HOLY GHOST FIRE IN PARLIAMENT
- Clerk in 5G Corruption Scam
- Speaker in Sexual Harassment Allegations
- SLPP MPs at Loggerheads
By Ibrahim Alusine Kamara (Kamalo)
A storm of dishonour seems to have visited the Sierra Leone House of Legislators in the early days of 2024, as allegations of corruption and sexual harassment abound thereat.
Clerk of the House, Hon. Paran Tarawally, is embroiled in a scandal of corruption, abuse of office, and conflict of interest, on one hand, while the Speaker of the House is at the center of a sexual harassment scandal on the other.
This kind of episode has the propensity of bringing much dishonour to institutions with efforts to remedy the stain very difficult to make any positive breakthrough.
As it stands, the Clerk of Parliament is being investigated by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), the Parliamentary Commission, and the Ombudsman’s office for doubtful official deeds including embezzlement, conflict of interest, and abuse of office, including the massive sacking of workers in Parliament.
Allegations are rife that as the Clerk of Parliament, Hon. Tarawally sacked more than one hundred (100) workers and replaced the same single-handedly with his close associates and relations, including the covert employment of his wife who was receiving millions as monthly salary and other infringed benefits without reporting for work.
Meanwhile, it’s no longer a secret that upon the Anti-Corruption Commission’s (ACC) investigations, the Clerk of Parliament and his wife, Abibatu Paran Tarawally, were put on bail. It has even been revealed that Abibatu has agreed to refund the accumulative amount of salary she received so far during the time of her questionable employment in Parliament as a Human Resources Officer.
News making the rounds also suggests that the ACC has recovered about 90 percent of the said amount from Mrs. Tarawally.
While the Speaker of the House, Dr. Abass Chernor Bundu has denied any knowledge about the Clerk’s action, however, Honourable Member of Parliament Ibrahim Tawa Conteh says the Speaker is knowledgeable about everything done by the Clerk, accusing him of aiding and abetting corruption in Parliament.
Meanwhile, Speaker Dr. Abass Bundu, who says there exists confirmed evidence of conflict of interest, embezzlement, and corruption in Hon. Paran Tarawally’s administration of Parliament, has in turn been linked with acts of sexual harassment in that highest institution of the land.
He has refuted the allegations though, calling it a robust move to divert public attention from what he referred to as “grave allegations” against the Clerk of Parliament and his wife.
“You cannot use the argument of morality to undercut the law when evidence abounds that legal abuse of office, conflict of interest, embezzlement, and corruption is rupturing the administration of Parliament,” the Speaker has said in a post on social media.
Before the paper went to bed last night, leaks from Tower Hill indicated that the ongoing conundrum at Parliament has left cracks in the lawmaking representation of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) with one faction reportedly supporting the Speaker for the Clerk to be set aside while the other is opposed to such an action.
We further learned that the Speaker has refrained from going to the Legislative House to preside over Parliamentary Sessions until the Clerk is set aside and brought to book for his official acts.
An MP we spoke to to verify if the Speaker’s absence from the last Parliamentary Session has to do with his self-recusal remarked that “It is yet difficult to determine until we hear it from the Speaker himself. I can only confirm that he didn’t show up and it was the Deputy Speaker of the House, Hon. Sengepor Thomas, who presided over that Session.”
Tongues are wagging amid surprise as to why Hon. Paran Tarawally is still in office even in the wake of his grand official impropriety being exposed.