|
|
|
IN OUR report about the disposal of the premises of the Sierra Leone High Commission at 33 Portland Place, London W1 (see here), we omitted one crucial piece of information. It was the fact that in 1997, two years before the present transaction, two prime located flats on the back street overlooking the building, which formed part of the High Commission's complex, were sold off. We have discovered, following our four-month investigation, that both flats were sold reputedly for a total of £100,000. They were allegedly bought by a firm called Capricorn which occupied them and had a gymnasium built at the back. Currently Capricorn is allegedly renting both properties at £1,500 and £1,000 per month, respectively. The larger flat, which has two bedrooms, has garage space for two cars while the smaller of the two, a single bedroom flat, has space for one car. It was at about the same time that a brand new S Class Mercedes Benz 230
SEL was bought for the High Commissioner. It was also at a particularly
rough time for staff at the mission, when they were not being regularly paid
and were owed thousands of pounds in arrears of salaries and allowances. We
understand that relations between the High Commissioner and some members of
staff have been strained partly as a result of this. But many have also told
us that they are not informed about anything going on at the mission. Some
say they are not even aware about how they came to be relocated from the old
building to the present one. We have heard of the (quite staggering) claim that stripping as much of the nation's assets was considered as a strategy in order to deal a severe blow to Johnny Paul Koroma and his AFRC junta government and make it impossible for them to operate. There is a further suggestion that behind all the bravado displayed by senior members of the exiled government at that time, most were privately nursing a latent fear that their overthrow was indeed the end of their government and that they might never go back. So, they thought, selling these valuable assets would place further hardship on the 'unpopular' AFRC. Even though in exile, the ousted government still had the power to deal with and, if it wanted, liquidate all assets overseas by virtue of the fact that Johnny Paul Koroma and the AFRC junta were not recognised by a single country and Tejan Kabbah was acclaimed as the de jure, hence the legally constituted, government of Sierra Leone. But ironically these were the same people - the SLPP Government - who, on assuming power in 1996, had accused the NPRC of having recklessly disposed of national assets during its military rule. Yet here they were …doing far worse, proverbially cutting their noses to spite their own faces. In reality it amounted to them cutting our noses to spite our faces! To be fair to Mr Foray, 33 Portland Place had become a horrible building, especially in the last 15 years. Its deterioration began under the last APC government. A number of its serving officers used it as a trading market for selling imported local foodstuffs from Sierra Leone and for carrying out other dubious transactions that had nothing to do with their diplomatic presence in this country. The mission had accumulated thousands of pounds (sterling) worth of arrears in rates, and its physical condition had become so bad that it was estimated that the cost of its rehabilitation would run into millions of pounds. A visit by local council health officers led to recommendations for its total fumigation. For most of that period, its dilapidated state – with creaky floors, leaky ceilings and pigeon dropping-infested rooms - meant that most of the upper floors had to be vacated, as ceiling after ceiling was precariously poised to cave in. Their next-door neighbour, the Chinese Embassy, was particularly incensed by the awful eyesore abutting its own elegant and well-maintained buildings, and the nuisance that was being caused to them by the squalor and especially the incessant cooing of the pigeons in the adjacent rooms upstairs. But we should add that this condition was so only because no maintenance had been carried out throughout most of the life of the building. Successive governments were not minded to allocate money for that, Sierra Leone being one country that has never learnt to develop a culture of maintaining its assets in prime condition. Even if money had been so allocated, the evidence of one's own eyes showed clearly that the building was gradually but deliberately primed to fall into desuetude. On many occasions, notably during the rule of the NPRC military government, the terribly deteriorating condition of the premises attracted all sorts of people who were offering to refurbish the building in exchange for honorary consulship and similar quid pro quos. One such interested party was a Mr R D Blick, a property dealer and solicitor, who expressed an interest in being made honorary consul, in exchange for which he was prepared to undertake a complete refurbishment of the building. But officials put him off. Others were just cowboy contractors aiming for a quick kill. At least one genuine and realistic offer was made but it, too, was deliberately strangled at conception by the selfishness and greed of officials at the mission. It was the offer made in 1995 by the Sierra Rutile Company which has mining operations inside Sierra Leone and is one of our foreign exchange earners in peacetime. The company offered to finance remedial work and to rehabilitate the mission from its decrepit state. However, a disagreement - sparked purely by competitive greed - between a particular High Commissioner (not Foray) and the First Secretary (not the current one) prevented the project from going ahead as both men wanted their own preferred contractors to do the job. They were more interested in the commissions that they would receive from their nominee contractors than the safety and fitness for purpose of the environment from which they were conducting the country's overseas affairs! To his own credit, it was claimed by some of Forays friends on his behalf in 1995 that the reason why the NPRC had recalled and replaced him at that time was because he had resisted their call for him to sell the High Commissioner's residence at Ingram Avenue in north west London. One has talked to an NPRC official who has denied this charge as patently untrue. Now, as the noose tightens around him in the matter of the current disposal of 33 Portland Place, Foray's friends are again alleging that it is because of his one-time (we suspect, continuing!) allegiance to the APC that the governing SLPP loyalists are after him. Poppycock! Surely, he would not have been reinstated by the SLPP government and retained in that office if that were the case. Focus has often questioned the loyalty of Foray to the present government but somehow he appears to have a stranglehold on them that we are yet unable to fathom out. We have therefore come to the firm conclusion that the disposal of the premises at 33 Portland Place was conducted with the full knowledge of the SLPP Government, or at least with the connivance of some of its key members. During our investigations, we were told that in early 1999 a letter came from the foreign ministry giving the okay for the deal to go ahead on behalf of the government. We have not seen this