-ACC boss
May 8, 2018
Charles Mambu
Commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), Ade Macaulay, has said during the first quarterly interactive session with the media and civil society groups on April 26 in Freetown that Sierra Leone needs people like Charles Francis Mambu, the Executive Director of Coalition of Civil Society and Human Rights Activists (CCSHRA).
Mr. Macaulay, who described Mambu as a fearless man, said the latter has genuinely supported every democratic government in Sierra Leone, citing the positive role he played during the eleven years brutal civil war, the AFRC coup, the mass demonstration against the then RUF leader Cpl. Foday Sankoh, the implementation of the free healthcare initiative for pregnant women, lactating mothers and children under five, the Ebola outbreak and recent mudslides at Regent.
The ACC boss said Mambu has exhibited total ‘decency’, hard work, honesty, loyalty and devotion to promoting peace and development in the country.
He pointed out that the civil rights defender has never abandoned Sierra Leone during crises period.
“Mambu has always presented himself at the forefront in the fight against any disaster that befalls this nation.”
On the issue of Mambu’s name being mentioned in the Ebola Audit Report, the ACC boss said he did not find any criminal evidence against him.
He said the civil rights defender was very brave to confront the Ebola virus especially at a time when people were afraid of going to the frontline.
He said Mambu spent huge energy to support the government and people to end the outbreak, thus calling on journalists and the society not to destroy the names of good people.
On the Commission’s efforts in the fight against graft, Macaulay told his audience that they have won almost all the cases they took to court in 2017.
He maintained that the Commission’s new flagship project the “Pay No Bribe Campaign” was progressing well and that the real benefit of the campaign will not be felt now, but in the future.
He pointed out that most institutions have now mainstreamed the PNB campaign into their development plans.
Despite those successes, he said, the commission was constrained with funding, and that the new ACC building under construction had stopped over two years due to lack of funding.
He called on civil society and the press to always support their work as their activities were not being reported properly, stating that they would continue to use recovery, education and prosecution as outlined in their mandate to fight corruption in Sierra Leone.
Earlier, the guest speaker, Charles Mambu praised achievements made by the ACC amidst the many challenges, saying that civil society and the public continue to appreciate its work, but expressed concern that the commission often runs after what he described as little fishes rather than the big fishes.
He called on the government and donor partners to fully support the commission’s budget if the country should fully realise its work and benefits.
Speaking on broad governance issues in the country, especially the performance of the last Parliament -2012-2017 – Mambu said the least the public speak about performance of the last Parliament the better.
He described the last Parliament as a total failure as they passed some laws that were not in the best interest of the country, approved very bad contracts, including mining and roads agreements.
He called on the new Parliament not to follow the bad steps of the old, urging the MPs to focus on laws that would benefit the people and not the party in power or parliamentarians, as was the case from 2012 to 2017.
Mambu promised to fully work with the New Direction as he has always done since 1997 without compromising the interest of the nation, and called on all and sundry to support the Bio-led government.