By Sulaiman Jalloh
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Sierra Leone has presented their 2022/2023 Activities completed and budget proposal 2024-2026 Fiscal Year(s) to the Ministry of Finance in the ongoing FY2024 bilateral budget discussions at the Ministry of Finance in George Street in Freetown, on Tuesday, October 10, 2023.
Presenting the ACCs’ report, the deputy commissioner Anti-corruption Commission Augustine F. Ngobie said in 2022/2023, the commission received 277 cases with only 93 (34%) of them investigated, adding that in 2022, the commission prosecuted eleven (11) and in first half of 2023 one (1) case prosecuted noting two convicted and 1 discharged in 2022.
According to the deputy commissioner, the reason is because there is lack of staffempowerment, including logistics.
Providing details of some of the high-profiled cases successfully investigated in 2022, Commissioner Ngobie said they were able to investigate fake degrees among key government employees and other MDAs in the country, adding that the investigation of the insurance of Fake Licenses at the Sierra Leone Road Transport Authority is among the investigated cases.
Going further, he said that the commission also investigated the misappropriation of public funds at an amount of Six-hundred thousand Leones (NLe600, 000.00) that was paid by management of Sierra Leone Maritime Administration (SLMA) and Audit report which according to him led to the recovery of Billions of Leones among other cases (60% for 2022 and 50% half of 2023).
Throwing light on the budget, Augustine F. Ngobie said that in 2022, the Commission budgetd 73, 116,240 billion Leones, but that the ministry of finance approved 59, 706, 590 billion whiles they received Le 58, 684, 560 billion Leones
According to him, the commission received 5billion Leones from the ministry of finance to do the furnishing at the newly built Headquarters of ACC in Freetown.
The Anti-Corruption Commission is budgeting 89,201, 054 billion Leones for FY2024. The ACC Deputy said that the amount is intended to do the operations of the commission and to build their branches in Bo, Port Loko, and Kono and to do the fencing of their offices in Makeni and Kenema.
Copy right –Printed in the Expo Times Week end Newspaper on Friday 13th October, 2023 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)
