Sierra Leone’s Director of Public Prosecutions, Osman Kanu, has confirmed that despite recommendations from the Tribunal, it is only the country’s parliament that can decide on the removal from office of former Auditor-General, Lara Taylor-Pearce and not President Julius Maada Bio.
Mr. Kanu said: “The Auditor General and her deputy were suspended in November, 2021, for stated misconduct. The authority that was given to the tribunal was to consider the allegations against the auditor general and her deputy Tamba Momoh.
“When a tribunal makes a judgement, judgement has the force of a high court judgement but the tribunal in actually reaching their decisions sometimes takes longer because it is an inquiry process. In actual fact, it is only Parliament that can decide on her removal, it’s not the president.
“What the tribunal is actually doing, it’s an advisory tribunal looking at what has be presented before the tribunal, obviously, the lawyers for the state, the attorney general made a case that indeed, and there is a bridge, for them to now arrive on that recommendation for the auditor general to be removed.
“It does not stop there, once those recommendations are made, the president is at liberty again to review them and now decide what the next step is. That next step I believe, is the press release informing that the president has accepted the recommendations and the next step is for parliament under Section 137b, for parliament to now sit and deliberate on the Report and take their decision”.
Over two years since she was suspended under controversial circumstances, Sierra Leone’s Auditor General, Lara Taylor-Pearce, has been ordered to be removed from office.
The decision was announced by the Office of the President, after a review of the report by the tribunal set up by President Julius Maada Bio to investigate the matter.
Mrs. Taylor-Pearce was suspended as head of Audit Service Sierra Leone, alongside her deputy, Tamaba Momoh in November 2021, sparking a huge debate over the constitutionality of the move by President Bio. It came shortly before the release of the annual Auditor-General’s Report, which turned out to be damning against the office of the President, among other government Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
The government accused Mrs. Taylor-Pearce and Mr. Momoh of professional misconduct relating to the way the report was generated.
