Kabbah maintains anti-corruption stance

President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah this week reiterated his commitment to stamping out corruption in Sierra Leone. “That’s one of my main objectives, to try and eradicate it here,” Kabbah said in an interview with VOA, aired on Monday. He added that an anti-corruption commission was being set up with financial help from the British government. Kabbah said many of the problems faced by his government were inherited. “I do not think that the problems we had were basically the problems or mistakes on the part of the government,” he said. “It was because of what we inherited, and to change attitudes, particularly of human beings, can be very difficult. And to deal with bandits who call themselves rebels also can be very difficult.” He said his original goal - “to try and rid our people, our country, of those bad people” - remained the same. “I may fine tune my methods of achieving my objectives, but the objectives are the same.” The RUF launched its insurgency in 1991, with the backing of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia, against then Sierra Leonean president Joseph Momoh.