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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 FREETOWN 000755 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/30/2016 
TAGS: PGOV KCOR UK SL
SUBJECT: SIERRA LEONE: LOSING THE BATTLE AGAINST CORRUPTION? 
 
REF: A. 05 FREETOWN 1049 
 
     ¶B. 05 FREETOWN 892 
     ¶C. 05 FREETOWN 542 
     ¶D. 05 FREETOWN 126 
     ¶E. 05 FREETOWN 105 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Thomas N. Hull, reasons 1.4 (b), (d) 
 
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Summary 
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¶1. (C) Summary: On August 24, the High Court of Sierra Leone 
acquitted six defendants accused of procuring an overvalued, 
non-functional forklift for the Sierra Leone Port Authority 
for lack of evidence.  The acquittal in this case, which was 
the only corruption case involving high-level government 
officials that had actually made it into the court system in 
recent years, is only one of many signals that Sierra Leone's 
Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) is in trouble.  Although 
there has been some progress in prevention activities and 
convictions of low-level public officials, a number of 
factors contribute to the ACC's current malaise: poor 
leadership, lack of political will, a slow, non-transparent 
investigatory mechanism at the ACC, and an environment where 
the rich and powerful are still free to bribe and intimidate. 
 It is probably true that convictions against corrupt minor 
government officials serve as a limited deterrent at the 
lower levels of government.  It is also true that the real 
way forward against corruption over the long term is through 
education and prevention.  Right now, however, Sierra Leone's 
weak governance infrastructure still provides a permissive 
environment for widespread corruption among the country's 
ruling elite and other moneyed minorities, and the ACC is not 
yet up to the challenge of hitting corruption head-on at this 
high level.  Finding the way forward will be difficult, 
because it requires everyone -- including donors -- to change 
the way they approach the problem.  End Summary. 
 
-------------------- 
The Forklift Debacle 
-------------------- 
 
¶2. (U) On August 24, Justice Akiiki Kiize, a Ugandan judge 
contracted to the Sierra Leone High Court, acquitted six 
defendants accused of misappropriating USD 66,000 in 
procuring a non-functional forklift for the Sierra Leone Port 
Authority (SLPA).  They were acquitted for lack of evidence. 
The defendants in the case were senior public officials: 
former Minister of Transport and Communication Momoh Pujeh, 
former Ministry of Transport and Communication World Bank 
technical consultant Shamsu Mustapha, former Accountant 
General Martin Katta, former Ministry of Trade Permanent 
Secretary Foday Kallon, former SLPA Chairman Dr. Mohamed 
 
SIPDIS 
Dabo, and former SLPA Managing Director Patrick Kemokai (now 
deceased). 
 
¶3. (U) The forklift procurement took place in 2001, but the 
ACC only indicted the six in July 2004.  The case finally 
went to court in May 2005 after some allegations of 
impropriety in the Attorney General's office (ref E).  There 
was plenty of surprise to go around once the defendants were 
actually arraigned: the press reported that Mustapha tried to 
leave Sierra Leone once he found out the trial was going to 
move forward, and Dabo assaulted a British photographer who 
attempted to snap a shot of him.  Dabo's wife, Neneh, the 
head of the ACC's Prevention Department, was dismissed from 
her job, as her presence at the ACC was considered a conflict 
of interest.  The trial progressed slowly, however, and 
Kemokai, the principal defendant, took away what little 
momentum there was in the case by falling ill: a few months 
after the trial commenced, he left for the UK for medical 
reasons, where he died in May 2006. 
 
