By Henry Kargbo
PW4 John Sumaila, secretary to the cabinet and also head to the civil service, on Monday 23 May 2022 testified before Justice Adrian Fischer at High Court No1 in Freetown on the Sierrra Leone UN Chancery Building involving Dr Samura Kamara and five others.
According to Sumaila, who is PW4, he resumed office on 4 June 2018. He said that as secretary to the cabinet his duties were to organize meetings positions as well as to facilitate work in the administrative work of the cabinet.
PW4 Samaila said he was part of the strategic leadership team and would also interact with ministers on daily basis.
PW4 told the court that as secretary to the cabinet, he received draft cabinet memoranda from ministries, which come in the form of soft and hard copy, saying the hard copy would always be signed by the minister and upon receipt of memoranda the cabinet would review them.
During the process, he said, they would receive feedback from the MDAs concerned until the draft memo was finalised and once it had been finalized, the minister would sign with fixed electronic signature on the document.
He said the draft agenda was submitted to the President, “who is the chairman of the Cabinet” for approval and a meeting date would be scheduled.
PW4 Sumaila said that since 2020 during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, cabinet meetings hardly hold, but meetings information were being sent electronically to cabinet ministers.
He told the court that whilst cabinet was sitting, the team would take note of the deliberations of the meeting and at the end of the meeting the staff team would write out the cabinet’s decisions which are dispatched to the ministries.
PW4 said that if a substantive minister is absent from office the President would assign the deputy or another minister to cover the duty of that Minister until he or she would come back to sign documents on his or behalf until he comes back.
In light of questioning Exhibit AC 1-5 was shown to the witness whom he recognised and said: “This is a document retrieved from the archive request by the Anti-Corruption Commission and this document titled Cabinet Memorandum by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
He told the court that a scanned signature was always affixed to it but “I didn’t recognize the signature but the name written under the signature is Samura M. W. Kamara”.
Exhibit AC1-4 was also tendered in court and identified as an “Extra” dated 4 January 2016 and was addressed to Saidu Nallo, Chancellor and Permanent Mission to the chancery building in New York and the document was written by fear for construction company.
Exhibit AAAF 1-32 was also tendered as witnesses identified as a minute of the sixth meeting of cabinet held in the conference room of State House on Wednesday 20 April 2016.
According to the document Dr M. G. Sesay was acting as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, M.M Kargbo was the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, J. F Kamara was the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, and I. Kalokoh was the Minister of Local Government PW4 told the court.
He was cross-examined by lawyer A.K Kamara on behalf of the first accused and lawyer Ady Macauley on behalf of the fourth accused Samura Kamara.
Justice Fischer adjourned the matter till 6 June 2022.
