drew reference to the 2020 Audit report which claim that Massaquoi failed to pay into the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) the sum of over 800 thousand US Dollars.
Dr. Lahai furthered that the evidences against the former Maritime Boss were enough to send him away rather than him being discharged.
He added that Massaquoi also illegally employed his brother as a foreign staff paing him salary that could have been used to develop the country’s ailing maternal health department.
Dr. Lahai asked the ACC to ensure that the missing money be paid by Massaquoi.