¶4. (C) According to ACC Special Prosecutor, Ugandan attorney 
Lewis Tumsintwe, the judge dismissed the remaining defendants 
because he found there was no evidence that linked them 
directly to receiving the ill-gotten gains from the forklift 
purchase.  One of the problems, Tumsintwe said, was that six 
of the principal witnesses who were able to link the 
remaining defendants to the misappropriation of funds had 
departed Sierra Leone and, consequently, were "unable" to 
testify personally in court.  Since none of those witnesses, 
who were all secretaries, would have been able to finance 
 
FREETOWN 00000755  002 OF 005 
 
 
their own travel, Tumsintwe suspects the defendants paid the 
witnesses to leave Sierra Leone.  The other problem was that 
the UK man who sold the forklift for USD 66,000 less than was 
subsequently billed to SLPA was allegedly threatened twice 
and "decided" not to come to Sierra Leone to testify as a 
witness.  Ultimately, the only evidence of the price paid for 
the forklift was a document investigated by UK police in 
Northumberland and faxed to the ACC, which the judge ruled 
was insufficient without corroborating witness testimony. 
 
------------------------------- 
While There is Some Progress... 
------------------------------- 
 
¶5. (U) The ACC has been more successful at getting 
convictions when the political stakes are not so high, and 
the High Court has been convicting low-level government 
officials on corruption charges.  The Head of the 
Investigations Department, Festus Robin-Taylor, stated that 
the ACC has investigated a total of 560 cases, 54 of which 
were referred to court, since its inception in 2000.  Of the 
54 referrals, 29 resulted in convictions. 
 
¶6. (U) The ACC's community relations department claims that 
they follow the examples set by Botswana and Thailand, which 
place an emphasis on prevention rather than investigation. 
In this vein, the ACC, with funding from the Germans, 
sponsors "integrity clubs" in 21 schools across the country. 
The ACC has also sponsored anti-corruption community theater 
performances in 64 communities, helping Sierra Leoneans 
identify and discuss corrupt practices that prevail in their 
communities. 
 
¶7. (U) The ACC has targeted ministries identified as 
corruption "hotspots" for preventive activities and claims to 
have made some progress.  For example, the development and 
implementation of "Best Practice Guides" for port auctions 
(Customs and Excise) and grants-in-aid awards (Ministry of 
Education) have reduced the number of reports received at the 
ACC regarding malfeasance in both ministries.  The ACC's 
prevention department has also participated in drafting new 
policy guidelines for the Ministry of Lands to reduce the 
illicit sale of state lands, and worked with the Ministry of 
Internal Affairs to transform the process of registering and 
issuing national identity cards and passports to reduce 
falsification of both types of documents and increase revenue 
for the Ministry from the fees associated with registering 
legitimate documents. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
New Leadership, Disappointing New Direction for ACC 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
¶8. (C) A signal of the ACC,s new direction came soon after 
former ACC Commissioner Val Collier,s humiliating 
parliamentary hearings (refs B and C) and subsequent 
dismissal in November 2005.  One of the first acts of his 
successor, Henry Joko-Smart, was to reinstate Neneh Dabo, 
wife of one of the defendants in the forklift case.  ACC 
Community Relations Officer, Koloneh Sankoh, was prominently 
featured in a recent photograph of a Sierra Leone People's 
Party (SLPP) support group donating a 30 million leones 
(approximately USD 10,000) to Vice President Berewa for his 
2007 run for President.  Collier himself now lays low and 
rarely answers phone calls from friends.  "I don,t have a 
lot of friends these days," he told PolOff.  Collier said 
that he would rather come home at the end of the work day and 
watch satellite TV, since people he socialized with tend to 
get harassed afterward.  About Sankoh, Collier had this to 
say: "That,s what the ACC is about these days.  Protecting 
the SLPP."  (Comment: PolOff initiated the meeting with 
Collier after a newspaper article claimed Collier was 
scheduled to appear in court to defend himself against some 
of the same allegations that had brought him before two 
parliamentary committees.  Although the article was not true, 
the politics of intimidation are clear, since it is likely 
that someone paid to have the article planted in the press. 
End Comment.) 
 
