Sierra Leone: Foreign Affairs officials and diplomats misspent funds from China meant for its Mission in New York

Details of the financial transactions from the banking records of the foreign affairs ministry for fiscal year 2018, during the first months of the Bio Administration, show that foreign affairs officials in Freetown withdrew all of the funds transferred by the Chinese government into the foreign affairs account between June 2018 and September 2018 instead of transferring the earmarked funds to the designated embassy account in New York.

Africanist Press reviewed a total of 134 transactions made by foreign affairs officials between 2nd  March 2018 and 27th December 2018. The transactions included 125 withdrawal transactions totaling Le8,004,769,422.05 (about US$1 million in 2018) and 9 fund transfers, all into the foreign affairs ministry’s account in 2018 alone. We noticed that 3 of these transactions, totaling Le3,612,889,266.95 (about US$456,317), were monies paid into the foreign affairs ministry by the Chinese government as support towards the renovation of the Sierra Leone Chancery Building in New York in 2018. The first of these 2018 transactions was Le1,350,952,200.00 (US$174,224) paid by the Chinese government to the Sierra Leone foreign affairs ministry on March 2, 2018, in the weeks leading up to the elections of 2018. This particular amount with transaction ID FT1806180003, transferred from Beijing by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, remained in the foreign affairs account up until 20 April 2018 after the presidential elections that brought the Maada Bio administration into office. We observed three specific withdrawal transactions totaling Le657,334,175 (US$84,031.40) representing almost half of the transferred amount from the Chinese government for the renovation of the Chancery Building that were withdrawn from the account between 20 April 2018 and 22 May 2018. We equally identified two subsequent wire transfer transactions totaling Le2,261,937,066.95 (about US$290,000) also carried out in May 2018 and June 2018 respectively from the Chinese government into the account of the foreign affairs ministry as additional contribution towards the renovation of the Chancery Building in New York. These two payments were transferred through the Chinese Embassy in Freetown on 25 May 2018 and 25 June 2018 with transactions numbers FT1814560878 and FT1817606980 in the respective amounts of Le1,191,274,393.10 (US$151,786) and  Le1,070,662,673.85 (US$136,418) into the foreign affairs account.

Upon further examination of the 2018 transaction records, we discovered that by 4th September 2018 foreign affairs officials in Freetown had withdrawn a total of Le1,793,413,973.68 (about US$209,023) in 32 withdrawal transactions between 16 July 2018 and 4 September 2018 from the amount paid by the Chinese government in May and June 2018 for the renovation of the Chancery Building in New York. We found that by 5 September  2018, a combined total of Le2,450,748,148.68 (about US$285,635) from the cumulative amount of Le3,612,889,266.95 (US$456,317) paid by the Chinese government in 2018 toward the Chancery Building had been cumulatively withdrawn by foreign affairs officials within the first four months of the Bio administration in office. Thus, by 10 September 2018 from the more than Le3.6 billion transferred into the foreign affairs account by the Chinese government in 2018, only Le1,153,586,333.70 remained as closing balance in the foreign affairs account. Foreign affairs officials had withdrawn nearly Le2.5 billion from the said funds without transferring any amount to the designated embassy account in New York in 2018.

The foreign ministry’s banking records show that all of the funds received from the Chinese government for the renovation of the Chancery Building in 2018 were used as daily subsistence allowances (DSA), on flight tickets, and as relocation costs mostly to newly appointed ambassadors and other diplomatic staff posted by the Bio administration to various embassies in 2018. It is important to note that these 2018 withdrawal transactions by foreign affairs officials in Freetown do not include monies subsequently transferred to New York in 2019 by the foreign affairs ministry in Freetown, and by other agencies and multilateral partners in 2019 and 2020 as well for the alleged purpose of constructing the same Chancery Building.

We hereby release the financial records for 2018 showing how the first set of monies paid into the foreign affairs ministry’s account in 2018 by the Chinese government for the renovation of the Chancery Building were used by the Bio administration. In a subsequent edition, we will equally release the full bank statement for 2019 to show how the 2019 transfers for the Chancery Building were done. This is to help clarify that the more than US$4 million of funds earmarked for the renovation of the Chancery Building that the Africanist Press investigation reported were transactions that happened in the three years of the Bio administration.

For now, you can download the Ministry of Foreign Affairs detailed statement of transactions in 2018.