letter and cannot therefore vouch for the accuracy of this claim. But we would like to invite the ministry of foreign affairs to comment, if they wish, on its veracity. We will no doubt carry their comment in full. But seriously, can anyone imagine Mr Foray taking it upon himself to sell a historic and valuable national property in this carefree manner, without someone in the government knowing about it, or giving the gentle nod for him to go ahead? We have hitherto described this transaction as a deal, transaction or disposal. This is so because of the deliberate attempt by the principal actors in this murky affair to create confusion. It is still a corny issue whether the building was in fact sold, since the word that is being spread around is that it was only contracted away to be refurbished and that at some time in the future the mission will be back in the premises. We do not buy this story because, on the contrary, all the indications are that the building has indeed been sold off. But we stand to be corrected. The deal was allegedly concluded with a firm called Capricorn, here in the UK. It is the same firm that bought the two embassy flats (above) in 1997. We now know that a certain Lord Davenport is the owner of this firm. He is the multimillionaire property man whom we reported in our first story as having bought the property and converted it to a 24-bedroom mansion, and was looking for a bride (Click here). For those idiots who said Focus was inventing stories, click here and here for scanned images of the original article that appeared in the UK Daily Mail on Thursday November 18, 1999. Following the report carried by Focus about the deal, a local MP Mr Osman Kamara who is also leader of the PDP (Sorbeh) Party raised the issue in the Sierra Leone Parliament. The acting Foreign Minster at the time, Mr Abu Aiah Koroma also Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, said that the building was in such a bad condition that they had decided it should be refurbished. It now appears that at the time he said this, the building had in fact been already disposed of, to Lord Davenport. Question: Did he know of the sale then, and was he deliberately misleading Parliament and the country? Or, did someone feed him with the wrong information? We understand that the Government has hired the services of a firm of solicitors – Stevenson Howard - in London to look after its interest. It seems that the original lessors - the owners of the freehold are not happy with some aspects of the deal entered into by Foray with the purported 'refurbishers'. Foray is believed to have had as his legal advisors, alternately, two Sierra Leonean practitioners based in London, one of whom is very well known to most residents here and has allegedly advised against the use of the word 'sale' in any discussion of the transaction.
The conundrum is this: To which of these several purported landlords is rent being paid, if at all, and by whom? As far as accountability goes, the ultimate responsibility for a full explanation of what has been going on lies fairly and squarely on President Kabbah, the Foreign Minister Banya, Mr Foray himself and the entire government, for this reckless action. Why? Simply because they ought to know. Anyone with common sense knows that in a country like Britain, the rule of law applies at all times. Extensive regulations and statute govern transactions over real property. We would expect therefore that any transaction involving dealings with, or the sale or disposal of State assets like the High Commission building and other property would be the subject of a legal agreement. The final arbiter in such cases must always be our government's chief law officer i.e. the Attorney General, in this case Mr Solomon Berewa, who would prepare the necessary legal documentation, or instruct a firm of solicitors to act on his behalf. Is he also claiming total surprise at the disposal - whether for sale or refurbishment of this property? What if the High Commissioner as contractor defaults and the country is dragged before the courts. Who then has responsibility to defend the country's honour? We simply refuse to accept that, on their numerous visits to this country on official government business (never mind their private forays abroad), James Jonah (finance minister), Sama Banya (Foreign minister), President Tejan Kabbah on his last three visits here, James Allie his all too powerful secretary, and glorified errand boys like Momodu Koroma and Prince Harding - beneficiaries of Kabbah's patronage, were not aware of the goings on at the High Commission. If they did not, could they say from where they conduct their official businesses whenever they arrive in the UK on official assignments? We know that they all visited the premises about the time of the deal. So how could a transaction for the sale of the Mission's premises have been carried out without their knowledge or their own curiosity being aroused? The High Commissioner is only an employee. How come they as his employers do not know what he is doing in their name but have nonetheless kept him in the same job for close to four years? No, the real reason lies in the personal relationships between these
people and the cronyism that operates at this level of government in Sierra
Leone. In the past Foray, as Foreign Minister under the APC Government of
President Siaka Stevens, did a lot of favours for some of these guys who now
hold the reins of power in Sierra Leone. He is also close buddy with Sama
Banya the Foreign Minister. There is an evident reluctance to desert or put
on enquiry a close friend. Patronage and the urge to repay past favours is
also a compelling factor. They all have nothing to do with ability to do the
job or honesty and integrity in discharging one's functions. Brief history of 33 Portland Place Focus says, Sierra Leoneans should be the ones with that right and we must fight for it to be reinstated. Addendum Another property that was sold and for which no account has ever been given was the building in Southwark, southeast London, formerly owned by the Sierra Leone Produce Marketing Board (SLPMB). It was sold to the Sierra Leone State Lottery, with little said about the transaction. The State lottery offices were recently set ablaze in a deliberate attempt to destroy evidence of financial irregularities. The other property was a three-bedroom house at Tooting in southwest London. Nothing was said about its sale and how much if anything went into the public coffers. PS 23/04/00
|
The Mission moved out of the old premises
in May last year, once the transaction had been completed. The fate of the
new premises at Oxford Street (the entrance to which is the tiny door between
the two arches in the picture on the left) is still very uncertain. A source
told this paper that Sierra Leoneans should not be surprised to wake up one
day and hear that their mission has no fixed abode from where to operate.
Asked why, he said that at present there appear to be three separate
companies/persons, each claiming to be the landlord of the premises. The
startling revelation was also made that the High Commission is not paying any
rent and that Lord Davenport is, allegedly, "organising all of
that". Presumably, this is under the terms of the deal that gave him
'ownership' of 33 Portland Place. 
