His Excellency, The President, Julius Maada Bio, We, the members of the Sierra Leone Women and Political Group, wish to urgently bring to your attention the plethora of ugly incidents of recent regarding the intimidation and harassment of our professional women in both political and public offices in the country, which we equivocally condemn in the strongest of terms and demand that this intimidation and harassment of our women stops immediately.

Excellency sir, without any delay, please allow us to highlight a few glaring examples of intimidation and harassment of professional strong women in opposition and public offices of recent, even though we are certain that you are aware of some of these unacceptable behaviours.

We condemn that unconstitutional and unprecedented suspension of Mrs. Lara Taylor Pearce, Auditor General with impeccable national and international pedigree, without any statement, even as we write, of what her crime is or has been.

The Acting Auditor General, a male, who lacks the professional competency and qualification, is a real afront to the profession. Since the Judicial Committee was sworn in, it has not met for lack of any crime committed by the Auditor General warranting her suspension. The delay by the Chief Justice in appointing a Judge to sit on the case file by the Lawyers of Mrs. Lara Taylor Pearce against the sitting government is also subvert justice.

We also refer to one of the finest, hardworking, innovative, action and result-oriented Mayors of our time, Mrs. Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr OBE, who since ascending to the position of Mayor of the Municipality of Freetown, has been the subject of attack by government Ministers in the Ministry of Local Government and the Chief Administrator (CA), with a view of sabotaging the programmes of the Municipality and smearing the Well-earned name of our Mayor.

Our observation is that it is only the Freetown City Council that has been subjected to undue interference and uncalled for scrutiny, not provided for in the Local Government Act (LGA) 2004. Her authority has been openly challenged by the Chief Administrator, who according to the LGA is supervised by the Mayor. If the Freetown City Council is challenged with adequate collection of revenue and payment of workers such as the street sweepers and garbage collectors, it is because the CA and his cliques have refused to counter-sign payment Cheques while deliberately sending away or discouraging well meaning citizens of Freetown from honoring their tax obligations.

We also observed from the latest report of a committee to look into the workings of the Council, (a report whose authenticity is questioned by Councilor) published by the Ministry of Local Government recommending the dissolution of the Mayors Delivery Unit and yet Delivery Units abound in most Ministries as a way of expediting donor funded projects and ensuring adherence to reporting formats, deadlines and accountability requirements.

We see this as double standard and against the principle of “what is good for goose should be good for the gander”. Going further, Corruption Commission’s directives for the Mayor alone to pay back the FCC funds monies paid, in terms of per diem, ticket and accommodation to the Consultant, while it was the Mayor, CA and Finance Officer (FO) that signed the request forms for the disbursement of these monies, which it is claimed was illegal. And yet we see no evidence of coercion of the CA and the FO by the Mayor.