Bush Exposes His Skeletons in The Cupboard
By Abrah Tee Jalloh
The creoles have a saying that “when you take rope en draw bush, bush go cam na tong en all tin you go see”. This could well be the case of Hon. Paran Umar Tarawallie, the Clerk Of Parliament. Little did he know that sacking 100 staff of the institution will open a Pandora’s box.
In English they say do not throw stones if you are living in a glass house, because when stones are thrown back in retaliation, your entire house will come crashing down. Today, after revelations that the Clerk Of Parliament employed his wife Abibatu Tarawallie as Human Resource Manager, who had never turned up for work and was receiving monthly salary for free, chopping tax payers money, more issues are coming up. The ACC says that 90% of the money she collected as salary has been refunded.
However, according to Hon. Marrah, a former MP, the said amount of 7 million Leones alleged to be her monthly salary has been challenged. Hon. Marrah maintained in an interview on Radio Democracy that the said amount is not correct, stressing that the figure he has is way above that, and that the document in his possession that speaks to his claim is authentic.
Hon. Marrah furthered that Mrs Abibatu Tarawallie attended a UN meeting on the account of Parliament, which by implication means that she collected per diem, and all traveling expenses, including accommodation and feeding was borne by Parliament, an institution that she was never a staff of. It is not known whether this was factored in the figure that the ACC is claiming to have recovered.
Furthermore, Hon. Marrah took the attention of listeners to the bold revelation made by Hon. Tawa Conteh in one program aired on the same airwaves that corruption was rife in the administration of Parliament under the watch of the current Clerk Of Parliament, Hon. Pran Tarawallie. Hon. Marrah called for equal application of the robust Investigations mounted by the ACC against opposition party members to be made to bear on this case.
Other Sierra Leoneans are bewildered that while Investigation’s on the activities of the Clerk of Parliament are on-going, he still maintains his seat and carries out the duty of his position in Parliament, unlike cases where people have been suspended pending the ultimate conclusion of Investigations. Is it therefore true that different sets of rules apply to ruling party operatives in governance and another set for opposition party operatives when such matters are being handled?