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The World Bank/IMF: Is President Bio Grossly Incompetent or Complicit in Serving Western Interests? By Mahmud Tim Kargbo Sierra Leone has long been known as an impoverished country with a sizable debt that its corrupt leadership and poor governance have imposed. While many politicians and individuals in positions of social trust have primarily attributed this […]
As We Celebrate LAJ’s Release From Prison, Let Us Demand The Truth Behind His Alleged Torture in Police Detention. By Saikujohn Barrie I have been following the news of the presidential pardon of one of Sierra Leone’s finest rappers, Alhaji Amadu Bah, known as LAJ. I watched the videos of his release, and I also […]
Chinese Loans to Sierra Leone: Examining the Authenticity of Loans Allegedly Extended to the Republic of Sierra Leone by the People’s Republic of China. By Mahmud Tim Kargbo To His Excellency, President Xi Jinping, The General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, C/O The Embassy of China in Sierra Leone, Freetown. Dear Sir, SUBJECT: […]
IMF’S CAMPAIGN AGAINST POVERTY ERADICATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES By Mahmud Tim Kargbo The pressing question is how impoverished nations, such as Sierra Leone and others, can accelerate growth to catch up with wealthier countries. A handful of globally aware economists with a vision for universal economic autonomy would suggest various effective strategies. These include: Dismantling […]
The Complexities of Midnight War Prayers: A National Perspective on Sierra Leone’s Spiritual Practices, episode 4. By The Sierra Leone Live Team Embracing Love and Rejecting Revenge in Sierra Leone’s Spiritual Landscape In Sierra Leone, a profound spiritual practice resonates with the practice of midnight prayers, an intense ritual deeply rooted in the Christian faith. […]
The Dangers of “Midnight War Prayers” in Sierra Leone: A Critical Analysis By The Sierra Leone Live Team In Sierra Leone, a practice known as “Midnight War Prayers” has gained prominence among various communities. Derived from Christian religious practices, these prayers are often recited with the belief that they offer protection, deliverance, and breakthroughs. However, […]
The Dangers of “Midnight War Prayers”: A Critical Examination, Episode 2 By the Sierra Leone Live Team The practice of “Midnight War Prayers,” exemplified by phrases like “Evil powers roaming around in my garden of greatness, be wasted, in the name of Jesus,” presents a fervent spiritual warfare narrative. These prayers often aim for personal […]
Navigating the Complexities of Spiritual Warfare Texts in Sierra Leone’s Context By the Sierra Leone Live Team. In Sierra Leone, a nation with a large Christian population and a rich tapestry of cultural and religious beliefs, the concept of spiritual warfare is deeply ingrained in the fabric of society. Recently, a text circulating online, titled […]
Youth Inclusion: A Clarion Call in Sierra Leone’s Political Landscape By Elhaj Malik Shabbaz In Sierra Leone, a nation vibrant with potential, the voice of youth is not just a whisper but a roar that shapes the future. Recognising that youths constitute a significant portion of our voting population, the APC National Young Congress (APC-NYC) […]
A Clarion Call To Unclenching The All People’s Congress Party From The Powers That Be An Open Letter to Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma: Former Chairman and Leader of the APC Party By Elhaj Malik Shabbaz. Dear Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma: I extend my heartfelt greetings to you from my residence in the hills. It is […]
Elevating Sierra Leone's Music and Performing Arts: A Blueprint for the Future
By the Sierra Leone Live Team Compiled by Bhai-Dhawa Sesay.
Introduction
Sierra Leone, a country often described as a patchwork quilt of diverse cultures, is an epicenter of musical richness and the performing arts. The nation's history is deeply intertwined with its music, serving as the drumbeat for its people's resilience, joy, and spirit. Whether it's the hypnotic cadence of traditional drumming echoing through the hills, the powerful lyrics of gospel songs filling the churches, or the energetic pulse of Afrobeats that has captivated the youth, music in Sierra Leone is a narrative that continues to evolve.
However, as with many aspects of culture and the arts, potential alone is not enough. While Sierra Leonean music thrives in its diversity and emotional depth, its full potential remains untapped, especially on the global stage. Moreover, the local industry faces multiple challenges, ranging from a lack of professional training platforms to limited exposure and revenue streams for artists.
In light of this, the need for a comprehensive, forward-looking strategy becomes ever more essential. A well-thought-out approach can provide the scaffolding upon which a more robust, internationally competitive music and performing arts industry can be built. It's not just about making Sierra Leonean music and arts more accessible; it's about elevating them to a point where they command their own space in the global creative economy.
This report aims to lay out such a strategy, focusing on four pivotal pillars: capacity building, platform development, strategic marketing, and crafting a unique competitive edge. Each of these pillars serves as a cornerstone in constructing an industry that not only sustains itself but also enriches the global music scene with Sierra Leone's unique musical flavors. Let's delve into how each of these pillars can be actualized, providing a blueprint for a future where Sierra Leone's artists not only survive but thrive, both at home and on the world stage. 1. Capacity Building: Nurturing Homegrown Talent The first pillar focuses on nurturing the innate musical talents that abound in Sierra Leone. The establishment of music academies and workshops can play an instrumental role in this capacity-building exercise. These institutions would offer both short-term courses and long-term programs, covering everything from vocal training and instrumental mastery to music theory and production skills.
Why it Matters:
The advancement of Sierra Leone's music and performing arts industry is about more than just entertainment. It’s about economic growth, cultural preservation, and societal development. Let's delve deeper into the significance of each of the focal points in the "Why It Matters" section.
Skill Enhancement: Refining the Craft of Local Artists
In a world that is increasingly interconnected, the level of competition among artists is at an all-time high. Sierra Leonean artists are not just competing locally; they're part of a global arena. Skill enhancement through specialized training equips them to meet international standards. * Immediate Benefits: Artists can offer a higher quality of performance and recording, which translates into better marketability. * Long-term Impact: A more skilled workforce can attract international collaborations and investments into the local industry.
Job Creation: Beyond the Stage and Studio
When we think of the music industry, we often focus on the artists, but the ecosystem is much larger. From music teachers to sound engineers, from stage managers to marketing professionals, the industry is a web of various roles that allow it to function effectively. * Immediate Benefits: The emergence of music academies and workshops creates immediate roles in teaching, administration, and technical support. * Long-term Impact: As the industry grows, so will the number of employment opportunities contributing to the country’s economic development.
Cultural Preservation: Keeping the Melody Alive for Generations
One of Sierra Leone's most invaluable treasures is its rich cultural heritage, particularly in music and the performing arts. Traditional songs and dances carry the stories, beliefs, and values of a community functioning as an oral history of sorts. * Immediate Benefits: Documenting and teaching traditional musical forms help in preserving them for the immediate future. * Long-term Impact: These practices become a lasting cultural archive, accessible to future generations and researchers alike. It serves as a cultural touchstone that can be referenced, studied, and enjoyed for years to come.
The strategic development of Sierra Leone's music and performing arts industry is not just an investment in entertainment. It's an investment in the nation's future, both culturally and economically. The ripple effects of this investment could reverberate through various facets of Sierra Leonean life, making it an endeavor worth pursuing wholeheartedly. 2. Platforms: The Necessity of Local Distribution Channels While global platforms like Spotify and Apple Music are great, the need for localized music distribution platforms cannot be overstated. A Sierra Leone-focused music streaming service would spotlight local artists, offering them a dedicated platform for better visibility.
