On 11th November, 2021 the Auditor General, Mrs. Lara Taylor-Pearce and her blue-eyed boy, Tamba Momoh (Deputy Auditor General) were suspended from office indefinitely. A Special Tribunal was set up to investigate them “for professional performance or the lack thereof”. After their suspension from office indefinitely, the Judicial and Legal Service Commission met and advised the President to appoint members of the Special Tribunal.
On 17th November, 2021 in consultation with the Judicial and Legal Service Commission, His Excellency the President, Dr. Julius Maada Bio appointed Hon Justice Nyawo Finda Jones as Chairperson of the Special Tribunal to “investigate the Auditor General, Mrs. Lara Taylor-Pearce and the Deputy Auditor General, Mr. Tamba Momoh for alleged misconduct and lack of professional performance, in their activities as Auditor General and Deputy Auditor General respectively of Audit Service Sierra Leone”.
After the membership of the Special Tribunal was announced, the suspended Auditor General, Mrs. Lara Taylor-Peace hired the services of a prominent Freetown-based Lawyer, Rowland S.V. Wright (ESQ) of Wright and Co (Solicitors) of 8 Pademba Road, Freetown to challenge the legality of her suspension from office and stated that “None of the Appointees” are qualified to be appointed as members of the Special Tribunal. “Two of the three nominees to wit; the Hon. Justice Nyawo Jones and Lahai Farma ESQ are not qualified to be so appointed for the same reasons given in Paragraph 23 above”.
Mrs. Lara Taylor-Pearce has applied to the Supreme Court of Sierra Leone backed by an “Affidavit In Support” for the “Honourable Court to grant the Orders prayed for on the Originating Notice of Motion filed herein”.
Senior Judicial sources have argued that the applicant decided to go to the Supreme Court in order to avoid the abundance of evidence being paraded against her before the Special Tribunal.
“She is just trying to delay the proceedings of the Special Tribunal”, one Lawyer told the Global Times yesterday.
Meanwhile, the 6-page “Affidavit In Support” of Mrs. Lara Taylor-Pearce’s application to the Supreme Court will be published this week.
Investigations continue.
