Professor David Francis (third from right) alongside J J Saffa at the Afreximbank Annual conference in Moscow
The Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio has sacked his Chief Minister, Professor David Francis, and demoted him to the Foreign Ministry Department, after a damaging scandal involving corruption at a large scale reported by the Africanist Press involving millions of dollars siphoned from the state treasury by the office of the Chief Minister.
The Chief Minister who has been accused of being arrogant and rude was reported to be shocked when he received the news which was announced on state television and radio. The credible Africanist press revealed that huge sums of money were withdrawn from the banks in the form of illegal procurements authorized by the Chief Minister’s Office. This press has also been reliably informed that the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) led by Francis Ben Kaifala, had started preliminary investigations into alleged corruption in the office o
Claire Elder, London School of Economics and Political Science The current government’s decision on April 12th to seek a two-year extension has thrown Somalia’s fragile political process into disarra.
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When a sitting President appears before a Judicial Commission of Inquiry it is always a significant moment.
Sometimes a Commission will be concerned with a failure or with misconduct that has taken place under the particular head of government’s own watch. But other times, it may be that it is the mistakes of a previous administration or President that are under scrutiny.
Ramaphosa’s case is unusual as it is neither one nor the other. The Commission’s terms of reference are focused clearly on events that took place while Ramaphosa’s immediate predecessor ,Jacob Zuma, was President, between 2009 and 2018. Ramaphosa was elected president in February 2018.
The president has since called for elections and a return to dialogue.
The call comes against the backdrop of a November 2020 agreement between the opposition and the government to hold an indirect election. At the time, no consensus was reached on how the process would be managed. The opposition is concerned about its fairness, given the government’s gross violations of regional elections since 2018. These resulted in the installation of leaders allied with the president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed (known as Farmaajo), in South West, Galmudug and Hirshabelle states.
Since his election, Farmaajo has restricted the political space for the opposition. The president and his close advisers have also been implicated in assassination attempts.