By Ragan M Conteh

The opposition government, Chief Whip, Hon. Abdul Karim Kamara, on 28th January 2024 was on Radio Democracy 98.1 to be  interviewed about the 2022 Audit Report and other issues in parliament.

Hon. Abdul Karim Kamara made it crystal clear that the audit report is not a document that is going against political parties as many citizens are going with such misconceptions.

He noted that except the people being employed are political party members and in that regard the political party should be blamed for the skirmishes.

Civil servants are not meant to be politicians and therefore, the people should disassociate the audit service from a political lineage, he warned.

He categorically discoursed that if that is impossible, Sierra Leone would continue to be a State that harvests corruption; a State where corruption determines other things in society.

In addition, opposition chief whip, illuminated on some of the debilitating issues that are impeding the health sector in the country.

Based on his views, there are many hospitals or clinics that do not have ambulances, inadequate drugs, and issues of poor welfare of staff.

And irrespective of the resources being allocated to the sector yet nothing good has been done to live up to the expectations and the situation is tantamount to mockery considering the predicament the people are enduring.

Furthermore, opposition chief whip equally lamented on the education sector, saying that almost all the schools in the country are not in good condition.

Corruption has made the poor to find it very difficult to be educated as it has become another enterprise in the country.

It is happening in other sectors: water sector, electricity and transportation.

Above all, he mentioned that the current situation has nothing to do with politicians but has to do with those responsible in implementing government resources for the purpose it is meant for, and these are the individuals that are not ready to do the needful.

“I am not here to defend parliament when it is not defendable”, opposition chief made this statement in connection with the current ‘strange’ happenings in the well which have attracted much public attention and he stressed that he wasn’t in any capacity to defend it.

He also mentioned that the Audit Report did not need any motion as stated in section 195 of the 1991 Constitution as it spells out all its efficacies.

Also, opposition chief whip drew the attention of the audience that the procedure the Parliamentary Accounts Committee is using at the moment is wrong.

And the Speaker should allow them to debate the Audit Report and thereafter they would send it to the respective Committee for investigation.

On the above statement, he justified that if the speaker did not allow the report to be debated, then, it means they are protecting corruption to thrive.

Conclusively, he made a clarion call to the President as well as the Speaker in order for them to be given the leverage as opposition members to monitor the Parliamentary Accounts Committee as it is applicable in Ghana and other Commonwealth countries.