FORAY IS NOT THE ONLY GUILTY PARTY IN THIS DISGRACEFUL SCAM

Ambrose Ganda

Editor, Focus on Sierra Leone

A STATEMENT has been issued by the Government of Sierra Leone in which it has announced the "offer to resign" by its High Commissioner to the UK, Mr Cyril P Foray.

It comes in the wake of the campaign that was mounted and vigorously pursued by Focus on Sierra Leone, to expose the corrupt transactions over the disposal of the premises of the Sierra Leone High Commission at 33 Portland Place, in London W1.

The sobering truth is that Sierra Leoneans have lost, for all intents and purposes, their property rights to a prime national asset in the United Kingdom – the imposing buildings that only very recently used to house our High Commission in London's prestigious and desirable Mayfair. 

Whatever might have been the state of dilapidation into which this building had been allowed to fall, the country was always in an infinitely better position, despite being saddled with it in its so-called decrepit state, than to have had it surreptitiously snatched from our possession by the evil machinations of a motley assortment of greedy and selfish people.

Just over a year ago, my dear wife and I bought a house that was in a terribly bad state. But its attraction for us was not its aesthetic looks at the time  - we could see it was badly run-down - but the potential that it had if (as we thought then) some structural alterations and extensive decorations were carried out on it. We were not put off by its decrepit state and so we bought it and immediately occupied it. Happily, nearly eighteen months later we have just managed to bring it to a standard that is immensely pleasing to both us, and to the friends and relatives who have visited us. There is still a lot that we would like to do to it but at least we can work towards that in the future. We are not wealthy people but just two individuals who work hard to improve our lives. This is an experience that we share with millions of homeowners here in the UK.

Contrast this with a potentially wealthy country like Sierra Leone being made to give away its premises, which, according to an independent valuator, is worth potentially between  £2.5 and £3 million, for the mere pittance of a few thousand pounds sterling? Even accepting the fact that it was very badly run-down, why should it become an object of a give-away when numerous alternatives exist for refurbishing it at minimal expense for now, until the country can afford the full cost of its rehabilitation?

Imagine also if, with rapacious RUF/SLA rebels and kleptomaniac SLPP government ministers permitting, we were to commit just one or two of Sierra Leone's best quality gem diamonds solely to refurbishing the High Commission! We would still own a house in pristine condition that every Sierra Leonean would be proud of in this country. 

Did we have to lose these premises for any reason?

This loss, which on surface appears to me to be terminal, must rank as one of the most terrible body blows ever dealt to the Sierra Leone public. This point is stark when put against the general economic situation in that country, with hundreds of thousands of Sierra Leoneans wracked with the pain of personal tragedies, deprivation, poverty and hardship. That sight is mirrored here in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, where you can see hundreds of Sierra Leoneans who have been driven away from home by the war, and are here as refugees or waiting for decisions on their status in this country, struggling to make ends meet in a highly competitive, demanding and (sometimes) hostile environment.

As a matter of routine on this site, I have frequently drawn attention to the corruption and the corrupt practices that are destroying the soul of our country and nation, which cumulatively partly gave rise to the incidence of a long drawn civil war. I also have too often, sometimes to the irritation of my distracters, discussed the callousness of bureaucrats who despite the evidence of harsh conditions facing the mass of our citizens deliberately set out to defraud the country of the resources entrusted into their care for their development and for the alleviation of the worst excesses of their wretched conditions.

I consider myself as a seasoned observer of the Sierra Leonean political scene but even I must confess my total dismay at the ghastly fact that apparently intelligent people who smart under labels such as 'intellectuals', who are fully conversant with the plight of Sierra Leone's people, are the very ones who engage in these disgraceful anti-social behaviours. These are people whom you would normally expect to come up with reasons and solutions for our lack of progress. They should be probing the inner recesses of their brains in search of ways of extricating the country from the grip of war, discontentment, mass despondency and poverty.

But, Oh no! They won't! Being all these things, they nonetheless brazenly, selfishly and thoughtlessly engage in activities that simply blight the prospects for any improvement in the lives of ordinary Sierra Leoneans. They work very hard at making our problem insoluble because that gives them the pretext to hang on to their privileges and to continue enjoying their monopoly of power over their compatriots. By keeping everybody in a state of want and neediness, through their theft of national assets and resources, they know that the disadvantaged in our society will always look up to them for the crumbs. 

I don't think it requires a PhD thesis to prove that dishonest actions - such as the diversion of funds or as in the present case the fraudulent conversion of national assets which are meant for the general well being of our citizens - by those who ought to know better, are quietly but surely contributing to the premature destruction of innocent lives and the cherished hopes and aspirations of many in our country. Above all their nefarious actions reinforce and give transient credence to the otherwise crude pretensions of those who say they that have to wage war on us and destroy our homes and families in order to wipe out corruption.

