On Monday, 5 August, 2024, the former Clerk of Parliament, Umar Paran Tarawally, resumed work in the august House of Parliament as Clerk.
It must be recalled that the Clerk was on suspension pending investigation into his influence in his wife being employed by the House for a job position she never showed up to work for but received monthly salary from September 2021 to March 2023. In total Abibatu Paran Tarawally received NLe156,000 (Le156 million old leones).
It was therefore highly distasteful to see a video that was widely shared over social media of supporters of the Clerk, many citizens referred to as “disgraced”, celebrating and welcoming him back to Parliament during the State Opening of Parliament. The Clerk was cleared by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) of the charge of conflict of interest and abuse of office.
It must be recalled that president Bio received widespread and bipartisan support for his 2018 presidential campaign that promised to get rid of corruption and financial leakages from the public service. The president had said when people are corrupt they are not doing so for the party or constituents but for themselves. Corruption was supposed to be the regime and nation’s public enemy number one. President Bio’s first term regime started the anticorruption fight by approving the establishment of commissions of inquiry into how members of the previous regime headed by President Ernest Bai Koroma expended money entrusted to them on behalf of the people and state. The resulting government white paper saw many former opposition APC civil servants being prosecuted, properties confiscated and repaying large sums of money back to the government coffers. Even dead former civil servants Minkailu Bah and Momoh Kemoh Konte’s properties were confiscated by the state based on the white paper.
The case of the Clerk of Parliament and his reinstatement with a thank you from the ACC has concluded the matter of the president’s anticorruption fight. Paran’s case and the exoneration of many highly placed individuals related to the ruling SLPP led government by the ACC, when coupled with the president’s reaction to the auditors of the Audit Service Sierra Leone seeking proof of receipts from hotels in South Africa, Lebanon and The Gambia that led to the suspension and investigation of the Auditor General and her deputy, for many people mark the end and sudden death of the Bio led regime’s anti-graft fight. The president even went as far as directing that audits of his and the offices of his wife and vice president should not be included in audit reports.
“We are not surprised that party supporters and supporters of the disgraced Clerk would celebrate his reinstatement, even parliamentarians. This is the Maada Bio government’s idea of fighting corruption. Here is a Clerk of the law making arm of government who allegedly influenced for his wife to be employed by Parliament, making a net monthly salary of over twenty-three million leones from state revenue that never once showed up for work from September 2021 to March 2023 but still collected such a monthly sum while millions of citizens many of them college graduates are still looking for work. The fact that Clerk Paran Tarawally’s wife confessed and repaid one hundred and thirty-one million of the one hundred and fifty-six million she made should be enough for her and her husband to face the court of law. But instead of setting an example of deterrence, they both got away scot free for such obvious crimes,” said a civil society activist focusing on financial issues in government.
According to upset citizens and political commentators that spoke to FORUM the case, exoneration and reinstatement of the Clerk of Parliament didn’t come as a surprise. The concerned citizens said the president’s first term campaign promise to fight corruption and plug financial leakages was rhetoric aimed at winning the presidency. They alleged that president Bio’s regime is the most corrupt government on record since the end of hostilities in 2002.
“People celebrating Paran Tarawally returning to Parliament are celebrating public theft. They are celebrating the people who steal from them and us. If they knew what they were doing they would have been calling for his case to be forwarded to court. This regime was able to get away with a lot of corrupt practices last term because none of the Auditor General’s reports from 2018 to 2023 were debated by the Fifth Parliament. Now that the Sixth Parliament has started with the 2022 report, we see that the PAC has slowed down. People are saying that the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee who is also the deputy Speaker, Honourable Tawa Conteh, has been warned to slow down as the committee’s work is exposing the regime’s malfeasance,” stated a civil servant.
Meanwhile, the disgraced Clerk of Parliament has resumed his position as Clerk and Member of Parliament without being prosecuted nor dropped from Parliament by the SLPP government. The public is now curious if the PAC will get to query the Clerk on how and why his wife was hired, never reported for work, collected public money as salary without him reporting her crimes.
“The round of applause that the disgraced Clerk received from the Well by people called Honourable, was dishonourable, shameful and a big disgrace. They should be ashamed of themselves for cheering someone whose name is already on the anticorruption list. This man and his wife should have been thoroughly probed and not slapped on the wrists and celebrated by SLPP MPs,” noted the civil servant from the House of Parliament.
