Ban Kaifala’s Performance Speaks Volumes

In the following thread from THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN Whatsapp forum, it appears as if Ben Kaifala, Commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), and, the President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, Retired Brigadier Maada Bio, have been put on trial in one of the highest courts on earth today, the public relations social media court. Shouldn’t the real culprits of the creeping pace of the annihilation of cancerous corruption and ticking time bomb corruption – the Parliament of Sierra Leone, and the Judiciary – be also put on trial?

Probably, Ben Kaifala, as Commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), is the only head of a government Ministry, Department, Agency (MDA) that appears aware that in 2009 the Parliament of Sierra Leone made the ACCESS TO INFORMATION Law. This law makes it mandatory for all MDAs to publish regularly what they aim to do, and what they do; and to respond to the public when the public ask questions about their MDA.  With the indefatigable and workaholic Director of Outreach and Public Relations Department in the ACC, Patrick Sandi, the ACC’ is almost daily and weekly churning out press releases; reporting on the Commissioner’s and other staff’s outreach engagements on radio and television; making speeches to pupils and students in schools and universities, meeting market women; ensuring that social security safety nets money meant for the poorest of the poor masses reaches them and is not chopped by venal bureaucrats, as used to happen before Ben Kaifala.  It’s hardly a wonder that Ben Kaifala, being the shiniest star among MDA heads – having consistently scored above 70% in the United States’  MCC’s Control of Corruption Rankings; the highest scores ever in our history in Transparency International, and Afro-Barometer, rankings; having won more local and international awards in his five years in office than all the heads of MDAs put together; his academic credentials burnished by a First Class degree at FBC; Master’s degree from a top UK university, another Master’s degree from the  University of Austin in the US;  recently sheened with a Harvard University course – generates excitement and awe among the youths; likely envy among his peers; and too visible, and too vulnerable, because of the public  high expectations, so, he attracts unrelenting social media bullets and bombs. Suspended Clerk of Parliament, Paran Tarawally’s conflict of interest accusation was another opportunity for the antagonists of Ben Kaifala to take aim at him.

Maybe, there could be something that the Ben Kaifala-led ACC has not been doing right; like an avalanche of ACC-information, without bothering with communications. Aaaaa!! Information. Communications. 99% of government MDAs can’t tell the difference between information and communications, which they intertwine. Social Media that has become increasingly belligerent, dynamic, gives Ben Kaifala an opportunity to communicate with Sierra Leoneans from all over the world.

Within just this past week in THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN Whatsapp forum, there have been intense debate among well-educated and highly experienced Sierra Leoneans on all continents on…: the efficacy of Ben Kaifala; questioning  the need for an ACC, raising the suspicion that the President is the puppeteer and Ben Kaifala the puppet; the decadence of the Judiciary that inhibits the War on Corruption; a near-useless Parliament; confusion on the roles of the ACC and Audit Services-Sierra Leone… I would not muddle all of these points in just one article. I choose one variable from the gladiator-like arena that is Social Media, where Dr. Janette Saidu pugnaciously posted like an ISIL or HAMAS warlord:  “I take no prisoners”. Read ..

The Performance of Ben Kaifala is Unimpressive – Thomas Legg

What I know of Thomas Legg is that he was my academic peer at Fourah Bay College (FBC), University of Sierra Leone in the mid-1970s. After his degree in Economics, he migrated to the United Kingdom in the 1980s; and returned home after the war. He worked in the public sector, then, in the private sector, as Director of Finance in the indigenously-owned Union Trust Bank. His words have weight. His attack on Ben Kaifala is like the Israeli military bombarding Gaza.

Thomas Legg: GM  The Guru.

Reading your submission leaves me anxious about your motives!

The performance of the ACC is unimpressive by any standards. ‘Ben Kelfala’ is just on ‘pappeeshow’ and needs to help himself first.

Yes! Some of the handicaps that the ACC has to grapple with, like the Judiciary, may be real!! But, in the national interest, Ben Kaifala should have resigned his job as ACC Commissioner to draw attention to these issues, so that he could have brought them to focus for resolution; or, otherwise, dissociate himself from a very rotten system.

What has Ben Kaifala achieved in these past 6 years of being Commissioner of the ACC, impact wise….?  Nothing!! Despite all Ben Kaifala’s fake awards he has won, and dodgy researches that extol Ben Kaifala’s high performance, we all know the truth.

