In recorded statements posted on a WhatsApp group last week, Alieu said that the ministry is “useless” and that its staff are only interested in “eating” rather than working.
Alieu said that he had personal experience of the ministry’s corruption when he was governor. He said that he had to bribe officials in order to get the funds that had been approved by parliament for his state.
“The difficulties faced by those former ministers is useless civil service at the Ministry of Finance,” Alieu said. “The staff here are not that they don’t know work, they want the country to move forward as people eat.”
Alieu called for a complete overhaul of the ministry, including the dismissal of all current staff even if it would means entrusting foreigners with managing the country’s finance.
“They are used to these bad behaviors and when I was a governor, I came to follow up state money which was approved by the parliament and are in the budget and it is my right and I want them, although the minister of finance approved it,” he said.
“I had to bribe to get the check, and this is what ten governors are doing, if you don’t bribe those boys at Ministry of Finance, you will not get your money.
“All these working at the ministry of finance, if the president change, should be dismissed all even if it means hiring foreigners to come and ran the ministry of finance or to have them under new contact and National Security officers should be deployed there.”
Alieu’s statement is the latest in a series of allegations of corruption at the ministry of finance.
In recent years, there have been reports of officials in the ministry demanding bribes in exchange for approving payments.