By Foday Moriba Conteh
As the compliance with the Government’s White Paper recommendations by Persons of Interest elapsed on the 24th December, 2020, the Principal Adviser in the Office of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Lahai Farmah has on Tuesday 12th January 2021 during a Press Conference, held at the Ministry of Information and Communications, Youyi Building in Freetown informed that the next step is going to be a full blown implementation of all those recommendations.
He highlighted that the 24th December, 2020 was the grace period for Persons of Interest to adhere to the recommendations of the Government White Paper which is mainly the refunding of monies said to have been stolen from the State into the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
The Principal Adviser added that they have three main stages in the implementation process of those recommendations of which he said one of them is that which has to do with orders to confiscate, revoke or for persons to loss their assets according to the investigation and recommendations they got from the three Commissions of Inquires.
Lahai Farmah further revealed that they have exhausted 20 of those orders which they have taken to court in the way of summons of which 15 rulings have been given and they are putting those rulings in form of orders also to be signed by the Master and Registrar.
He noted that the second stage is recovering of those funds from Persons of Interest who were investigated for alleged misappropriation and they were asked to refund monies to the Consolidated Revenue Fund, adding that the White Paper named 136 Persons of Interest those whose orders were granted against.
“The law says that if one has to pay Government out of a Commission of Inquiry order if one refuses to pay we will have to write officially for the money in one’s bank account to be turned over into the Recovery Account established by Government and that could be another method we will apply,” Lahai Farmah underscored.
He further disclosed that the bank accounts of persons of interest were frozen and that if they cannot pay the monies back to Government the other stage will be for them in the Attorney General’s Office to write to the different banks to transfer monies from their accounts to the Consolidated Revenue Fund as per the laws of the land.
Lahai Farmah pointed out that currently they have received 85 appeals from persons of interest and they will commence hearing those appeals as soon as possible.
The Principal Adviser said if a Person of Interest loses an appeal he or she will have to pay the Principal amount, interest and litigation cost.
He encouraged persons of interest to comply with those recommendations in refunding those monies to Government as the stipulated deadline as elapses.
