THE ONE PARTY STATE HANGOVER - WHY VICTOR FOH SHOULD BE SANCTIONED
Reports doing the rounds in Freetown and carried by the online edition of the
Global Times sends a worrying signal which if not acted upon is bound to lead to
the continuing erosion of laid-down principles and order needed in a country
trying to recover from the chaos of war - murder, rape, mutilation, outright deprivation
and all the associated trauma.
The "new" APC of Ernest Bai Koroma aka AFRC Mk2 made up of key players in the human-rights-abusing and notorious AFRC as well as their precursors in the APC of Stevens and Momoh have now dared to ante up their perception and interpretation of democracy, the rule of law and the separation of powers.
The Office of the Accountant-General of the Republic of Sierra Leone has been well defined under the Constitution and for an official of the APC party in the person of Victor Foh to write directly to that office with an order smirks of the ruling party's contempt for not only the Constitution, but a blatant attempt at using the APC victory at the 2007 polls as a signal for the return of the odious One-Party 1978 constitution.
Who gave Victor Foh, a man well-known as the personification of massive and vile corruption and thieving of past APC administrations the audacity, the temerity to write a letter to the Accountant General ordering that diplomats have a monthly deduction of $200 (two hundred dollars) of their meagre salaries and allowances for the APC party coffers?
This is a time for the people to rise up and put a stop to the continuing encroachment of the tenets of law and order, the absence of which led to the chaos the country has been trying to repair after 24 years (1968-1992) of APC malfeasance.
Agreed there was a time when the APC was the only legal party under the 1978 Constitution - a document the interpretation of which led to many injustices, many economic crimes and many acts and omissions that created a repressive and oppressive atmosphere for the people of Sierra Leone. Even those who were a part of the APC ogre then and who dared to question the excesses being committed under the APC found out, much to their chagrin, if they survived, that the monolith was readily able and willing to crush its own functionaries to please the few in the Stevens and Momoh kitchen cabinets.
Thus was created a situation where gifts and other associated development aid for the country was taken up as APC assets, the argument then being that since there was only one party which was the government, party and government were interchangeable items when it suited the thieving cabal.
And now after years of trying to forge ahead with multi-party values, we have the APC thinking and actually believing that it had the right to substitute the word party for government quite forgetting that even in the Soviet Union and China at the height of the APC "comrade" years, not all in those countries belonged to the communist party!!!!
And to have a man who reportedly was willing to ink any available part of his body to mark (finger print) government vouchers for the thieving from state coffers to write such an insulting letter to the Accountant-General calls for an investigation and a censure of Victor Foh.
There is a clear distinction between a political party and the functions of party and government.
Should the APC want to force envoys to contribute to their 2012 campaign, then that should be between the individuals and their banks and this has nothing to do with the Accountant-General.
However it is a good thing that the letter has been leaked showing quite clearly that you can only be appointed an envoy if you belong to the APC never mind being a career diplomat for the entity known as the Republic of Sierra Leone!!!!
Victor Foh - a man whom even the corrupt Siaka Stevens is reported to have used as a yard stick to measure the most corrupt and vile in Sierra Leone with the words - "If you tiff pass Victor Foh.....ar for wach me yie..." - meaning "If you surpass Victor Foh in corruption and thieving then I'd better watch out for my eyes lest you steal them..."
This is the same country-wrecker who was recently bathed in rose-scented water and presented on one of the many EBK internet outlets as a true patriot - and if indeed he is perceived as such by the Ernest Bai Koroma set-up then God help the mother country!!!!
Residents in Freetown can still remember his rant on television admitting to his many nation-wrecking thieving escapades under the APC until the Vouchergate scandal drove him underground - sure in the knowledge that his masters in the AFRC will never allow the ousted democratically-elected government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah to return....a situation that gave him the trade mark "High Barb" because of his frequent appearances on television to extol "the virtues" of the rights-abusing AFRC.
Victor Foh was so confident that the AFRC would be in power for him and his kind to consolidate financial gains, aided by the AFRC bank governor Christian Kargbo, now Sierra Leone's envoy to the European Union and other countries that he and his thieving team after emptying the coffers of the central bank did not think twice in trying to strike a deal that would have left the country in quite a financial quandary. This was President Kabbah's submission to the TRC on this deal.
.....At the request of Mr. Victor Foh, a gentleman, Mr. Michael Hart Jones, purporting to belong to a company named Africa Trade Link Ltd. entered into an arrangement with the AFRC junta whereby the unused mining and mineral reserves of this country were to be used as collateral for a loan that the junta was determined to obtain.
In this connection in a faxed message sent to Mr. Foh, dated 24th September 1997, Mr. Hart-Jones purported to have secured one billion dollars for the project. The project was to involve the Government giving four securities to the tune of $200 million and the mining concessions were to be the collateral. The funds to be raised by this arrangement were alleged to be intended to be utilized partly on the services of the AFRC junta.
The scheme was to be effected as follows:-
A company named Commercial African Development Ltd. (CARD) was re-registered in Sierra Leone on the 19th day of December 1997. This Company was made to enter into a joint partnership with the junta and the mining concessions in respect of the richest mining areas in the country were given to the joint venture. Four Bank Guarantees of $50 million each dated 12th November 1997, in favour of CARD for the $200 million secured were then issued by the Governor of the Bank of Sierra Leone and the Minister of Finance, both appointees of the junta.
If the AFRC had not been ousted in February 1998, thereby aborting the scheme, the effect on Sierra Leone and its economy as a result of this arrangement would have been -
Laundered money would have been brought into this country undetected and this would have had serious adverse effect on the economy for a very long time. In the fax message in question, it was made clear that the one billion dollars which was said to have been earmarked to be brought to the country would have been brought stealthily and under cover.
The Bank of Sierra Leone and the Government would have been encumbered with an obligation to discharge the security of $200 million as a result of a scheme that would not have benefited the people and Government of Sierra Leone, and in any case, only members of the junta and their associates like Victor Foh would have been the beneficiaries of that arrangement.
The worst aspect of that scheme was that the richest and most profitable mining areas in this country were given as collateral under that arrangement and those areas were available to be mined without restriction and the proceeds from them taken away without any account given. The areas to be affected were carefully identified and mapped out.
The documents involved in this transaction are available here for the Commission's perusal.
The account of this transaction needs to be brought to the notice of the Commission merely for the purpose of further illustrating the reckless manner in which regimes, which were unaccountable, schemed to wreck the economy and destroy the mineral assets of this country.
This is the Victor Foh, the same thieving and dishonest ogre who has become the campaign strategist of a shameless regime bent on getting a second term at whatever cost.
And in case you're wondering where the idea of having District Officers sprang from - ask Victor Foh.
He was one such official and the APC used them to deliver the votes using all means necessary including that of the security forces and the use of terror tactics on the local population with threats over the Paramount Chiefs that if they failed to return the APC to power, they would lose their staff!!!!
What the Ernest Bai Koroma set-up is trying to replicate under a multi-party dispensation, older Sierra Leoneans have seen and are not fooled.
Go on Vouchergate Victor Foh but remember one thing.
The atmosphere and enlightenment now is a far cry from the APC of yore and people are not fooled.
