Africa-Press – Sierra-Leone. The Executive Secretary of the Human Rights Defenders Network Sierra Leone, Alphonsus Gbanie, has expressed deep concern over what he called poor accountability practices within the parliamentary governance, especially when it comes to recent actions taken by Parliament and the Office of the President.
During an exclusive interview, the Executive Secretary said that in a democratic society, Parliament plays a key role in protecting citizens when access to justice is downgraded or when the executive branch becomes oppressive. However, he made mention of the removal of the auditor general as an example of an accountability crisis in the country.
Gbanie explained about the removal of the Auditor General and her deputy by Parliament as a sign of weakening accountability. He said that parliament is supposed to protect citizens if they cannot have access to justice, and also be a resort where one can rely for protection, but it turns out to be the opposite.
He also explained how the chain of command in any office that if the President wants to make a payment for a hotel, he will not personally go to the hotel to make the payment, but there are people who are in charge of making those payments on his behalf.
According to Gbanie, the removal of the Auditor General without resolving the issue at hand is not the solution to the problem. He said if the auditor identifies some malpractices within the office of the president, the president should not be angry with the auditor but those who created the embarrassment in his office.
“Nobody had been held accountable for creating that international embarrassment for us. If the President is not embarrassed, for us as a nation, it’s an embarrassment. This was an international embarrassment, and yet no one has been held accountable,” he said. The Human Rights Defenders Network Executive Secretary is calling for all public officials implicated in mismanagement to face due process.
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