Most of you who took the trouble to write to us have expressed total dismay and shock at the vast sums of money being funnelled through this person and her rather pretentiously named organisation. You expressed the fact that but for Focus having taken this case up and kicked a fuss about it, even the trickle of information that was masquerading behind her pompous rhetoric would not have seen the light of day.

It would appear from our current investigations launched since three weeks ago, which are still continuing, that the CGG is one hell of a big  recipient of foreign aid in Sierra Leone. What is also absolutely certain is that Zainab Bangura's account does not tell us all of the story. We do not believe that she mentioned all the monies and the sources concerned in that letter. In any case her narrative was evasive and confused, and amounts to utter rubbish.

We challenge her now to say categorically that when her bankers and accountants bring out the promised account, every penny and every cent given to her will be stated clearly for the scrutiny of the Sierra Leone public. In particular, will she state whether or not she has received funding from any other non-US government or non-UK government sources?

Those of us who live and work overseas, especially here in the UK as this editor, are familiar with the KPMG-Peatmarwick accountancy firms of this world. So Zainab Bangura can save her breadth because she will not impress us by dropping their names in that narrative. It neither adds value to her account nor explains the serious lapses that so glaringly shame her and her organisation.

Her excuse for ducking our direct questions on accountability is that she has given account to her funders. She implies that they are happy with her, so she does not care if we Sierra Leoneans are unhappy or want to know more about her activities. Her liability is solely to the British, American, Dutch, and Danes. She shows very clearly the contempt that she has for us and that she owes no obligation to the people of Sierra Leone - but only to her benefactors, paymasters and associates at TI. It is a common thread that runs through her exhaustive meaningless narrative.

In this respect we see no difference between her behaviour and the cavalier manner in which successive Sierra Leone governments have dealt with aid funds donated for the benefit of our citizens. When you consider how much abuse such monies have been subjected to by government ministers and officials, an issue on which this paper has taken a lifetime crusading stand, you begin to wonder what proper policing is being done by these foreign donors.

By her own account, Mrs Bangura's main financiers have been the British and US governments. It raises a question about the ethics of large amounts of money being handed over to a single local NGO like the CGG, while other deserving but low profile NGOs, such as those in the Provinces away from Freetown, are in desperate need of cash.  It stands out even more if placed alongside the present urgent needs of the country as a whole, not to mention the mammoth task facing central government.

This matter also raises the fundamental question:  To whom, in a democracy, is the (local) NGO accountable?
Is it solely to the donor? Or, is it to the beneficiaries in the country as well? 
In particular also, what is the role and status of the individual in their search, receipt and administration of such funds?

Further, we would like to put these pertinent questions to Zainab Bangura's benefactors:

• What message are they conveying to this individual and to the rest of us, the citizens of Sierra Leone, by encouraging her reticence in these matters? 
• Is their aim to set her up apart from the rest of us and create divisions in Sierra Leone society? 
• Would they now make available to the Sierra Leone public all such submissions and votes channelled via her and her organisation?
• Are they aware that in a volatile country like Sierra Leone, such a highly personalised focus can itself generate opprobrium in the community, especially a community in which other deserving organisations go without the means to carry out the most basic and desirable needs of their communities?
• Is the arrangement between them and Mrs Zainab Bangura a private arrangement?

The international community that is even now scrounging around to raise money to help with our economic problems and tackle the legacy of our internal war should not forget that the attitude adopted by Mrs Zainab Bangura in her narrative of accounts typifies exactly that which has  prevailed for so long, alienated the majority of our citizens and has killed the spirit of our nation, namely that because the masses cannot think for themselves they have to take what is on offer; and cannot talk back or ask questions. They should be grateful for what is given to them and shut up. 

Needless to repeat, the present civil war is to a very large extent the consequence of that same attitude, when people were put and left on the scrap heap while others rode roughshod on their backs to personal wealth and power.

We therefore invite the ever generous British Council, DFID and USAID to place within the public domain, for the proper information of the sovereign Sierra Leone public, all the receipts and returns that Zainab Bangura and the CGG claim to have submitted to them, which she says have so greatly impressed them to the extent that they are forever wanting to give her more and more money. It would be interesting to hear their reaction to their names being flashed about in what is a pathetic attempt at creative accounting.

20/3/00