¶9. (C) Joko-Smart appears to be making a habit of blaming 
everyone but himself for the ACC's shortcomings, claiming the 
the ACC staff is corrupt and unprofessional.  He points out 
that an entrenched clause of Sierra Leone's 1991 Constitution 
makes it impossible for the ACC to bypass the Attorney 
 
FREETOWN 00000755  003 OF 005 
 
 
General.  Joko-Smart also refuses to hear cases that he 
claims are based on insufficient evidence.  As in the 
forklift case, he said, witnesses to corruption are not 
willing to testify in court with evidence.  Furthermore, he 
claims that ACC special prosecutors are inappropriately using 
laws not applicable in Sierra Leone during their reviews in 
order to prosecute higher level officials.  Some of these 
excuses contain an element of truth, especially regarding 
witness intimidation problems (like in the forklift case), 
and the prosecute-high-level-officials-at-all-costs mentality 
(catching the big fish has always been a high priority for 
the ACC,s UK donors). 
 
¶10. (C) The Freetown newspaper "The Exclusive" carried a 
story on September 7 purporting to announce the arrival of 
the ACC's new Principal Investigations officer - former 
Scotland Yard Detective Chief Inspector Hamish Campbell, who 
led the hunt for the killer of BBC TV presenter Jill Dando. 
The article points out that Campbell was suspected of 
tampering with a key piece of evidence in the Dando trial and 
questions his appropriateness for the ACC job.  (Comment: 
Campbell has actually been at the ACC since January and was 
advised to stay "under the radar screen" to avoid a fate 
similar to Andy Felton, the "cowboy" former ACC Deputy 
Commissioner who recently resigned after weathering a barrage 
of criticism from the Kabbah government for his investigation 
tactics.  Campbell successfully laid low until now, but it 
appears that someone in Sierra Leone is not/not happy with 
another meddling Brit.  While it is true that the UK's 
Criminal Case Review Commission has been reviewing the Dando 
conviction for the past two years, those in police circles 
see Campbell as the unfortunate one who happened to head a 
case that became a media frenzy.  End Comment.) 
 
------------------------------ 
The ACC Faces Serious Problems 
------------------------------ 
 
¶11. (U) The Anti Corruption Act of 2000 established the ACC 
as an independent body and grants it broad investigatory and 
arrest powers, but it requires the Attorney General and 
Minister of Justice (a political appointee) to consent before 
any case is taken to court.  This requirement has hobbled the 
ACC from the beginning, since the Attorney General has 
refused to refer a number of cases to court.  Efforts by the 
UK (the ACC's primary donor) to rectify the situation fell 
flat.  The 'fiat' solution delegated the court referral 
decision to a committee of two ACC special prosecutors and 
one prosecutor from the AG's office, and the majority ruled 
(ref A).  The High Court rejected four cases referred to 
court in this manner, so the ACC has in effect been forced to 
resume its original process of referring cases to the High 
Court through the AG. 
 
¶12. (C) According to ACC special prosecutor Tumsintwe, 
however, there are plenty of things Joko-Smart could do to 
make the ACC a more effective organization.  For example, 
there is no reason why any of the ACC's routine 
investigations should take longer than six months, Tumsintwe 
said, but he still routinely sees cases from 2001 and 2002. 
Dragging out investigations just makes it easier for 
defendants and witnesses to disappear.  The investigation 
process itself is not transparent, Tumsintwe explained, 
because investigators are not held accountable for results. 
A tracking database to manage the ACC,s caseload would help 
tremendously.  (Note: The ACC,s former Deputy Commissioner 
Andy Felton did show us a rudimentary spreadsheet of active 
cases once, but no such spreadsheet was in evidence during 
our recent meeting with Joko-Smart, and the "information" 
sheet we received lacked any case details.  End Note.) 
 
¶13. (C) Tumsintwe said that even though it was his job to 
advise investigators on how to make their cases stronger for 
prosecution, they rarely listened to him.  Ultimately, 
Tumsintwe left Freetown for good on August 25 when his 
contract expired.  The GoSL, which is responsible for 
requesting contract renewals or replacements for the ACC 
special prosecutors has done neither in his case, so he 
departed with no replacement.  The other ACC special 
prosecutor,s contract expires in two months. 
 