Why it Matters: Revenue Generation: Artists Get to Monetize Their Content Directly
The traditional revenue models in the music industry often involve multiple intermediaries, such as record labels, distributors, and retailers, each taking a cut before the artist sees any income. With a local music distribution platform, Sierra Leonean artists can circumvent many of these middlemen, achieving a direct channel to their audience and, consequently, more control over their revenue streams. This approach also allows artists to experiment with monetization strategies tailored to their local audiences, such as pay-per-view live performances or exclusive song releases.
Why it Matters: * Financial Independence: Artists have the potential to achieve greater financial independence, empowering them to invest back in their craft. * Sustainable Growth: Direct revenue generation can create a more sustainable ecosystem for local musicians, contributing to the overall development of Sierra Leone's music industry.
Cultural Identity: A Local Platform Can Promote Traditional Music Forms Alongside Modern Genres
Traditional music genres frequently fall by the wayside in a world where commercial and mainstream genres predominate. A local platform offers the unique advantage of giving equal footing to both traditional and modern musical styles. This promotes a richer, more diverse musical landscape that represents Sierra Leone's multifaceted cultural identity.
Why it Matters: * Cultural Preservation: Traditional music forms, often passed down through generations, get the visibility they deserve, aiding in their preservation. * National Pride: The platform becomes a symbol of national pride, showcasing the country's rich musical heritage. * Global Differentiation: The fusion of traditional and modern genres can set Sierra Leonean music apart on the global stage, offering something uniquely compelling to international audiences.
Accessibility: More People Get Access to Music Made by Sierra Leoneans, For Sierra Leoneans
Global platforms often require payment methods or subscriptions that may not be accessible to everyone in Sierra Leone. A local platform can offer more regionally appropriate and accessible payment options, from mobile money to local bank integrations. Additionally, the platform can be optimized for local internet conditions, ensuring that streaming is smooth even on slower connections.
Why it Matters: * Inclusive Participation: Greater accessibility ensures that more Sierra Leoneans can take part in the local music scene, whether as artists or audiences. * Community Building: The platform can serve as a community hub where local audiences find music that resonates with their experiences, fostering a stronger sense of community. * Local Relevance: Artists can produce content that is more aligned with local tastes and issues, increasing their relevance and impact within their communities.
Each of these points—revenue generation, cultural identity, and accessibility—not only adds layers to why a local platform is vital but also serves as key pillars for the holistic development of Sierra Leone's music and performing arts industry. 3. Marketing: The Power of Social Media and Partnerships The third pillar aims to leverage the power of social media and strategic partnerships for a wider reach. Social media campaigns, influencer partnerships, and collaborations with international artists can significantly amplify the visibility of Sierra Leonean music.
Why it Matters: Global Reach: Crossing Borders with Sierra Leonean Music
In today's interconnected world, music is one of the most potent forms of cultural exchange. By leveraging marketing tools and partnerships, Sierra Leonean artists can introduce their music to a broader, international audience. * Diverse Markets: Artists can target different demographics, from the African diaspora to global music enthusiasts interested in unique sounds. * Collaboration Opportunities: A wider reach could lead to collaborations with international artists, adding further credibility and exposure. * Cultural Diplomacy: Music often transcends language and geography, serving as a form of soft power to enhance Sierra Leone’s image globally.
Brand Building: More Than Just a Name
In the age of digital consumerism, an artist's brand goes far beyond just their music; it's an amalgamation of their story, style, ethics, and engagement with their audience. * Visibility: Effective branding helps an artist stand out in an oversaturated market. * Monetization: A strong brand can attract sponsorships, merchandise deals, and exclusive partnerships. * Longevity: Artists with strong brands are more likely to have sustained careers because they create a deeper connection with their audience beyond just their music.
Community Engagement: The Heartbeat of Success
In the world of music, fans aren't just passive listeners; they're active participants who can make or break an artist's career. Hence, community engagement through social media is crucial. * Feedback Loop: Direct interaction with fans can offer valuable insights into what works and what doesn't, both in terms of music and marketing strategies. * Loyalty: Fans who feel a personal connection with an artist are more likely to be long-term supporters, attending shows, buying albums, and even promoting the artist within their own networks. * Viral Potential: An engaged community is more likely to share content, offering the potential for a song or album to go viral, thereby skyrocketing an artist's fame and revenue.
By focusing on these three aspects—global reach, brand building, and community engagement—Sierra Leonean artists can not only enrich their own careers but also contribute to elevating the country's music and performing arts sector. This isn't just about individual growth; it's about raising the bar for an entire industry and, in the process, placing Sierra Leone firmly on the global cultural map. 4. Competitive Edge: Fusing the Traditional and the Modern The final pillar is about harnessing Sierra Leone's unique competitive edge—the seamless fusion of traditional and modern music forms. This blend not only makes the music scene incredibly vibrant but also offers something genuinely different on the global stage.
Why it Matters: Cultural Representation: A Global Stage for Sierra Leone’s Heritage
Maintaining cultural representation is crucial in a world where the forces of globalization are diluting cultures more and more. The fusion of traditional and modern music acts as a vehicle for cultural diplomacy, enabling Sierra Leone to share its rich heritage with the world. This is more than just an export of sound; it's an export of history, values, and identity.
Extended Impact: * Cultural Awareness: Helps the world understand Sierra Leone's cultural depth, breaking stereotypes. * Cultural Preservation: Engages younger generations in traditional forms, ensuring they're not lost over time.
Innovation: A Playground for Musical Experimentation
Innovation is the lifeblood of any creative industry, and the music scene is no different. The fusion allows artists to step outside conventional boundaries and experiment with different genres. Whether it's incorporating traditional instruments into modern beats or blending local dialects with global languages, the possibilities are endless.
Extended Impact: * Creative Freedom: Artists aren't confined to one style, encouraging more creativity. * Industry Growth: New genres can emerge, enriching the local music scene and creating more opportunities for artists and entrepreneurs alike.
Global Appeal: Beyond Borders and Boundaries
The unique blend of musical styles doesn’t just resonate within Sierra Leone; it has the potential to capture ears and hearts globally. Music has always been a universal language, and a fusion of forms amplifies this universality.
Extended Impact: * Market Expansion: The blend can attract a wider audience, opening up new markets for Sierra Leonean artists. * Collaborations: The unique style could lead to collaborations with international artists, providing local artists with a global platform.
By focusing on these aspects, Sierra Leone's music industry doesn't just stand to gain locally. It has the potential to carve out its own unique niche in the global music landscape, turning the spotlight on Sierra Leone as a hub of musical innovation and cultural richness.
Conclusion
The advancement of Sierra Leone's music and performing arts isn't a one-dimensional task; it necessitates a complex, well-orchestrated strategy that touches upon several key areas. These foundational pillars—capacity building, platform creation, strategic marketing, and the unique blending of traditional and modern musical forms—are not standalone elements but interconnected facets of a robust ecosystem.
The Symbiotic Nature of the Pillars
Each pillar complements and amplifies the others. Capacity building in music academies and workshops equips artists with the skills they need, which are then showcased through localized streaming services and distribution platforms. Effective marketing strategies, particularly through social media and global partnerships, bring deserved attention to these platforms and, by extension, the artists they feature. The unique fusion of Sierra Leone's musical styles offers a competitive edge that makes marketing more impactful, driving more listeners to the local platforms and creating a cycle of success.
The Broader Cultural and Economic Impact
By investing in these pillars, Sierra Leone has the opportunity to significantly enrich its cultural heritage, preserving traditional musical forms while encouraging new, innovative styles. But the impact isn't solely cultural; it's also economic. Job creation, revenue generation from localized streaming services, and the potential for international collaborations can all contribute to a more robust economy.