This Government, like all of its predecessors, has consistently given the impression that it has time for only these rogue men and women, and that the latter are the ones whom it can trust to put into the commanding heights of responsibility for the country's affairs. It is a policy that is not only stupid but also confrontational, in so far as it pitches one segment of our society against the other.

No doubt, soon, the same Government will be appointing another High Commissioner to the UK following Mr Foray's "voluntary" resignation. Doubtless also the jockeying for his post has already commenced and he or she will, inevitably as always, be chosen from amongst the present ruling clique's battalion of cronies and lackeys. One hardly needs to look far for a precedent. 

Here in London the Government's recent appointment as deputy to Mr Foray, of Mr Sulaiman Tejan Jalloh – a former cabinet minister who lost his post in the last so-called cabinet reshuffle - is a case in point.  While in government, Jalloh had himself not been without controversy and his appointment as deputy raised a few eyebrows. Since his arrival he has set himself up as a political agent of the SLPP, and has personally, publicly, engaged in the internal affairs of that party forgetting that he is here, primarily and foremost, to serve the interests of all Sierra Leonean citizens of every political hue and persuasion. There are at present more than a dozen political parties in still-war-ravaged Sierra Leone. How come then that a deputy high commissioner, whose brief must include trying to mend fences and heal wounds between all of Sierra Leone's peoples, and to reassure the thousands who have fled to this country (UK) as refugees, can so recklessly misperceive his functions in such fashion. He has compromised his position by preoccupying himself with peripheral and mundane issues affecting the internal operations of a very ordinary external local branch of the ruling party. This is certainly not what diplomats come here to do. Actions like that by him are responsible for the alienation that many people whom I have talked to feel about our High Commission. Not even the disgraced Foray found time to engage in that kind of trivia!

But here again these are the results we reap when political, as opposed to career, diplomats are given such appointments. Our political system labours under a kind of primitive interpretation of allegiance and loyalty which, frankly speaking, I hoped that a former UN bureaucrat like Alhaji Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, now an Executive President of Sierra Leone, would eschew from his administration. But then the UN itself is an organisation whose corridors are renowned to crawl with patronage and cronyism at the very top.

Now, it seems, the Government has seen it fit to issue this statement about Foray without an acknowledgement whatsoever of the investigative effort initiated and pursued vigorously by Focus on Sierra Leone. But I am not surprised. This has been their reaction to all other campaigns on this site, including various questions that one has asked, and challenges that one has issued, on specific issues pertaining to governance and the peace process. In no instance has a reaction come from them. This time they have avoided responding directly and have created the impression somehow that the initiative was their own and that they have acted correctly in the instant case. But I won't grant them the license and pleasure! 

They are wrong on two counts:

• First, the initiative to blew the whistle on Foray was not theirs' but of Focus.

• Secondly, they have not acted in good faith and are now only using Foray, who has no choice because of his own stupid actions, as a willing lamb to be sacrificed at the altar of corruption, to cover for the government's own inadequacies including a palpable lack of judgement and foresight.

Why, for a start, has Foray merely been allowed to resign? Why has he not been sacked outright, given the seriousness of the charge against him, which even this sham government statement could not disguise? 

This being one of the greatest frauds ever committed on this country, what message is the government giving to us Sierra Leoneans? Our country has suffered so much for so long; our people have been stripped of their dignity and personal possessions. The only security that they should be enjoying would be those assets out here, in safe heavens like UK and other countries that are beyond the reach of the war and the rapacious tendencies that are constantly fanning its flames. Do you then reward the culprit with an option to resign? 

Is this President Kabbah's idea of accountability and setting examples for probity in the conduct of national affairs?

I think I know the reason for this apparent deference for Foray.

The disgraced former High Commissioner totally deserves his fate …and more. But he has been made into a scapegoat for the convenience of other 'big fish' who must have acquiesced in his quite banal operation to defraud the citizens of Sierra Leone. Complicity in that attempt is evinced by the absence of any pre-emptive action even after the scam was exposed in August last year by Focus. His' is therefore not the only head that must roll. Others' must!

The evident dereliction of duty spans a spectrum of government departments with the ultimate responsibility lying with Government itself, but especially the office of the President, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, of the Attorney General and ministry of Justice, and of Finance. These are the key ministries, which are meant to be the prime custodians of Sierra Leone's major interests abroad. They have all defaulted, which has led to us being defrauded, but now they want us to believe that Foray alone is to blame and that his actions came as a surprise to them also. That is a ridiculous statement for them to make. They should not, and will not, get away with it.

