The United Nations' (UN) International Anti-Corruption Day is annually observed on December 9 to raise public awareness of corruption and ways to fight it and this year's theme - "United against corruption for development, peace and security" should send a message to the rat and those feeding fat from his droppings that they are not only nation wreckers, but are enemies of the people especially the poor and unconnected.

In a message commemorating the day, the watchdog Transparency International has observed - "People are dying because money meant for health care is stolen. The proceeds of large-scale corruption laundered in luxury property. Women and girls subjected to sexual demands in return for passing exams.

Democracy undermined by money in politics.

Factory workers losing their lives when unsafe buildings certified by unscrupulous inspectors collapse.

Hard earned tax payer money misappropriated.

Directly or indirectly, rich or poor, male or female, all of us are affected by corruption. But it does not have to be this way. All of us also have the power to fight corruption."

Tell that to the APC Majority Leader in Parliament, one RASSin Bundu who would not want anyone to ask them to account unless they are registered in Sierra Leone!!!

Given what obtains on the ground in Sierra Leone, one would think that the above observations are clearly a spotlight on corrupt practices in Sierra Leone where the nation wreckers use ill-gotten gains to wreck the homes of poor families, entice the daughters and wives in economically-challenged families to gratify sexual and other desires as the poor are held hostage by the vultures of corruption whose power of deceit and the impoverishment of the masses are derived directly from the rat at State House in Freetown.

"People are dying because money meant for health care is stolen" is a direct reflection on and reference to the dastardly act of the nation wreckers who saw nothing wrong in stealing funds meant for the fight against the Ebola Virus Disease, Cholera and other diseases that need not have claimed the lives of so many Sierra Leoneans.

Despite the reports of the Auditor-General and the rat himself cursing all those who profited from the suffering and deaths of the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak and calling the funds stolen as blood money, no one has been held to account and no one will be as all the fake contracts unearthed are reported to have had the paws of the rat in nearly, if not all of them.

Indeed the UN has noted -

"Every year $1 trillion is paid in bribes while an estimated $2.6 trillion are stolen annually through corruption – a sum equivalent to more than 5 per cent of the global GDP.

In developing countries, according to the United Nations Development Programme, funds lost to corruption are estimated at 10 times the amount of official development assistance.

Corruption is a serious crime that can undermine social and economic development in all societies. No country, region or community is immune. This year UNODC and UNDP have developed a joint global campaign, focusing on how corruption affects education, health, justice, democracy, prosperity and development. The 2016 joint international campaign focuses on corruption as one of the biggest impediments to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)."

UN Secretary General Ban ki Moon in his message on the day stated -

"The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is the world’s inspiring new manifesto for transforming our world and building a better future for all. But as we undertake this crucial journey of implementation, a broad barrier stands in our path: corruption.

No country is immune, and every country bears a responsibility to end it.

Corruption strangles people, communities and nations.

It weakens education and health, undermines electoral processes and reinforces injustices by perverting criminal justice systems and the rule of law.

By diverting domestic and foreign funds, corruption wrecks economic and social development and increases poverty.

It harms everyone, but the poor and vulnerable suffer most. The theme of this year’s observance is “Corruption: An impediment to the Sustainable Development Goals”.

Goal 16 urges substantial reductions in corruption and bribery and the development of effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels.

The UN Convention against Corruption, buttressed by its peer review mechanism, is mobilizing action for honest, transparent, accountable governance, but far more is needed. On International Anti-corruption Day, let us reaffirm our commitment to ending the deceit and dishonesty that threaten the 2030 Agenda and our efforts to achieve peace and prosperity for all on a healthy planet."

The Executive Director of the UN office on Drugs and Crime (UNODOC) Yury Fedotov, noted -

"The G20 estimates that 90 trillion US dollars in infrastructure investment is required between 2015 and 2030 to support global growth and development. To protect this investment corruption’s destructive impact should not be ignored.

There needs to be a wholehearted and determined contribution to global anti-corruption efforts from the world’s public and private sectors.

Corruption is a direct threat to infrastructure investment. It does not discriminate and impacts rich and poor countries alike; but it is the vulnerable and the weak who suffer most.

If we do not unite to successfully eliminate corruption, we risk economic growth being slowed and prosperity muzzled.

Corruption also corrodes much needed credibility and trust in the rule of law and criminal justice systems and wastes valuable resources.

Goal 16 of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda on peaceful and inclusive societies seeks substantial reductions in corruption and bribery. To achieve this, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has created a comprehensive approach that includes the UN Convention Against Corruption and its cutting edge peer review mechanism.

Thanks to the 2030 Agenda, there is now a growing recognition that crimes such as corruption no longer haunt the periphery of the world’s sustainable development activities. Efforts against crime and corruption are now at the centre of this work. At the local level, UNODC works with countries to offer technical advice on invaluable legislative reform and to help build capacities in the area of law enforcement and successful prosecutions. But change cannot come without the active engagement of the private sector to create a zero tolerance culture, especially in supply chains.

Policies should promote private sector competition, and fees for services should be reasonable and affordable. On the International Anti-Corruption Day, I invite all countries, inter-governmental organizations, and civil society to join the UNODC/UNDP campaign titled, “Corruption: An impediment to the Sustainable Development Goals.” We must end corruption now."