Corruption is still rife in this country and nothing has changed. Even the scope of corruption has remained unchanged. Corruption in the extraction of our natural resources, which is the most critical, continues to be excluded in the actions of the ACC.

I can give you several indicators that we are racing down a slippery slope, but I’ll save you the horror for today.

What I just want to say to this nation is that an ACC Commissioner who decides that where a holder of public office is found wanton on corruption allegations, the ACC must go 10 years back to first of all see whether the previous office holder did the same things in order to justify holding the same position. The current office holder of the ACC is not fit for purpose.

Ben Kaifala is a professional and ought to know better.

Oswald Hanciles Responds to Legg’s Guerilla War Tactics on Ben Kaifala

Oswald Hanciles: Thomas Legg writes in THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN Whatsapp forum that the “performance of the ACC (under the leadership of Ben Kaifala, that is) is unimpressive by any standards”. Nooo no no!!  You won’t get away with that “by any standards” cheap shot. You must be specific on what standards you have prosecuted and convicted Ben Kaifala on, as if you are a prosecutor/ judge/juror in one person, inside a kangaroo court.

You can only compare a tall man with a short man. You can only compare Ronaldinho with Messi, compare Pele with Madonna; compare Michael Jackson with Elvis Presley or Justin Bieber; compare Ernest Bai Koroma with Tejan Kabbah. You must compare the performance of Ben Kaifala with that of his predecessors between 2002 and 2018.

Ben Kaifala should have resigned from his plum job as ACC Commissioner, when he is making a rousing success of his ACC job, compared to his predecessors? That is simply ridiculous!!

Ben Kaifala has valiantly chosen the option to do what he can within the fifty years rotten political and bureaucratic systems of Sierra Leone, whilst appealing for help for the systems to be changed – and not resign, and flee out of the country, like did the first ACC Commissioner appointed by former President Ernest Bai Koroma, a cowardly Krio lawyer, Tejan Cole.

“What has (Ben Kaifala) achieved in these 6 years..”? – almost 70 years old Thomas Legg pierced with a dagger  into the sides of  the just above 40 years old Ben Kaifala. (Do you realize than Ben Kaifala was not even born when you left university?). There are ACC staff here from the Outreach and Public Relations Department of the ACC; they are likely to respond to your question with more specificity. I just plead you rein your impulse to pass judgement before you even begin to look at the evidence the man you prosecute would present as his defence. (You did Law in tertiary institutions, I hope?)

On what you term as “fake awards” and “dodgy researches”, I humbly ask that you invoke the Access to Information law and demand details on the awards won by Ben Kaifala (more awards in five years than all his predecessors put together in over 15 years!); and it may help the intellectual standing of Sierra Leone if you can take on globally-reputed anti-graft agencies like Transparency International, and  Afro-Barometer; and the US government agency, MCC, which have raised the needle of the ACC’s performance from 41% in 2019 to 81% in 2022, one of the greatest feats in the fight against corruption for any African country.

I cannot argue with you that much has changed or not changed in the spate of corruption in Sierra Leone, but, I would demand that you present us with credible data upon which you have made your assertions, or, you couch your denunciation with circumspection. From subjective observation of the houses and apartment blocks worth billions of dollars on the Freetown Peninsula, built by individual indigenous Sierra Leoneans over the past fifteen years, with likely proceeds of unexplained wealth, I do think; I have been publicly urging Ben Kaifala …to be more pugnacious in ferreting out and indicting and prosecuting the Grand Thieves of state funds, who have apparently turned state properties into private property.

On the horror stories of Grand Corruption, you don’t want to scare me with, I PLEAD you unfold them. The SLPP government, and the SLPP majority in Parliament, could be playing a political suicidal game if they don’t enact dramatically tougher laws on corruption, and if Ben Kaifala is not given free rein to go after the corrupt without being lampooned by many in the public of likely Selective Justice.

PLO Lumumba resigned his job as Anti-Corruption Czar in Kenya, but did that shame successive governments in Kenya into improving on the fight against corruption in Kenya? No!!  Sure enough, Lumumba is an engaging crusader against corruption in Africa, but, what has been his impact?

Yes, why your anxiety about my “motives” when they are embedded in my articles on corruption? Praise Ben Kaifala’s performance where he deserves it, and critique him where he falls short of what I deduce could be below the people’s expectations; I highlight the variables in the complexity of corruption, so, hopefully, my published writings could catalyze positive actions by the Executive, Judiciary, and Legislative branches of government.

Let’s keep this discourse alive.

I pause,

Oswald Hanciles, The Guru