ACC Commences Investigation into Office of the First Lady

By Foday Moriba Conteh

Over the BBC last week, the Editor of the Africanist Press, Chernor Bah, alleged that the Office of the First Lady, Madam Fatima Jabbie Bio, spent more than Le7.89 billion (over US$780,000) of public funds on personal shopping needs and on travel and hotel expenses for foreign guests she invited to Sierra Leone to witness the launch of her flagship program, the ‘Hands Off Our Girls Campaign’, launched in mid-December of 2018 and which was also captured in the Auditor-General’s Report 2019.

It against such a backdrop that the Anti-Corruption Commission is informing the general public that its attention had been drawn to reports in the Auditor-General’s Report 2019 and various releases on traditional and social media on issues of budgetary allocations and expenditures of funds relating to the Office of the First Lady of Sierra Leone.

The Commission says it wishes it to be known that it had commenced full and comprehensive probe into the Office of the First Lady, past and present, dealing with matters of budgetary justifications for allocations and expenditures of State funds to that entity and the legal and regulatory framework, if any, for them furthering that Preliminary findings show that the entity known as “Office of First Lady” had been receiving Billions of Leones of State funds yearly, spanning 14 years to date – and most of the payments were either directly made to the holders of that office or channeled, through the Presidency, as normal presidential official expenditure signed-off on by respective Secretaries to the President.

The ACC maintained that it is similarly reviewing Section 39 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016; which gives the State, authority to expend State funds to unallocated Head(s) of expenditure to a certain threshold, to “necessary” public cause(s), and whether such threshold was used and/or breached in making payments such as the ones under review, over the years.

The Commission said therefore at the stage of collecting and analyzing records of accounts, official approval documents and any legal or regulatory framework around such payments; and the conclusions reached will assist in determining progress on the issue. The ACC will also interview persons of interest in that regard, where necessary and that they shall keep the public fully informed on the findings, conclusions and next steps.