By Omar Bah
The Auditor General Modou Ceesay has publicly claimed that his recent reassignment to the Ministry of Trade was a deliberate ploy to dismiss him from his auditing duties.
Yesterday, plain-clothes police were sent to the Auditor General’s office to arrest Ceesay and install his successor.
But NAO staff confronted the officers and restricted them. It was not until back-up forces from the PIU arrived that the Auditor General was finally evicted from a press conference he was giving and escorted out of the complex to his lawyer’s office.
According to the Auditor General, this move was orchestrated to undermine his office’s independence.
The reassignment came as a surprise to many in the government and civil society, as the Auditor General’s role is constitutionally mandated to be independent and central to public accountability.
“It is a very unfortunate situation for our democracy, accountability, rule of law and we are quite disappointed. I think it has shown the intentions that were harbored in the assertions that had been made that they wanted to make me Minister of Trade. I think we have all seen that they were not really interested in the promotion, rather it was more of how to get rid of Modou Ceesay,” a defiant Ceesay told journalists yesterday.
Sources close to the office speculated that the Auditor General was investigating irregularities in key government procurement and trade-related contracts, which might have prompted attempts to sideline him.
