Sierra Leone: The Appeal Court of Sierra Leone has upheld the appeal case filed in by the former minister of Lands Musa Tarawallie with regard to the adverse findings against him by the 2018 Commission of Inquiry ( COI).
After the victory of President Bio in the 2018 Election, he immediately set up a Commission of Inquiry, made up of three Commissioners to look into the activities and dealings of the former All People Congress Government spanning from November 2007 to April 2018.
One of the people that felt aggrieved of the White Paper Recommendations from the COI reports was Musa Tarawallie. Key amongst the findings against him and Barbar Fortune, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Lands is that they must return the sum of over Le234 million to the consolidated fund.
His grounds of appeal to the panel of Judges was that there were errors of fact being made by the sole Commissioner Justice Biobele Georgewill, which led to errors of Law as well and they were never given the opportunity to be heard by the Commission itself.
Mr Tarawallie who was represented by Lawyer Pa Momoh Fofana, while counsel for the State Robert Kowa responded to oral arguments and written synopsis at the same time.
After going through all of the evidence, the three judges , Justice Ivan Sesay, Justice Adrian Fisher and Justice Alhaji Momoh Jah Stevens said the findings of the sole Commissioner Biobele Georgewill “were not justifiable.” They established that both Musa Tarawallie and Barbar Fortune never worked together in the Ministry of Lands.
They then ordered for the adverse findings against Musa Tarawallie both in the finding and recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry Report, as well as the White Paper by the Government of Sierra Leone be set aside and the State should refund whatever money they might have paid to the consolidated fund.
MJB/28/04/2021