Positioning Sierra Leone on the Global Stage
As Sierra Leone strengthens its domestic music and performing arts sectors, the ripples of this development will inevitably be felt far beyond its borders. The unique musical blend that Sierra Leone offers can fill a niche in the global music landscape, attracting diverse audiences who are hungry for something different. In a world where cultural products are one of the most potent forms of soft power, Sierra Leone has the opportunity to assert a compelling, captivating presence.
The Dream of Global Resonance
With meticulous planning, steadfast commitment, and a focus on both micro and macro objectives, there's every reason to believe that the melody of Sierra Leone could resonate globally. Music has the ability to cross linguistic, political, and geographic barriers in a world that frequently divides on these grounds. Sierra Leone, with its rich musical heritage and future-forward strategies, has the potential to contribute a rhythm so compelling that it becomes, in essence, the rhythm of the world.
By concentrating on these foundational pillars, Sierra Leone is not merely aiming for domestic growth; it is setting its sights on global resonance. It's not just about filling local concert halls; it's about creating a universal language that speaks to hearts across continents. With the right implementation, Sierra Leone's melody could very well become a global anthem, uniting people through the universal language of music.
Visa Restriction Policy and the Dawn of Democracy in Sierra Leone: An Intersection of Reality and FictionBy the Sierra Leone Live TeamWhen the United States Secretary of State, Antony J. Blinken, released a press statement on August 31, 2023, announcing a visa restriction policy for undermining the democratic process in Sierra Leone, it couldn't have been more in sync with the fictional account penned down by Bhai-Dhawa Sesay in "Echoes of Democracy: Unrigging Sierra Leone's Election." While one account reflects international policy, the other captures the grassroots perspective in Sierra Leone. These two narratives intersect at multiple points, weaving a complex tapestry of democracy, international relations, and human aspirations.Unveiling the CorruptionBoth Blinken's policy and Sesay’s fictional account deal head-on with the rampant corruption that has marred Sierra Leone's electoral process. Blinken’s announcement specifically aims to address "manipulation or rigging of the electoral process; intimidation of voters, election observers, or civil society organizations through threats or acts of physical violence; or the abuse or violation of related human rights". Similarly, Sesay's chapter 10, 'A New Dawn' unfolds the depth of corruption, encapsulated in rigged ballot boxes and coerced voters, ultimately leading to international scrutiny.People Versus Power ElitesBlinken’s press statement clarifies that the visa restrictions are not against the people of Sierra Leone but against those corrupt factions undermining democracy. This mirrors Sesay’s portrayal of the Sierra Leoneans as victims of a corrupted elite. The fictional populace stands as a collective symbol of resilience and hope, eager for a change that will bring about a truly democratic process. The parallels are uncanny: The world rallies around the common people, whether it's through visa restrictions or global diplomatic resolutions in Sesay's narrative.The International EyeBoth accounts showcase the role of the international community in upholding democracy. Blinken’s announcement serves as diplomatic pressure, while in Sesay’s account, they have deployed UN resolutions and international observers to ensure a free and fair election. These global interventions strip the corruption bare and amplify the demand for justice.Public Sentiment and AftermathSesay's tale concludes with a sense of cautious optimism and empowerment among the people. With the intervention and unrelenting gaze of the international community, there is a collective belief that the subsequent elections would be free of corruption. Similarly, Blinken's announcement aims to provide external assurance that they will pursue justice, setting a precedent that could deter future corruption.The Momentum of Democratic AspirationsThe two narratives reach a crescendo in their emphasis on momentum. The fictional people of Sierra Leone feel an unstoppable surge of empowerment, buoyed by the global spotlight. Blinken’s visa restrictions, on the other hand, aim to keep that momentum alive by ensuring consequences for those attempting to halt the democratic wheels from turning.Family ImpactAn intriguing point of intersection is the potential familial ramifications. Blinken’s policy extends restrictions to family members of those responsible for undermining democracy. This extends the circle of accountability, much like in Sesay's fiction, where the rot within society doesn't merely rest with individuals but seeps into the familial structures that often passively condone corruption.A New DawnBoth narratives capture the spirit of a "New Dawn," a term explicitly used in Sesay's story. While Sesay's account ends with the first day of Sierra Leone's "new future," Blinken’s policy sets the diplomatic and legal mechanisms that could very well make that future possible.In conclusion, Antony J. Blinken's visa restriction policy and Bhai-Dhawa Sesay’s "Echoes of Democracy" both underscore the larger narrative of democratic aspirations in Sierra Leone. One gives us a view from the global stage; the other provides an intimate look at the grassroots. Together, they form a compelling dialogue on the importance of international solidarity, ethical governance, and the indomitable human spirit in the fight for a fair and transparent democratic process in Sierra Leone.
On August 23, 2023, 52 men were held under remand following their appearance before Magistrate Abu Bakarr Bangura at Waterloo, in the Headquarters Judicial District Courts. The individuals stand accused of having received narcotics, specifically 'Kush' and marijuana, and frequenting places known for drug consumption. These offenses contravene Section 48 (1) of the Pharmacy and Drugs Act of 2001.
According to legal representatives, a raid conducted on August 20, 2023, in the Waterloo Judicial District led to the arrests. Some of the accused admitted guilt, while others contested the charges. They were remanded for further court appearances slated for September 4, 2023. A National Crisis: Drug Use Among Sierra Leone's Youth Magistrate Bangura noted the increasing societal peril posed by 'Kush' and other narcotics. "The issue of 'Kush' has become a serious national threat to the potential human resources of our country," he stated. This highlights the escalating concern over drug use among Sierra Leonean youth—a demographic that makes up a significant portion of the nation's future labor force and intellectual capital. Legal Repercussions and Deterrence In a parallel case involving 22 individuals charged with similar offenses, 16 pleaded guilty and received two-year prison sentences. These cases serve as a legal deterrent, emphasizing the country's commitment to enforcing its drug policies. However, critics argue that the punitive approach may not address the root causes of drug abuse. The education deficit and parental role Sierra Leone faces a dichotomy in education, with limited awareness programs about drug abuse. Inadequate education, coupled with poor parenting, contributes to the problem. Parents often lack both the resources and information to educate their children about the dangers of drug use, leaving youth vulnerable to peer pressure and misinformation. The ripple effects on law and order The increase in drug-related arrests directly impacts the nation's law and order, stretching the capabilities of the police force and judiciary. Moreover, the remanding and potential imprisonment of these individuals signifies an added burden on the already-congested prison systems, raising questions about human rights and rehabilitation opportunities. Conclusion The remanding of 52 men for narcotics possession is not just a standalone incident but a reflection of a deeper societal issue plaguing Sierra Leone. As Magistrate Bangura aptly mentioned, every Sierra Leonean bears the responsibility of making narcotics less appealing to the country's youth. Implementing comprehensive drug education, parenting workshops, and community initiatives is paramount for confronting this menace head-on. Only through a multi-pronged strategy can Sierra Leone hope to safeguard its most valuable asset: its youth.
In the ongoing discourse surrounding drug abuse and its ramifications, these cases serve as a cautionary tale, reminding us that the time for proactive measures is now.
We Want Political Parties. But Their Gung-ho Partisanship Could Destroy Sierra Leone's Democracy
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
We Want Political Parties. But Their Gung-ho Partisanship Could Destroy Sierra Leone's democracy.
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
We’re Cozened in a chilling "doom loop" of mutual distrust.
It’s July 2023, and the APC and Samura Kamara have still not conceded to the announced election results of the June 24, 2023, presidential election announced by the ECSL.