This observation from Yury Fedotov is being played out in Sierra Leone where it would seem, to get an appointment from the rat at State House you need to show just how adept you are at stealing the peoples' resources. Put simply - you become a part of the kitchen cabinet of the rat if you are perceived by him as a crook, dishonest and can invent any smoke and mirrors situation to deceive the public or could feel comfortable in the den of thieves, pretending that you don't understand until the fan gets hit.

Parliament, the law-making body that should be guarding the interests of ordinary Sierra Leoneans is as compromised as the other arms of governance making it a duty to give a free hand to all those engaged in perceived corrupt practices.

When a rights group requested that all members of Parliament account for the funds received to develop their constituencies, there arose a huge uproar with the so-called majority Leader of the All Peoples Congress, APC insisting that he had searched all over the country and that the rights group was not a registered body.

There is no word, no line, no sentence in the laws of Sierra Leone which says that you have to be registered to call out for public office holders to account. And yet this leech RASSin Bundu had the gumption to tell the people of Sierra Leone that he and his gang in Parliament should not be held to account.

Here is a law-making body, who should be an arm of the check and balances of the Executive and the Judiciary and of itself accepting fake or unsubstantiated statements and documents presented to it by those appointed by the rat.

If this is not a contempt of Parliament for which the appointees should have been taken to task and denied the job with a possibility of a criminal case against the offenders, then one wonders what else these law makers will get to in their desperate bid to please the rat at State House.

The Public Service Commission, the PSC, the main recruiting body into the civil service has a rule which makes it an offence should anyone take documents that could not be verified to an interview by a board. The Criminal Investigations Department, the CID could still have records of people they charged to court for presenting fake documents before the PSC. In a number of cases, those suspected of presenting forged papers are arrested at the PSC after the police had been notified. And here we have a law-making body accepting dodgy documents and confirming the people they are meant to examine before confirmation of an appointment. If corruption rules the waves even in the law-making body, then what hope for the people of Sierra Leone in terms of transparency, justice and the rule of law?

Indeed in Sierra Leone it is corruption and the practice encouraged from State House that has seen the rule of law subverted with the judiciary no longer fit for purpose and parliament becoming a rubber stamp for enhancing the rogue policies of the rat. The so-called Majority Leader of Parliament is so enmeshed in corruption that he saw nothing wrong in using tax payers money to fly him and his kind out to the fringes of the last UN General Assembly to make a spectacle of himself as he and the urchin of an Information minister tried to outdo each other in a dance macabre in the alleyways of New York City.

Last year we reminded our reader of the heartless thieving at the heart of the rat's administration or what passes for it. Sierra Leone under the rat is now a country where corruption is celebrated and where the honest are ridiculed for not making money at the expense of the poor.

In August this year, the Auditor General presented to Parliament, (yes the same oddball of an institution that encourages lawlessness) a report on the corruption regimen that exists in the government procurement system that sees the rat and his cabal enriching themselves with no regard to probity and the rule of law. The letter was headlined SUBMISSION OF SPECIAL REPORT ON THE AUDIT OF PROCUREMENT ACTIVITIES IN SELECTED PUBLIC SECTOR ENTITIES which looked at how corruption had now become the norm rather than the rare exception.

This bit from the report says quite a lot about how corruption is made to fester with the rat and cabal bleeding the country to death.

Procurement of “G1098” stores items – overpricing

As a guiding principle for the evaluation of bids, market surveys are normally carried out to enable a reserve price to be set, which then serves as a benchmark to compare with bid prices submitted by potential suppliers.

The International Security Advisory Team (ISAT) and the MOD Military Adviser provided an estimated cost of $3,584,460 and $3,906,473, respectively. Both including a profit margin of 20%, and intended to serve as benchmark prices.

Based on the procurement committee minutes, the advice given by both advisors was ignored and the Ministry selected Sentano General Supplies at $16,442,822 which resulted in an overpricing of $12,536,349.

The procurement process was skewed to deliberately allow for incurring additional costs, thereby preventing transparent, competitive, economical and cost effective procurement. In short, Ministry officials cost the public purse an unnecessary $12.5 million at a time when the government is desperately seeking cash to meet its basic obligations to the citizens of Sierra Leone.

Residence rehabilitation and guest house construction - irregularities

Included in the total contract sums for the rehabilitation of Hill Cut military residence and the construction of a guest house were contingencies of Le94,114,630 and Le272,866,820 respectively. The contracts were fixed price and the procurement documents contained no clause defining which events might give rise to a ‘contingency’. It would appear that the ‘contingencies’ were included merely to increase the government’s cost in delivering such projects.

An award letter, dated 30th September 2015, was issued to Franko General Merchandise for this rehabilitation work.

However, the contract bid security expired on 17th November 2015, before the contract was signed and in force.

The procurement document criteria for the construction of the guest house required the submission of a Freetown City Council certificate. This requirement unfairly deterred international firms submitting bids as the document could only be provided by national companies.

A bid criterion for the guest house contract was inconsistently applied to bidders.

The lowest competitive bidder, Yorma Enterprises, was disqualified for failure to submit the Freetown City Council Certificate.

However, the contract was awarded to Samgus Investment who also did not submit the certificate. The Yorma Enterprise’s bid price was Le2,882,086,375 lower than that of Samgus by Le122,110,617 and ‘contingencies’ of Le272,866,820 were included in the contract price.