Sierra Leone Telegraph: 5 February 2021:
Sierra Leone’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) last Tuesday, filed an indictment against Julian Clarke, Human Resource Manager at the country’s Civil Aviation Authority (SLCAA), along with Sallieu Kargbo, Senior Finance Officer at SLCAA – both resident of Freetown, on a total of nine counts of corruption offences ranging from Abuse of Office, contrary to Section 42 (1), Deceiving a Principal, contrary to Section 40 (1), and Conspiracy to Commit a Corruption Offence, contrary to Section 128 (1) of the Anti-Corruption Act, No. 12 of 2008 (as Amended by the Anti-Corruption Act No. 9 of 2019).
Julian Clarke is indicted on seven counts of Abuse of Office, while Sallieu Kargbo and Julian Clarke are jointly charged on one count of Deceiving a Principal and one count of Conspiracy to Commit a Corruption Offence.
According to the particulars of offence published by the ACC, between 1st January and 30th December, 2020, both accused are alleged to have conspired and deceived the Government of Sierra Leone by authoring and signing documents containing false information which were forwarded to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Turkish Embassy for the purposes of facilitating the granting of Turkish Visas to certain individuals who were purported to be staff of the Sierra Leone Civil Aviation Authority, knowing very well they were not.
They are both expected to make their first appearance in the High Court of Sierra Leone in Freetown on 16th February, 2021.
Despite all the publicity surrounding the fight against corruption by the ACC, the 2019 Auditor General report, Bio’s lip services public statements in the fight against corruption, to many government officials and middle ranking officials in public services, the message has still not got through. This goes to show how Sierra Leone is awash with corruption. The roll call of corrupt public officials never seemed to stop. In practice, what it means for the public that is spoon fed, these daily doses of corruption cases, we suddenly found ourselves developing hard immunity of surprise to any of thiese corruption cases when we hear them.
The net effect is it undermines public trust of our government officials. No sustainable development goals are undertaken. In this case giving visas to Turkish Nationals. What planet are these individuals living on? What is going on in Sierra leone, is nothing sort of financial terrorism against the state. While if you flip the same coin, and ask yourself, if it is possible for the same favours to be granted to Sierra Leonean nationals in Turkey, the answer is no. You stand a better chance of landing on the moon than being offered such favours in Turkey. Under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, those officials caught in such a saga, are not only going to pay fines, but looking at long prison sentences for betraying the Turkish State. Until Bio starts playing an active role in the fight against corruption, our country will never move forward. Right now he is more of the problem than the solution.
At first glance, one will think the ACC fishing net has finally caught a gigantic sea animal in light of daily reports from fishermen observing sharks and whales devouring resources belonging to the little fishes at alarming rates, with those sharks and whales roaming about openly to the shoreline on daily basis. Despite the ACC having all the apparatus needed to rescue the millions of starving fish from the hands of these devilish sea animals, as usual, ACC chooses to go after the smaller fishes who happen to have unlawfully eaten a few remnants belonging to other smaller fish.
While PAOPA elites are busy running a racketeering scheme on plain view, here is a publication by ACC pertaining to a duo of civil servants being charged for corruption on the premise of dubiously permitting no civil aviation employees obtaining Turkish visas. Our nation is indeed doomed under this current regime.