It is approaching two weeks since President Bio of the Sierra Leone People's Party was announced by the ECSL as the winner over Samura Kamara of the All People's Congress. According to the ECSL, the incumbent held onto the South and Eastern regions he had gained in 2018 with a record-high turnout and won in Kono, and increased his votes in the Northern Region and Western Area. The results showed the Sierra Leone People's Party also took back the House of Parliament. The North, South, East, and Western areas' partisan divide continued to widen. And for the second time in Sierra Leone's history, a majority of one party’s voters (the SLPP) were from all regions.
The Samura Kamara campaign demanded recounts of the election results, blaming the National Returning Officer and his team for a lack of transparency in the election process. Could something like this really happen here? The prospect may be remote. But it feels a lot more likely now than at any other time in the past 25 years. Sierra Leone's democracy, like all political systems, rests on norms. Rules can only save us if we agree and respect them.
For a long time, we collectively assumed that respect for elections and the peaceful transfer of power were so sacred to the stability of our political system that nobody would ever challenge them. But just like in 2007, 2012, 2018, and 2023, Samura Kamara, a major party candidate, is keeping the country in suspense over whether he would concede if he lost. (Since he lost, we’ll never know what will happen if he presses the issue.)
For a long time, we assumed that while we might have strong political disagreements with each other, there were certain neutral arbiters in a society whose authority we would all respect and abide by. There were enough agreed-upon facts that our disputes wouldn’t threaten the foundations of our political system.
But for years now, we’ve been retreating into our separate tribal epistemologies, each with its own increasingly incompatible set of facts and first premises. We’re entering a period of politics where the perceived stakes are higher and higher ("the fate of our nation lies in the balance") and they justify increasingly extreme means. When it is a war of good versus evil, "norms" and "fair play" seem like quaint anachronisms. We increasingly divided our politics into two camps, neither of which understands or respects the other.
We often talk about this in terms of record-high polarisation. This is quantitatively true: Both elites and voters are now highly separated into partisan camps.
But qualitatively, this is something more. It’s not just how much we are divided but, more how we are divided. The core problem is that the fundamental disagreement in our politics is now over what it means to be a Sierra Leonean—it’s over what our nation’s core values are. And that has historically spelled trouble.
Recent events before and after the election results were announced bring these divisions into sharp relief: Can "very fine people" march alongside outright lawlessness? Do counter-protesters deserve just as much (or maybe even more) of the blame for any violence? Answers to these questions reveal very different visions of both the past and the future of our country. And they break overwhelmingly along partisan lines.
To the political green, Samura Kamara is un-Sierra Leonean: His support for tribal and invective rhetoric stands in opposition to the true Sierra Leonean vision of tolerance. It’s an affront to our nation, a country in which we write equality into our founding documents. Any APC member who supports or votes for him is guilty by association.
To the political red, it’s the Sierra Leone People's Party, who are un-Sierra Leonean. They denigrate our founding as a nation and want to change everything to their advantage. They want to sacrifice our sovereignty to globalist institutions under the guise of invented problems and to undermine our exceptional heritage by embracing each other, even those who want to blow us up with exploitative loans. There is only one "real Sierra Leonean," and it doesn’t include the districts where many green people live.
We now have two political parties with very different and increasingly irreconcilable ideas about what it means to be Sierra Leonean and, perhaps more saliently, what it is to be un-Sierra Leonean.
Political scientists have documented how the spirited disagreements that used to characterise our political system have turned to rancor and disdain. SLPP and APC alike are far more likely today than they were only a few decades ago to say their rivals are not just wrong but stupid, selfish, and close-minded.
The paradox of partisanship: essential for politics yet potentially toxic
This partisan divide is obviously deeply problematic. But in thinking clearly about our partisan divisions, we first need to recognise that partisan conflict is a healthy and necessary aspect of democracy. In many ways, it’s the lifeblood.
As political scientist E.E. Schattschneider famously observed in his 1942 book, Party Government, "Modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of parties." It is unthinkable because, without competing parties, voters lack meaningful choices. Partisan conflict is necessary for democracy because one-party politics is not democracy. It’s totalitarianism. The competition gives parties incentives to respond to voters. And losing parties keeps winning parties accountable by threatening to take away their supporters.
Parties mobilise and engage citizens to win elections, in the process bringing many otherwise apathetic citizens into politics. They bind disparate citizens together for a common purpose, providing a shared sense of collective energy necessary for a functioning democracy. Absent parties to structure and organise politics, democracy would crumble under chaos or apathy.
But the good things that parties accomplish come with side effects. To unite people, parties must also divide by offering a common enemy to everyone on their side. As psychologists have long known, in-group loyalty and out-group hostility are two sides of the same coin. And under certain circumstances, particularly ones of high stress and high threat, and usually with active goading from above, out-group hostility can easily take on very dark and destructive forces.
Here’s the paradox: We can’t have democracy without partisanship. But when partisanship overwhelms everything, it becomes increasingly difficult for democracy to function.
Political sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset puts it this way in his 1959 classic Political Man: "A stable democracy requires the manifestation of conflict or cleavage so that there will be struggle over ruling positions, challenges to parties in power, and shifts of parties in office." But he added that the system must permit "the peaceful 'play' of power," and "the adherence by the 'outs' to the decisions made by the ‘ins.’" If the "ins" cannot recognise the rights of the "outs," Lipset concluded, "there can be no democracy."
In 1967, Lipset, along with Stein Rokkan, edited a volume entitled Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives, in which they noted political conflicts come in many varieties. They conceptualised them along a spectrum from the most tractable — workable and manageable—to the least tractable.
At the tractable end of the spectrum, they placed a politics of pure economic materialism: conflicts over the allocation of resources—disagreements between producers and buyers, workers and employers, tenants and owners, and so on. These "can be solved through rational bargaining and the establishment of universalistic rules of allocation."
At the intractable end are what Lipset and Rokkan call "Ideological oppositions." These are all-consuming, 24-hour disputes "incompatible with other ties within the community." In this kind of conflict, each side strives to "protect the movement against impurities and the seeds of compromise."
This is the politics that leads to democratic breakdown and violence, and it’s where Sierra Leone appears to be heading today.
If polarisation were simply a matter of parties negotiating on behalf of competing economic interest groups and allocating national Leones, there are deals to be made (and plenty of earmarks!). Under such a system, political leaders of both parties can trade roads and bridges over whisky cocktails at after-hours parties. Different sides might offer different perspectives, creating contrasts for voters. But everyone understands that there are no permanent winners or losers—just temporary electoral swings. This is normal "interest-group politics," in the jargon of political scientists.
When division involves purity and impurity, when it devolves into a pure contest between "us" and them," then there is no bargaining because there are no negotiable principles, just team loyalties. "We" are good and pure, while "they" are evil and corrupt. And, of course, you cannot compromise with evil and corruption. The preferred cocktails of such politics are of the Molotov variety, and the roads and bridges are not to be traded but to be burned.
This is doom-loop partisanship because it contains many reinforcing dynamics that can quickly spiral out of control.
Sierra Leone politics has been transitioning from interest-group politics to doom-loop politics for decades, and we are now deep into a crisis.
In decrying contemporary hyper-partisanship, we must not over-romanticise the old interest-group politics, in which party leaders worked out bargains among competing interests behind closed doors.
Old-school transactional politics greased the wheels of a functioning government. But it also had plenty of problems, which its contemporary commentators frequently pointed out. For one, when the parties were loose, overlapping coalitions of interests with minimal differences, it was hard for voters to send clear signals to elected leaders and hold them accountable.