-------------------------- 
The Politics of Corruption 
-------------------------- 
 
FREETOWN 00000755  004 OF 005 
 
 
 
¶14. (C) The mechanics of investigations and referrals aside, 
the ACC,s biggest underlying problem is the lack of 
political will at the highest levels of government to punish 
corrupt, but loyal, senior officials.  This was evident in 
the AG's refusal to refer former Minister of Marine Resources 
Okere Adams' case to court, even though an ACC investigation 
found that he had misappropriated public funds.  Adams hails 
from northern Sierra Leone, an area where the ruling SLPP is 
traditionally weak, and is seen as the SLPP's vote-getter for 
that region.  Adams' continued prominence in government after 
his arrest showed that the SLPP was clearly more interested 
in maintaining power than making an example of corrupt 
ministers (Adams is one of the more blatant examples). 
Despite multiple attempts to bring Adams' case forward (the 
'fiat' solution was designed because of it), he has yet to 
appear in a courtroom.  (Comment: The investigation into 
Adams' corruption also happened to directly involve President 
Kabbah's son, yet another reason why the case will not likely 
see the light of day.  End Comment.) 
 
¶15. (C) Disloyal officials, however, do not appear to merit 
the same protection.  Although former Minister of Transport 
and Communication Momoh Pujeh was a member of the protected 
ruling class, he was abandoned - twice - and had to take his 
chances in court because his loyalty was questioned.  Olu 
Gordon, editor of the satirical newspaper "Peep!", has 
pointed this out repeatedly.  Gordon wrote in a recent op-ed 
that Pujeh, whose forklift acquittal was his second escape 
from the wheels of justice, was "openly conspiring with 
Charles Margai, Emmanuel Grant, and others to ditch 
(President) Kabbah at the 2002 SLPP convention." (Note: 
Shortly after one of his outbursts about the politically 
selective nature of the SLPP government's willingness to 
follow up on corruption allegations, Gordon himself was 
arrested, held in custody for three days, then released 
without charge (ref D).  End Note.) 
 
¶16. (U) September 4 was the first day of a week-long 
conference in Freetown for African Parliamentarians Network 
Against Corruption (APNAC).  The opening session served as a 
venue for government officials to speak out against 
corruption, and speak out they did - eloquently.  Although 
participants said all the rights things, it is unclear if 
there is a real intent to practice what they preached.  APNAC 
Chair for Sierra Leone Ibrahim Bundu lamented that Africa 
loses USD 150 billion per year to corruption, but Bundu 
himself was the auditor on the Project Committee for an 
Embassy Special Self Help Program whose funding we had to 
terminate due to the politicization of the project.  Post has 
been unable to collect the remaining funds due to the 
"unavailability" of the project's financial advisor to sign 
for the check at the bank.  Back in the saddle again, Neneh 
Dabo herself moderated one of the conference's discussion 
groups, "Perspectives on Fighting Corruption." 
 
------- 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶17. (C) There is no doubt that there are benefits to the 
ACC,s prevention activities, and it is probably true that 
convictions of low-level officials have some kind of 
deterrent effect (it has at the very least increased the 
number of reports from Sierra Leoneans who see that there is 
some action being taken against low-level corruption).  There 
are also a number of things the donor community can do to 
help the ACC improve, like provide staff training in case 
management or assisting in the development of a database for 
case tracking.  Until there is some fundamental change in the 
political landscape, however, progress against corruption 
will be limited.  At its very heart, this is an abuse of 
power issue.  Successful donor intervention may be 
impossible, given the strength of the UK's still-unsuccessful 
efforts after pouring in thousands of pounds' worth of money 
and technical expertise.  Nevertheless, it is incumbent upon 
the international community to come up with new ways to help 
the government see that its current attitude towards fighting 
corruption is unacceptable. 
 
¶18. (C) The GoSL's lack of will to fight corruption should be 
looked at with serious concern as we approach decisions 
regarding Millennium Challenge Account threshhold assistance 
and HIPC Completion Point eligibility.  We must continually 
 
FREETOWN 00000755  005 OF 005 
 
 
underscore our message that there is no tolerance for the use 
of public office for private gain. 
HULL