The Principal Legal Consultant, Office of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Lahai Momoh Farma, has on Wednesday 11th November 2020 disclosed that they will seek a court order to enforce the 28 summons they are to file to confiscate illegal properties belonging to past government officials as recommended by the White Paper. “Government will enforce the court order and chase whosoever that is deemed to have acquired properties illegally according to the White Paper, including former President Ernest Bai Koroma,” he said.
The government White Paper constitutes recommendations from government on the just concluded Commissions of Inquiry (COI) by three independent Judges. After the conclusion of the COI, the government produced a bulky report demanding swindled monies and illegal properties acquired by past government officials of the President Koroma led administration.
“The aforementioned summons not only border around properties that are to be confiscated to the state, but also illegal transactions by these past government officials,” Farmah explained. He maintained that government will only be waiting on a court order, after they would have sent the summons to court.
Farmah had earlier disclosed that government received 58 appeals from said past government officials, and reaffirmed that some of them have complied with the judgments in the White Paper by paying monies they stole while in power, though he was not helpful with names and amount received so far. He instead referred Awoko newspaper to the Bank of Sierra Leone to ascertain the same.
Some past public officials responded to the judgment of the White Paper after one of the lead defence counsels during the just concluded COI told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that the White Paper lacked functional competence, and that whatever comes out of it will not be recognised by members of the All People’s Congress party.
Farmah reiterated that government will chase past public officials who are to pay monies stolen from the state immediately after the 90 day period expires sometime in December this year. He asserted that because the White Paper is a judgment, it should have been honoured the very moment it came out. “Government was just trying to be reasonable with these past public officials, and that was why a 90 day period was given to them,” he continued.
By Sulaiman Karim Sesay and Anthony Macauley