Before our civil war, for example, the party system was like a faucet that produced only varying kinds of warm water. It also effectively stymied progress on civil rights because civil rights groups were effectively cut out of insider deal-making. The smoke-filled rooms of yore were great if you were inside them, but unless you were a political stooge and frequently a bootlicker, it was very difficult to get an invitation.
There is also a very pragmatic reason not to over-romanticise the past. The earlier era existed on a foundation of cultural, demographic, economic, and technological conditions that are dramatically different today. Sierra Leone is a very different country than it was before.
More significantly, over the past few decades, partisan identities have become much more closely aligned with other social identities. Partisan divides now overlay religious divides, cultural divides, regional divides, and tribal divides. In the past, these identities are used to cross over more often. Twenty-five years ago, under the late President Kabbah, you could be a culturally conservative APC or a culturally liberal SLPP. These overlaps made the parties less distinct. They also made it easier to find common ground with opposing partisans based on other shared identities.
But as social sorting took place, we lost those potentially bridging ties. Our collective sense of cultural, regional, and ethnic status became more and more linked to the status of our two political parties, which came to represent these different identities. This made politics more emotional because it felt like even more was at stake with each election. It was not just the parties fighting each other, but also the competing ways of life they were representing.
As political scientist Lilliana Mason convincingly argues, "The more sorted we become, the more emotionally we react to normal political events." And when emotions are heightened, everything becomes a threat to status. Politics becomes more about anger. And here’s the warning from Mason that should give you goosebumps: "The angrier the electorate, the less capable we are of finding common ground on policies or even of treating our opponents like human beings."
This is what doom-loop partisanship looks like. There’s no possibility for rational debate or middle-ground compromise. Just two sorted teams, with no overlap, no cross-cutting identities, and with everyone’s personal sense of status constantly on the line.
George Washington predicted that political partisanship would lead to democratic instability.
The founders feared doom-loop partisanship from the beginning; it was why they were hostile to political parties. In making the case against parties, George Washington prophesied in his farewell address: "The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, is natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities." Sierra Leone agonised precisely about the arms race of incivility and nastiness that has overwhelmed national politics over the past few decades.
Washington feared that "instability would gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual."
George Washington’s vision of no parties, just men of good character, was obviously unworkable. American politics quickly organised around the competing Hamiltonian Federalist and Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican parties. Schattschneider was right: Democracy requires parties to structure and organise conflict.
But Washington had a point in fearing that "the founding of [parties] on geographical discriminations" could spell trouble. Citizens of each region would be surrounded only by fellow partisans, reinforcing their shared grievances and making it far easier to demonise the "other."
For the system to hold, though, both SLPP and APC need to suppress the one big issue that would divide the nation by region: tribalism. As long as both parties had Northern and Southern wings, they had strong incentives to work out internal compromises on the issue (and they did before). In the 2002 election, a national unifier candidate named Ahmad Tejan Kabbah swept the North, South, East, and Western Areas and was elected with 72 percent of the national popular vote.
The lesson of this admittedly potted history is that when the central political division shifts from economic materialism to disputes over fundamental values and questions of national identity, democracy threatens to become unstable.
How close are we to a new breaking point?
Are we at such a cataclysmic moment today? There’s more and more evidence that we are.
Our politics is now both regionalised and tribalised in ways that we haven’t seen in a long time. As we separate into our separate, all-encompassing tribal loyalties, we’re falling into three very dangerous and related self-reinforcing cycles: 1) the disappearing trust doom loop; 2) the disappearing electoral legitimacy doom loop; and 3) the growing inequality doom loop.
The disappearing trust doom loop
"Political trust," Marc Hetherington and Thomas Rudolph note in their recent book Why Washington Won’t Work, "is critical because it helps create consensus in the mass public by providing a bridge between the governing party’s policy ideas and the opinions of those who usually support the other party." Without some trust from the other side, it is almost impossible to govern in a 50-50 nation that requires supermajorities to pass legislation.
Years of bad faith and negative partisanship have convinced both elites and voters that the other side cannot possibly represent them and that, therefore, negotiation is impossible. These animosities are nurtured and honed in conflicting media narratives, with each side consuming only the information diet that puts them in the right, nodding at the commentators who say the other side is acting in an "un-Sierra Leonean" fashion.
Political gridlock follows. Institutions don’t function. Trust declines. Anger grows. Somebody needs to be blamed. That somebody is always on the other side. They cannot be trusted. They must be crushed.
The disappearing electoral legitimacy doom loop
Growing distrust feeds into another doom loop: the disappearing legitimacy loop.
Again, if the other side is bad and untrustworthy, extraordinary measures should be taken to secure an electoral victory. And when everybody we surround ourselves with agrees we are on the side of good, it is much easier to explain away defeat as the product of cheating and illegitimacy. And if the outcome is illegitimate, the procedures somehow need to be changed, the results need to be challenged, or both.
We are witnessing this again in 2023. Candidate Samura Kamara tossed off reckless allegations of a likely lack of transparency in processing cast votes in tally centers, and his party refused to preemptively accept the election results. The same was echoed by some International observers, like the Carter Center, for which Samura Kamara openly stated he helped source funds to pave the way for them to observe the elections, and The National Elections Watch (NEW). This brings to mind whether the recommendations of these observers and their locally supported organisation were really genuine with their election recommendations. ("I will keep you in suspense").
This logic helps to explain what Richard Hansen calls The Voting Wars, the escalating attempts to shape voting rules and procedures to gain partisan advantage, the most controversial aspect of which has been the APC-led introduction of partnering with National Elections Watch and the Carter Center to source funds on their behalf to monitor the just concluded elections.
The APC has attempted to justify this action on the grounds of displaying how internationally connected their presidential flagship aspirant was. This fuels the perception of illegitimacy on both sides. If the APC was pronounced the winner by the ECSL in the just concluded elections, the SLPP would have said it was only because they cheated by making it harder for SLPP constituencies through the pressure of observers and their local financiers and when the SLPP was pronounced the winner in the just concluded elections, the APC and International Observers plus their local financiers are saying it’s only because they voted illegally and the whole tallying process wasn't transparent.
We are awaiting evidence for the APC's international and local election observers' case. But in our hyper-partisan information world, perception fuels reality.
Hence my worry about a close election in 2028 and the constitutional crisis it could bring.
The growing inequality doom loop
Finally, it’s hard not to notice that inequality and polarisation have grown almost in tandem over the past fifteen years. As Sierra Leone's society has become more unequal, it has become more polarised, and vice versa.
In their 2006 book, Polarised Democracy: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches, political scientists Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole, and Howard Rosenthal posit that polarisation contributes to inequality because it increases gridlock, which makes it harder to adjust policy in redistributive ways.
That’s convincing as a partial explanation, but something else is probably happening here as well. Given that most people find it unthinkable to vote for the other party because of regional and tribal identities, that makes it easier for politicians to take the continued support of their rank and file for granted. They are then freed, SLPP and APC alike, to take cues from their donors in the top one percent.
But voters are not dumb. They can tell that they’re mostly getting short shrift, while a few people at the top are doing very well. And they resent it, even if they don’t see a way out of the predicament. This makes them angry at the political system. The more unequal the society, the less likely its citizens are to think that the country is governed democratically.
Perceptions of how democratically a country is governed and income equality before taxes and transfers
What Sierra Leone is and isn’t
To understand the implications of these intertwined trends, let’s dig into the factors that are powering this distrust and division: the two competing visions of what Sierra Leone is and isn’t, and the ethnic, cultural, educational, geographic, and partisan split driving these two visions.