If one may ask:

• What follow-up action did the President order when, according to the statement, he returned from visiting his late wife? 

• When the documents (if at all they were sent by Foray as he "instructed") arrived in Freetown, what checks were carried out by the appropriate authority to ensure that the arrangements were, on the whole, beneficial to Sierra Leone and that our national interest was not threatened or compromised? 

Of course, one must concede that the President must trust his appointees to perform their duties correctly. But there are matters, which are so vital that he or she must keep a constant watch over them, through the system of checks, and balances that must exist. This was one instance that needed to be followed up closely and it seems that no one did. For example, one assumes that when any government official visits this country on official Government business, the High Commission is their first and usually only port of call, and that where necessary they would operate from there until their mission is completed. That is how important the High Commission's offices are – they are an extension of the continuity of governance. What was the reaction of all the government ministers and officials who visited the Sierra Leone High Commission at its new offices in Oxford Circus where it had relocated in May last year? When they returned home, what did they report?

Looking at what has been disclosed in this statement, it would appear that Foray's big scam was so puerile and infantile and could easily have been seen as a sham exercise. 

The question is, who at the Freetown end allowed it to proceed?

As will become evident in my blow-by-blow analyses of the government statement, a string of questions are begging to be asked. For example:

• When did the Government first hear of the sale of the house? 

• How did they hear about it, if Foray did not tell them? 

• Why did they not know about this deal at the moment when it happened, considering several of them had visited this country numerous times during the intervening period between May 1999 and April this year?

• What action did they take in August when Focus reported the scam?

Now just imagine the following scenario: 

Let's assume that your employer sends you away on an assignment abroad. You leave your wife and family in your prized family home. During your absence, you hear that your wife has moved house with your children to another location, without letting you know.

Would you just accept the move when you hear of it, or would you be curious to know:

• why she moved?

• how she managed to cope with the move, including the cost of moving and resettling in the new home?

• the condition of where she has moved to?

• how she is managing to cope including paying the rent, etc., feeding the children, etc.)

• who might have helped her move and what their motives could have been?

Would you wait until one year later to find out?

Would you not be tempted to take some action on the merest allegation that she has moved house? Or even that someone offered to accommodate them?

Clearly, the relocation of the High Commission was a signal that ought to have provoked such questions in the minds of members of the Government that something was going amiss.

It confirms my expressed view that part of our problem is that Sierra Leone is not loved or taken seriously by its own rulers. They treat her like dirt and as something they can use and abuse for their convenience. That's why no one was curious enough when the mission was being relocated into a building and rooms sandwiched between a prostitute's joint and the offices of a pornographic film making company. 

If the government had acted promptly when Focus brought this information out in August last year, when it was then barely five months into the 12 month period under the agreement, and invited it to comment or tell us the facts about the deal, it would have been able to avoid losing the building even if we would have had to pay the extortionate fee of £1.5 million within the 21 days of expressing our wish to exercise the option to withdraw from the contract of assignment. Instead they waited, procrastinated, vacillated and equivocated until exactly 12 months later – the expiry date - when it is apparently too late to do anything about it. (The lease, as I have since been informed by a source, was signed in April last year!)

Is Government telling us that it was a coincidence that they acted just when the option to terminate the assignment expired? Was somebody deliberately holding back on taking the proper action, despite all the warnings that were given to the government?

This must count as a deliberate act on the part of somebody, or some people. We must find out who they are. They must pay back every single cent, and more. The jobs of each and every one of them, and not just Foray, must be put on line.

If this were a democratically accountable country - which I am afraid to say it is not - I would now be pressing for a public enquiry into this affair. But that will not work in present day Sierra Leone. Most things, including well-meaning ideas, tend to be tainted with corruption even before they commence because the administration creaks beneath the weight of a system overload of corrupt patrons and clients who operate many of our vital national institutions.

There was once a time when a matter like this could be trusted to be handled extremely well by the good offices of the Auditor General which, even under Siaka Stevens' regime, was quite bold in calling a spade a spade by naming and shaming a whole posse of corrupt and mendacious officials – military as well civilian. (See for example the Report of the Accountant General on the Accounts of Sierra Leone 1978-79).

In my candid opinion, it is the man currently at the top who must bear the blame. He must sort out his den of thieves. Is it because he cannot do so, or just simply that he does not want to? 

Somebody needs to demonstrate a willingness to radically straighten Sierra Leone. If President Kabbah can't then let him say so ...and move aside for others who can do it.

6 May 2000