As ACC Opens Investigation On Squandered US$4.5 M USL Deal… Big Trouble For David Francis, Patricia Laverley & Others!!!

In the wake of corruption allegations surrounding former ministers and former university heads in the President Bio led New Direction Administration, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has opened an investigation to look into the squandered US$4.5 Million University of Sierra Leone (USL) deal.
According to the Africa Confidential, the University of Sierra Leone lost US$4.5 Million public money to a Nigerian company Femab Properties for the construction of a campus Bureh Town which was abandoned after the payment was made.
“The University of Sierra Leone (USL) advanced US$4.5 million to a Nigerian property developer towards a $50m project to build a new campus for its business school in 2019. But noting was built and the Nigerians won’t return the money,” Africa Confidential revealed.
According to the report, Sierra Leone’s former Chief Minister, Professor David Francis; former Deputy Minister of Finance, Patricia Laverley; then USL’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Foday Sahr and others were key players in the deal, for which they are now in big trouble as the ACC has opened investigation on the matter.
The ACC’s Director of Public Education, Patrick Sandy has confirmed that the Director of Investigations has been instructed to open an investigation on same.
Sandy furthered that some officials from the Institute of Public Administration (IPAM) have been invited to the Commission to give their explanation of the report published by Africa Confidential.
Africa Confidential maintained that payment was made to the company even when the then Financial Secretary, Sahr Jusu formally raised some doubts about the agreement.