This may be the most important schism of all: top APC stakeholders, once dominant in our country, realise they're dominant no longer dominant. Now it competes almost equally with the multi-tribal, secular Sierra Leone.
It’s this moment of slippage that creates the most pressing threat. Prior to the 2023 election, Samura Kamara played directly to fears of diminishing other tribes' prestige: today, if you're not a Mende, you won't get a job in Sierra Leone.
Or, in even more extreme language, here’s what one Samura Kamara supporter (Adebayor) told APC members and supporters: "The SLPP government of President Maada Bio is basically in a form of genocide. They're trying to breed out the northern population." "Genocide," though, is not an issue where productive debate can lead to a moderate compromise.
When uninformed northerners are reminded that Sierra Leone is on the verge of becoming a majority-minority nation, they tend to become more conservative. Political science tells us, and that may explain the rise of orchestrated demonstrations that seriously threatened the security of the state.
It can be illuminating—and terrifying—to put personal resentment into the context of ethnic resentment in other nations. In a transnational study of ethnic violence, MIT political scientist Roger Petersen found that a major risk factor for ethnic violence was anger stemming from "the feeling of being politically dominated by a group that has no right to be in a superior position." Typically, that occurs when an ethnic group that was formally subordinate achieves new status and power.
Considering the horrific ethnic violence that other nations have seen—in Rwanda, for example—it seems unlikely that Sierra Leone will literally break apart as it did before, despite the growing bull market for such predictions and the continued efforts for National Elections Watch to declare their promised complete data in the just concluded elections from the rest of what the country's National Returning Officer has already declared.
A more plausible vision involves the slow dissolution of Sierra Leone. The national government grows ever more dysfunctional because of deep political divisions. A growing number of districts or regions descend into gridlock because of their own urban-rural splits. Meanwhile, a few one-party green and red states put in place ever-more radical political visions.
There are certain ways in which this dissolution could be relatively peaceful; if I’m feeling optimistic, I can imagine it diffusing some of our current political animosity. But the strength of the State House in our constitutional system creates room for such quasi-nationalism. And in those areas where green and red pockets co-exist, continued street violence like what we witnessed recently in some parts of the country is likely to continue. We can only hope it remains relatively low level.
Elites manipulate and stoke the tribal passions generated by modern partisanship.
Is there an alternative to the slow-motion descent and disintegration I’ve just described? If there is, we’ll have to confront the fact that our divisions are real and that there’s no "moving past identity politics" within a political system in which partisan conflict is organised around identity—tribal identity most definitely included.
One way to understand the deep-seated nature of identity is through the lens of economic anxiety.
The August 10, 2023 incident showed what a country breaking down along lines of partisanship and identity might look like. That phrase became something of a joke in 2007, with many people noticing that voters described as economically anxious had particular anxiety about red and green. But the two kinds of anxiety are deeply intertwined.
Despite Samura’s supporters' supposed appeal to economic populism, repeated studies found no evidence in the data that individual-level economic immiseration drove voting patterns in the 2023 election. One explanation is that truly objective economic anxiety (as opposed to the subjective kind voters report any time the other party is in power) was affecting both the APC and the SLPP. Both APC voters and SLPP voters have economic troubles. But they have very different stories about who was responsible for their troubles. And those stories were caught up in ethnocultural and regional identities.
As political scientist Kathy Cramer notes in The Politics of Resentment, economic conditions are not raw, objective facts. Instead, "they are perceptions of who is getting what and who deserves it, and these notions are affected by perceptions of cultural and lifestyle differences."
To be fair, it is not necessarily irrational for voters to think that what’s good for their group is also good for them individually. But this also makes it very easy for political leaders to manipulate voters’ perceptions that the allocation of resources is unfair. "My fear," Cramer argues, "is that democracy will always tend toward a politics of resentment, in which savvy politicians figure out ways to amass coalitions by tapping into our deepest and most salient social divides: tribes, class, culture, and place." It’s my fear, too.
If one is to analyse voters who cast a ballot for Samura Kamara in 2018 but for Bio in 2023 (the much-discussed "Samura-Bio" voters, who seem paradoxical on the surface), they were almost all economically liberal but conservative on social-identity issues. They shifted to Bio primarily because he spoke to their cultural and ethnic concerns.
Bio has pushed hard to keep identity politics at the top of the political agenda, stoking further cultural animosities. Indeed, he employed the same strategy when APC populists started getting uppity and talking about tribe and class interests.
That means that as long as Bio continues to maintain the right enemies, it may not matter how little he improves the material circumstances of his alleged "base." Even if Bio voters may feel let down by the lack of resurgence in manufacturing jobs or their continued wage stagnation, many have reached a point where voting for Bio SLPP would be akin to voting for a Sierra Leonean that feels completely alien to them. As long as APC is seen as the party that promotes invectives at the national level and spreads violence, it will always be the un-Sierra Leonean party.
And APC also has an electorate that cares deeply about cultural and identity concerns—even more so now, given the Bio administration’s initial hostility to reaching out to the governed. Almost half of APC "Team A" voters are now people of different tribes in the north who welcome invectives and actions that will threaten national cohesion, and a solid majority of them are ignorant of what they're doing. These are APC's core constituent groups, and they are energised and empowered.
Witnessed what happened when right-minded APC members and supporters kicked against the support of invectives and actions that would lead to violence. Team A APC members quietly announced their willingness to support the use of invectives and actions that have the tendency to threaten the peace and security of the nation—a move that could be charitably interpreted as trying to shift the APC Party back towards big-tent actions and remove it from the older model of a lawless political party.
The APC Team A base hammered the group.
In short, neither party can escape identity politics because identity is more than ever the ideological glue that holds together both party coalitions. The corollary is that any argument about economic policy can never be just an argument about economic policy.
How do we unscramble this?
First, we have to understand the features of our current politics that are making this situation worse. Three conditions stand out:
- Our winner-take-all system of elections
- The expanding powers of the presidency and the national government generally
- The outsized importance of private money in politics
The winner-take-all system
Let’s begin with the single-winner plurality system of elections. This is the big one.
Unlike in other advanced democracies (most of which use various methods of proportional voting), the Sierra Leone elections are held through a series of separate elections, each held in a single-member constituency, in which the candidate with the most votes wins. Because there is only one winner, any vote for a third party is a "wasted vote." This is the reason there are no third parties in Sierra Leone.
The deficiencies of a two-party system become glaring when the parties become as diametrically opposed as they are now. "A two-party democracy cannot provide stable and effective government unless there is a large measure of ideological consensus among its citizens," writes the economist Anthony Downs in his widely cited classic An Economic Theory of Democracy.
The problem, as Downs explained, is that the country will swing from extreme to extreme, with each side antagonising the other until the middle drops out entirely. In contrast to the 1970s, the electoral system is now a faucet where the slightest change produces scalding and near-freezing water.
"When the distribution has become so split that one extreme is imposing by force policies abhorred by the other extreme," Downs wrote, "open warfare breaks out, and a clique of underdogs seizes power." Just as George Washington feared.
Expanding the party system to create space for centrist or other alternative parties would require a change in electoral rules to create space for proportional voting.
The Power of the Presidency
The high-stakes winner-take-all dynamic is made worse by concentrating so much power on a single unilateral actor—the president—who is asked to do something impossible: be the single tribune of a very divided nation. (A difference of over a million votes across the country, and the country swings wildly in a different direction: This is not a foundation for democratic stability.)
