The Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Jacob Jusu Saffa has emphatically warned notorious government subvention kleptomanics to halt their dubious activities or face rigid penalty.

In an exclusive interview with our reporter at the ongoing 2019 budget hearings at Bank Complex, Kingtom, Saffa said, the flagrant misappropriation of government subvention by public and civil servants of government Ministries, Departments and Agencies under the former President Koroma led APC government would not be tolerated under the President Bio’ New Direction administration.

This sustained Mafioso and corrupt syndicate, he says, has over the past 10 years diverted billions of Leones meant for the country’s development programs into private pockets of corrupt government officials. Hence, strongly advised public and civil servants to instantly desist from such practices or be prepared to face the law.

He also lambasted the former parliamentary Finance and Transparency Committees, whose investigations, he said, were not to recoup misappropriated funds, but to equally connive with these kleptomanics through nefarious dealings, thus creating a safe haven for these crooked officials to continue perpetrating their dubious acts.

Saffa underpinned that for the New Direction to achieve the right direction, the President Bio administration will equally investigate the investigators (Parliamentary Committees) in order to put an end to the decade-long corrupt syndicate that has and continues to subject the populace to abject poverty.

In order to ensure that development projects are implemented in a time bound manner under the new direction, his ministry will personally mount up a discipline monitoring team that will follow up every subvention to various MDAs.

Similarly, they will also desist from giving huge subventions to MDAs, since the flow of capital causes dishonest practices.