by Fatima Babih
The president of Sierra Leone indefinitely suspended the country’s independent Auditor General and her deputy about a month before the release of the annual audit report for 2020. One month later, on December 9, 2021, the report is released by the president’s appointed acting Auditor General. The report contains very disturbing revelations of fiscal mismanagement and blatant corruption activities by the office of the President, First Lady, and nearly all ministries and parastatal bodies in the current government.
As the people of Sierra Leone have been grappling with the gravity of these disturbing revelations, the Africanist Press broke the news today 12/16/21 that the audit report released by the new acting Auditor General is actually a redacted, cleaned-up version of the original report that would have been released by the suspended auditor general.
This new revelation by the Africanist Press leaves no doubt as to why President Maada Bio suspended the Auditor General and her deputy. But the alteration of the original audit report leaves Sierra Leoneans with many questions:
- Who altered the audit report?
- Was the alteration ordered by the president?
- Was the alteration done after the report was submitted to Parliament?
- Is it a criminal act to redact vital information before releasing the audit report?
- Is it ethical to release the report while the two original authors are suspended?
The people of Sierra Leone may not have answers to these and many more questions yet, but for now, they know for sure that it is criminal to redact vital information from the audit report before its release and the government of Sierra Leone knows how it happened.
MAMA SALONE ~ Lioness of the West Coast 