Former President Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone Interviewed by Anti-Corruption Commission
0 views /24 November 2020Afrikaleaks Editorial staff
Former Sierra Leonean President Bai Koroma was questioned Monday by a commission investigating alleged corruption and embezzlement during his presidency from 2007 to 2018, a report reported by two officials who wished to remain anonymous.
Ernest Bai Koroma, born October 2, 1953, in Makeni, Sierra Leone, is a Sierra Leonean statesman, member of the APC and former President of Sierra Leone. He was interrogated in a secret location after his hearing was cancelled twice, the last time last week for security reasons.
A member of Ernest Bai Koroma’s office confirmed the hearing without commenting on its content.
In addition, several former officials of the administration of President Ernest Bai Koroma were also arrested as part of the campaign against corruption and waste of public funds launched by his successor, the current President Julius Maada Bio, who has pledged before Sierra Leoneans to recover tens of millions of dollars stolen from the state coffers.
Last March, after having examined the accounts, a commission of inquiry concluded that millions of dollars remained untraceable to this day, and this loss of earnings dated from the years of power of President Ernest Bai Koroma, ministries and public enterprises. Like him, some 130 personalities linked to his regime are banned from leaving the country.
The economy of Sierra Leone (population 7.5 million), plagued by corruption, was devastated by a civil war from 1991 to 2002 that left some 120,000 people dead. It remains fragile after the shocks of the Ebola epidemic that ravaged it in 2014-2016, the fall in world commodity prices, and the appearance this year of COVID-19.