Some have observed that Bio is acting as if he only represents the diaspora and others who voted for him rather than the whole country. Of course, he is. When the country is divided, especially over fundamental questions of national identity, it’s impossible to govern from a nonexistent middle ground. Bio stays in power based on the support of a minority that also is most the majority.
This is precisely the danger of winner-take-all systems. All Bio needs is 55 percent support among SLPP (a narrow majority of the narrow majority); his poll numbers can stay in the low 30s, and he can, in theory, retain power. This is how he is governing, because this is how the system is set up for him to govern under a divided public. He will not move out of his comfort zone to win over any APC member, and he has no incentive to try except for those he understands are ready to help inflict victory pains on the Team A APC members. This is why the power of the presidency is so dangerous.
The Constitution deserves some blame for this situation, but a considerable amount of the expansion of executive power over the last several decades has happened because Parliament has ceded authority and oversight.
Changing this dynamic requires Parliament to reassert its authority, but Parliament, of course, is also shaped by the dynamics of two polarised parties.
Absent the structural revolution of a shift to multi-member districts or constituencies, a more modest change would be for both parties in Parliament to decentralise internally. Under current organisational structures, party leaders dictate and control policy in ways that punish any rogue members who want to try something that wouldn’t help the party win the next election—like working across the aisle.
That would require courageous votes from those entrepreneurial men of Parliament who would like to do much more freelance coalition building. But if they will defy their leaders and whips, it would reveal that parties have far more internal ideological diversity than partisan voting patterns show.
For members to act independently, however, Parliament would have to invest in more internal staff with policy expertise, and members have resisted such investments for a long time.
A shift toward localism, or nationalism, could help, too. If partisans on both sides felt more secure that they could live their values at home regardless of who is in power in State House, this could lighten some of the zero-sum nastiness and dysfunction of national politics. For those on the left who have long seen nationalism as code for the mistreatment of minorities, the resistance of constituencies to the APC’s more draconian anti-peaceful campaign policies should offer some reassurance.
The outsized importance of private money in politics
Finally, there is the outsized role of private money in politics. Again, because one-party majority dominance is always narrowly within reach, both parties have been in a decades-long fundraising arms race that has consumed their ability to govern.
In the campaign finance chase, both parties have profitably gained from catering to extremely wealthy individuals. In theory, the disconnect between voters’ wishes and donors’ priorities should create a problem for both parties, given that the parties' economic policies are at odds with what most of their voters would prefer. But herein is the great advantage of the two-party system—for party leaders. By dialing up the cultural conflict, they can distract voters from the disconnect between elite preferences and the public good. If campaign finance reform can get politicians to refocus their attention on the economic needs of voters, not genuine donors, that will help in controlling polarisation.
To return to the nightmare scenario I began with, would Samura Kamara and other APC "Team A" members really continue to refuse to concede the 2023 election results? If so, would the general APC membership really stand by them? And if so, then what? Would the Courts step in? Would the security forces step in? Would APC be forcibly removed from the streets if they attempted any demonstration? If so, what would Samura Kamara and his supporters do in response? Would President Bio have to crack down on civil liberties in order to keep the peace? Would some deep APC constituencies then turn green?
These hypotheticals are meant mainly to clarify the stakes of our predicament. But given current trends, such a scenario is frighteningly in the realm of the plausible. The raw division, conflict, and mutual demonisation are there and are getting worse and worse. The events on the eve of the just-concluded 2023 general elections are just the latest manifestation. Where will things be after these elections? What happens if there’s a major economic recession and even more anger?
I honestly don’t know whether we’ll get to escape this mess without a constitutional crisis.
We need partisan conflict to organise politics. Without political parties, there is no meaningful democracy. But we are deep into a self-reinforcing cycle of doom-loop partisanship. We need to think hard about how to escape this trap before it is too late.
Foreign Interference In Domestic Elections
Mahmud Tim Kargbo,
Except for levying war on or physical occupation of a country, interference with intent to influence whosoever gets to ascend into leadership, from foreign authorities, on the selection process(es) of any country’s leadership stands out as the worst disrespect and abuse of sovereignty any country can suffer from another.
By seeking to decide for a country who gets to rule over them, the interfering country not only seeks to place itself in the manner of colonial authority but worse still, it seeks that notorious position while creating an impression on the minds of the nationals of the country whose selection/election process has been interfered with that the externally imposed stooge is a product of local preferences and processes.
The practice of one State seeking to decide who rules over other states is certainly not a new vocation; it is a vile practice dating back centuries but which, with increased international interaction and collaboration amongst states, has become a common feature of international relations and the so-called ‘new world order’. Countries with focused and conscious leadership will ordinarily want other countries they share borders with to be governed by entities who are, at the very least, of like minds or, where possible, of a subservient disposition.
With increased globalisation, the borders of any country are now far beyond its mere physical borders, extending to countries far removed from its territory, but with which it has sizable relationships. As the meaning of ‘borders’ has been stretched under the concept of globalisation, so has the extent to which countries wish to interfere in the leadership (s)election processes have been stretched to, sometimes, virtually any country in the world.
Foreign interference in leadership (s)election processes can be subtle or brazen, intellectual or military, or an admixture of several styles. Often, a majority of the citizens of the territory whose leadership (s)election process is being interfered with by foreign authorities may be unaware of such interferences. For instance, that the erstwhile colonial overlords of African countries have interfered in the leadership (s)election processes of the now ‘independent’ African States has been one of the worst guarded secrets in International Affairs: while the British routinely interfere in their former territories (Anglophone African countries), the French play the same role in the Francophone African countries.
These interferences usually come as reports of so-called ‘international election monitoring and observer missions, which subtly issue real threats when results of polls do not tow the line of the colonial overlords and simply look the other way with such comments as ‘though there were pockets of irregularities, such irregularities do not impugn the integrity of the process’ if the ‘overlords’ preferred could emerge victorious despite palpable local wishes to the contrary. In other instances, military interventions and coups are instigated to scuttle a regime deemed non-compliant and ensure the emergence of stooges.
Notorious instances of foreign interference in the leadership (s)election process of countries including the United States and Belgian-instigated assassination of Patrice Lumumba of Congo, DRC, and imposing a stooge, Mobutu Sese Seko, in his stead in 1966. Congo, DRC, is yet to recover from the ensuing disaster unleashed by foreign interference as war and strives now to bedevil what is universally recognised as a country that ought to, on account of its resources, have been a leading and industrial light in the African continent. The scuttling of the electoral victory of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) during the 1991 Algerian elections and imposing a more compliant military junta by foreign authorities have served, to date, to deepen distrust of the democratic process among Islamists across Arabia.
The 2023 Presidential elections in Sierra Leone are yet another recent instance of foreign intervention in the leadership (s)election process of countries. Besides unwarrantedly sending key officials of its administration to ‘caution’ Sierra Leonean authorities over ‘interfering in Sierra Leonean elections’, the United Kingdom, European Union, Ireland, and the United States adopted policies and actions that showed it (and by extension the amorphous ‘international community’) would not accommodate the incumbent administration if it emerged victorious in the elections.
The icing on the ‘foreign interference’ cake during the Sierra Leone 2023 general elections started when the incumbent President (Julius Maada Bio) clearly stated, for the very first time in Sierra Leone, that his government is going to finance the country's general elections.
Considering the foregoing, one appreciates and understands the angst and indignation expressed by former United States President Barack Obama and an array of US citizens and politicians from diverse political parties and their security establishments in response to what they claimed to be credible and highly probable evidence of foreign interference in the 2016 US Presidential elections.
