By Alhaji Haruna Sani
Documentary evidence in the possession of Concord Times has unraveled alleged widespread corruption at the Sierra Leone Health Service Commission,specifically hinging on nepotism.
According to sources, the Executive Secretary of the commission, Moinina Momoh, is allegedly neck-deeped in favoritism, recruiting staff without respect for due processes.
Evidence are that Moinina Momoh and the Chairman of the Commission,Anthony Sandi, both recruited their drivers without following due process.
It was observed by this medium that some of the employees in the Freetown office are without office spaces, which the Executive Secretary admitted to, but noted that he was not responsible for that situation.
It is also alleged that the Executive Secretary is promoting staff based on nepotism, while sidelining other staff without any justification.
Among the twelve staff recruited last year were seven Deputy Directors, four Directors and one Human Resource Officer. It is also alleged that both the Deputy Regional Director in Kenema and the Deputy Regional Director in the Western Area Urban were solely recruited by the Executive Secretary, Moinina Momoh with the support of the chairman, Anthony Sandi.
The Executive Secretary denied outright most of the allegation, but has refused to produce evidence to ascertain his innocence of those claims; instead he insisted that our medium must formally write him before he produces any document.
On the recruitment of the drivers, the Executive Secretary said they received executive clearance from the Ministry of Finance and that there was nothing wrong with the recruitment process.
Sources also explained how the Executive Secretary manipulated recruitment list for nurses sent by the Human Resource Management Office (HRMO) to the commission.
“He removed names from the list sent by HRMO to the Health Service Commission for vetting before awarding pin codes and replaced them with people that bribed him or people that he is related to,” one of the sources alleged.
“In order to ensure sealed lips, which amounts to a compromise of the whole situation, the Executive Secretary works in cohort with the Chairman of the Commission,” an insider told this medium.
This medium was also told that workers have been refusing to go on leave for fear of them being replaced with relatives of the Executive Secretary.
