Ex-S Leone defence minister arrested for graft

FREETOWN: Sierra Leone’s former defense minister has been arrested by for alleged corruption in a deal to procure military supplies, an anti-corruption commission said Saturday, the latest former government figure to be nabbed in a sprawling graft probe. Alfred Paolo Conteh was detained along with Sannah Marrah, the defence ministry’s former director general, at the Criminal Investigation Department on Friday.

Both are awaiting charges, the Sierra Leone Anti Corruption Commission said. The commission said officials are investigating allegations of corruption over procurement of military vehicles, uniforms and rice in 2015. The procurement contract was reported to be worth $10 million. “We are recovering monies stolen from our people,” anti-corruption commissioner Joseph Ben Kelfalla told reporters in Freetown, adding that authorities had recovered more than one million dollars from corrupt officials. Most of the military supply deals were done in China, according to a report published in 2015 by the Sierra Leone audit services that identified flaws in procurement procedures.

President Julius Maada Bio took office in early April after a tumultuous election campaign in which he targeted corruption, ending a decade-long rule by the All People’s Congress (APC). Soon after he took office a report commissioned by the new government charged that “rampant corruption” in the former administration had led to the “near collapse” of the West African nation’s economy. The government has approved a commission of enquiry, with hearings expected to begin in January 2019.