Breaking News – Haja Afsatu Kabba, found guilty and convicted of corruption?

Haja Afsatu Kabbah, erstwhile Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources has been convicted by a Freetown High Court on 5 counts of corruption related charges. It is reported that she has been fined Four Hundred and Fifty Million Leones. Alternatively, she may be incarcerated for 15 years, if she does not pay the fine within four weeks from today’s date. She could serve a total of 15 years of jail time if she does not pay the fine within the specified period.

If these preliminary reports are true, President Koroma would have once again made it clear, that there is no sacred cow in his government. Those who know the relationship between the president and the convicted former minister would attest to it that the president has a very close relationship with Haja Afsatu Kabba. Because the president takes his Actions, Progressive and unwavering Commitment seriously, he did not interfere in the work of the much empowered one hundred percent independent Anti Corruption Commission.

After president Koroma assumed office in 2007, he made it clear that there would be no sacred cows in his government. His Excellency admonished his friends, family members and all Sierra Leoneans, that they will get no special treatment when it comes to the rule of law in Sierra Leone. Within three years in office president Koroma has terminated the services of more members of his cabinet than any other government in the history of Sierra Leone, if not the entire Africa. Unlike the previous SLPP government of president Kabba, which pampered and encouraged corruption, president Koroma has no sacred cows.

It “pleased” the president to relieve the former minister of her duties, when she was charged with corruption. She served as Minister of Energy and Power and and later Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, until she was indited by the newly empowered and independent Anti-Corruption Commission. She was one to the only two female cabinet members in the president Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma administration.

Haja Afsatu Kabba, a Madingo by ethnicity, was born on July 2, 1953, in Kabala, Koinadugu District, in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone. In the 2002 Sierra Leone General Elections ,she ran for a seat under the then opposition All Peoples Congress, where she won in the Greater Freetown area. Former opposition leader, president Koroma, lost his bid for the presidency in the same election to former president Tejan Kabba in elections many people still believe where rigged in favor of the then ruling party. In the interest of peace, especially after an 11 year civil war, former presidential candidate, now president Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma, conceded the elections.

Readers may recall that when president Koroma assumed office, he appointed Haja Afsatu Kabba to serve as his minister of Energy and Power. Within a short period of time, after her appointment, the former Energy and Power minister’s name began to surface in rumors that she had compromised the government’s standards for the award of contracts for the electrification of the capital city, Freetown. President Koroma had promised to light up the capital within 100 days of assuming office, a goal he accomplished with the specified time.

President Koroma, a very patient and transformational leader, offered Haja Afsatu Kabba the benefit of the doubt, when he reassigned her to serve as minister of fisheries and marine resources. Again, as soon as the former minister assumed her new assignment, her name began to surface in allegations of corruption, nepotism and harassment of ministry employees some of whom had served the government before she got there.

Don’t move, don’t log out, stay with Sierra Leone Daily Mail for more on this story, because here, there everywhere, we will leave no stone unturned.

By Foday Morris – Editor In Chief

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By Daily Mail