Investigations mounted by The Whispers to ascertain the whereabouts of the Le44B the Director General of NCRA Massaquoi has been accused of showed an underlying distortion of the fact.

The Deputy Director of Information, Education and Communications of the NCRA, Juana Amadu Kamanda was thoroughly grilled by journalist at the NCRA Head Office last week in Freetown. Kamanda told how he was shocked to have heard of Le44B being misappropriated by the NCRA, but hurriedly said that the Confirmation and Registration Exercise is solely supported by GoSL.

“Conducting an exercise of confirmation of the registered population, of citizens and non-citizens, is what the NCRA is doing,” he said. “That exercise is subsumed into the NCRA. We manage the registration of births, deaths, divorce and civil registration. We are trying to gather the records of all the people as a benchmark.”

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Before the interview was granted, Kamanda, however, stonewalled the journalists in the visiting area. He stirred them away from his under-fire boss as his efforts were perceived to include no other pursuit than to have his worried Director General off limit from being questioned. It was somewhat suspicious because people must hear from the horse’s mouth where the Le44B went. Kamanda argued rather hopelessly that Mr. Massaquoi would not have been in the position to meet the press as he was too busy to set aside time to speak.

But what has happened to the monies about Le44B being mooted to have been received by Massaquoi to conduct the registration exercise? Kamanda revealed he was unaware of such a huge sum of money from outside sources.

He however clarified what he said he believed the different sources of money had been coming from. Foremost, the Ministry of Finance, he vouched, has supported the registration exercise. While he believed that there are critics against Mr. Massaquoi, what concerned him was the corporate image of the NCRA. There are some elements, of course, within the SLPP spreading fake news to hinder but the work done by NCRA as well as making attempts at muddying Massaquoi’s waters. NCRA would continue collating vital statistics to “ensure the issuance of ID Cards.

When asked how much the GoSL has issued so far, he could not recall, he said. Why hadn’t he allowed the DG who has the full details in front of him speak for himself because not being able to give that vital piece of information has denied the people of Sierra Leone an insight into how well-organized the NCRA is to self-audit. He has left unanswered the question of Le44B and so a can of worms.

Kamanda’s explanation captured the essence of why NCRA is doing everything again. It has re-done stuff that had already been completed in 2017 registration exercise. Why? Is that not a waste of money? He said they found that “a lot of identity has changed even the records, addresses, marital status have changed.” Civil registration, he said, is permanent, compulsory and continuous and universal. They want to record causes of death as that one of the things which UNICEF has sponsored.

NCRA, he said, is unsure of where people have gotten that huge sum of money from because the confirmation process not ended yet. “Nobody has mismanaged any money. Government will audit NCRA when the process is over.”