{"id":32028,"date":"2011-11-08T18:23:53","date_gmt":"2011-11-08T18:23:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sierraexpressmedia.com\/?p=32028"},"modified":"2011-11-08T18:23:53","modified_gmt":"2011-11-08T18:23:53","slug":"le880-m-scam-minister-incriminates-city-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/?p=32028","title":{"rendered":"Le880 M scam: Minister incriminates City Council"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">A sum totaling Le 880 M offered the Sierra Leone government in March of 2008 by Milestone Trading Limited, for the construction of a market in Freetown, is reportedly embezzled by officials of the Ministry of Trade and Industry and Freetown City Council respectively. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">In his words, the Minister of Works (then Minister of Trades), Alimamy Pepito Koroma <em>(in photo<\/em>)\u00a0said, \u201cup until the time I handed over Ministerial responsibilities to the appointed Trades Minister then, the Le 880 M was indeed in the custody of the Ministry.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">\u201cI advise you check on management at Freetown City,\u201d he said, \u201cThey are likely to tell the whereabouts of the money.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">It could be recalled that prior to Milestone\u2019s gifting of the sum of Le 880 M to government for the construction of an ultra modern market; it promised on an installment basis, to complete its pledge of US$1.5 M as construction exercise progressed. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">In March 2008, the Executive Officer of Milestone, Nissim Ledy, at a ceremony held at State House, presented a cheque of Le 880 M to President Koroma and said it is his company\u2019s desire to abidingly fulfill its corporate social task for the people of Sierra Leone. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">\u201cThis amount formed part of my company\u2019s pledge towards the building of an ultra modern market for traders in the City of Freetown,\u201d Nissim said. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">The amount, our findings revealed, was later handed over to the then Minister of Trades, Alimamy P. Koroma, to enable him to accomplish the construction of the ultra modern market project in Freetown. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">In spite of promises by management of Milestone that, as the construction exercise progresses, they will surely be making payments to government thereby honouring the company\u2019s US$1.5 M commitments, no work has been observed as done at all. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Leaks are that the Le 880 M has been conspiratorially embezzled by management of the Ministry of Trades and the Freetown City Council. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Unconfirmed reports state that management of Milestone seems unhappy over government\u2019s vehemently refusal to construct an ultra modern market for its people when the funds are available. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Even though Minister Alimamy P. Koroma has told this press that he once included in his handing over note the Le 880 M under query, there is no record showing the whereabouts of the money or how it reached the hands of management of the Freetown City Council. <\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><strong><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A sum totaling Le 880 M offered the Sierra Leone government in March of 2008 by Milestone Trading Limited, for the construction of a market [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[671,673,1],"tags":[10688,2971,737,10689,10675],"class_list":["post-32028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-national-news","category-uncategorized","tag-alimamy-pepito-koroma","tag-fcc","tag-freetown-city-council","tag-milestone-trading-company","tag-nissim-ledy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}