by LANSANA FOFONA
Freetown — The crusade against corruption seems to be gathering momentum in this West African country, with the arrest and prosecution of senior government officials, including cabinet ministers.
The latest to be roped in by the country’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), is Afsatu Kabba, the then-Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, who is currently facing a 17-count indictment for graft and abuse of office. Kabba was sacked immediately the indictment was announced. She was charged shortly after the conviction, in March, of another cabinet minister, Sheku Tejan Kamara, who was heading the Health and Sanitation ministry. Koroma was found guilty of awarding contracts to his cronies without opening them up to public tender. He was sentenced to five years imprisonment, but avoided jail by paying the alternative fine of $40,000. At his inauguration in September 2007, President Ernest Bai Koroma announced a zero tolerance approach to corruption and vowed that public officials who engaged in graft would be arrested and prosecuted. “No one, not even members of my family, will be spared (in this fight against corruption). There will be no sacred cows in my administration,” the president announced at the national stadium, in front of a crowd of more than 25,000, including foreign diplomats and donor representatives. Within a year, he had strengthened the ACC, enabling it to take on cases without waiting from approval from the attorney-general or the justice ministry. The ACC also now has its own court and judges, separate from the normal judicial set-up. Before Koroma took office, prosecution of cases of corruption depended wholely on the whim of the attorney-general and there was seen to be major political interference in the operations of the ACC.
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