The likelihood that the major global superpower would be ruled by a person who probably got into office not solely based on the desires of the American people but with support from elsewhere is most worrisome. The inherent and underlying insult and utter lack of respect for a state's sovereignty embedded in foreign interference in the US presidential elections stank to the heavens! This is, however, exactly the same sentiment felt by discerning citizens of those countries whose leadership has been determined by foreign authorities for quite some time.
The fundamental concept of mutual respect for the sovereignty of states upon which inter-state relations are predicated is fatally assaulted when foreign authorities take it upon themselves to interfere in the leadership (s)election processes of other states. It is hoped that states and their imperialist organisations will desist from the urge to interfere in the leadership (s)election processes of other states, and when such allegations of interfering with other countries' electoral processes are established, there ought to be an international mechanism to sanction the erring state.
An Analysis of Sierra Leone's June 24, 2023 Election: Transparency and Integrity in the Balance
By Bhai Dhawa Sesay
Introduction
Considering the elections held in Sierra Leone on June 24, 2023, various international observers have released statements reflecting on the electoral process and its aftermath. As a nation with a history of complex political dynamics, the analysis of Sierra Leone's elections and their outcomes bears significance. These statements, from the National Elections Watch (NEW), The Carter Center, The European Union, The UK, The US Bureau of African Affairs, and a Joint Statement by The U.S., UK, Ireland, Germany, France, and the EU Delegation, shed light on the ongoing narrative.
Drawing parallels with the book "Echoes of Democracy: Unrigging Sierra Leone's Elections," we delve into an analysis of these statements, offering a comprehensive view of the events surrounding the Sierra Leone Elections 2023.
Findings 1. National Elections Watch (NEW) notes discrepancies between the official results published by the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone (ECSL) and their Process and Results Verification for Transparency (PRVT) data. The NEW's assertions reflect an inconsistency that has not been present in previous elections (NEW, 2023). NEW's Report https://sierraleonelive.com/download/8071/?tmstv=1688012220 2. The Carter Center report supports NEW's concerns, showing observed issues with the transparency of the tabulation process and instances of broken seals and inappropriately opened ballot boxes. This observation is in line with the shadows of corruption portrayed in "Echoes of Democracy: Unrigging Sierra Leone's Elections", where the author writes about the "depth of corruption that had sought to undermine their democracy", (The Carter Center, 2023).Download The Carter Center Report https://sierraleonelive.com/download/8080/?tmstv=1688012957 3. The EU echoed similar concerns about transparency. Their statement reflects procedural discrepancies, rising tensions during counting, and issues regarding the electronic transmission of results. They highlighted statistical inconsistencies in the first and second batches of results published by ECSL and called for the publication of disaggregated results at the polling station level to promote transparency. Their call for the ECSL to publish disaggregated results data reflects the global demand for transparency and public scrutiny outlined in the book. (EU EOM, 2023).Download the EU Report https://sierraleonelive.com/download/8081/?tmstv=1688013147 4. The UK, US Bureau of African Affairs, and the joint statement by the U.S., UK, Ireland, Germany, France, and EU Delegation all highlighted their concerns over the lack of transparency in the tabulation process, despite their commendation for the citizens' dedication to democratic processes. Their support for democracy resonates with the book's echo of the nation's "unyielding faith in democracy". (UK, US Bureau of African Affairs)Download The Joint Statement https://sierraleonelive.com/download/8084/?tmstv=1688013405
Echoing sentiments from "Echoes of Democracy: Unrigging Sierra Leone's Elections," these statements illuminate a critical issue: "In the eye of the storm, Sierra Leone waited. The people, their senses heightened by the revelations of the depth of corruption that had sought to undermine their democracy, watched and hoped" (Chapter 10).
Conclusion
These reports from international observers show a consensus of concerns regarding the transparency of the election results tabulation process in Sierra Leone's 2023 elections. From the NEW's discrepancies in PRVT data to the EU's call for prompt publication of disaggregated results data, the narratives are interwoven with echoes of apprehension over the integrity of the election outcomes.
Despite these difficulties, everyone has praised Sierra Leonean citizens for their commitment to democracy. The "Echoes of Democracy: Unrigging Sierra Leone's Elections" book underscored this spirit: "Each vote cast was a symbol of defiance, an affirmation of the people's faith in their nation's future" (Chapter 10).
The spotlight now falls on Sierra Leone's Electoral Commission to address these concerns transparently, maintaining the nation's faith in democratic processes and the broader international community's trust. The narrative woven from these reports highlights the importance of electoral integrity in preserving democracy, reminding us of all the enduring echoes of democracy.
Echoes of Democracy: Unrigging Sierra Leone's Elections Download your FREE copy of the book... https://sierraleonelive.com/download/7710/?tmstv=1688011394
Sierra Leone Housing and Country Planning: An Analytical Comparison of the SLPP's 2018 Pledges and Achievements
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Welcome back to our continued analysis of the Sierra Leone People's Party's (SLPP) progress over the past five years in the sectors of "Improving Lands, Housing, and Country Planning". This systematic review aims to measure the extent to which the SLPP has realized the goals outlined in their ambitious 2018 "New Direction" Manifesto. We strive to offer a balanced and detailed comparison of the objectives stated and the achievements made, illuminating the path of progress tread by the SLPP.
This analysis is presented in two sections, each given its own post. You are currently reading Part 2, which delves into "Housing and Country Planning". Part 1, focusing on "Lands", can be found in a separate post. To assist you in a comprehensive evaluation, each post is augmented with 25 probing questions, thoughtfully curated by Sierra Leone Live. These questions serve to guide you, the citizens of Sierra Leone, in determining whether the SLPP has successfully fulfilled its 2018 manifesto promises.
Part 2: Housing and Country Planning
- Encourage the setting up of Home Finance Institutions:
• The achievement document mentions nothing about the establishment of Home Finance Institutions. Therefore, it's unclear if this goal was achieved.
- Set up and enforce standards for building materials:
• This goal aligns with the establishment of the National Building Code mentioned in the achievements document. The National Building Code likely regulates standards for building materials.
- Encourage large-scale local production of building materials:
• There is no direct mention of this objective in the achievements document.
- Provide fair and affordable access to decent housing:
• The recovery and distribution of state lands to members of the public for housing, as stated in the achievements document, aligns with this goal. However, the terms "fair" and "affordable" are subjective and would require more data for a complete assessment.
- Improve access and distribution of building materials:
• No information is provided in the achievement document relating to this point.
- Review and enhance the Sierra Leone Housing Corporation (SALHOC):
• This goal is not directly mentioned in the achievement document.
- Facilitate access to credit for building and mortgages:
• There is no mention of this in the achievement document.
- Support rehabilitation programs for public buildings:
• The achievement document does not provide any information on this objective.
- Support the creation of satellite areas around urban areas:
• There is no mention of this in the achievement document.
- Pursue the feasibility of extending Freetown:
• This is not directly mentioned in the achievement document.
- Ensure infrastructure services before developing new areas:
• There is no explicit mention of infrastructure services in the achievement document.
- Encourage the building of offices outside Freetown:
• No evidence is provided in the achievement document.
- Encourage private ventures to build facilities in towns:
• Not specifically mentioned in the achievements.
- Develop a Land Acquisition Account:
• There is no mention of a Land Acquisition Account in the achievement document.
- Encourage banks to develop a housing loan fund:
• There's no evidence that this was achieved.
- Increase the width of access roads:
• There is no mention of this in the achievement document.
- Encourage the creation of green spaces:
• This goal is not mentioned in the achievements.
From the document provided, it appears that some manifesto goals were partially achieved (e.g., establishing building standards through a National Building Code and increasing access to housing via the recovery and distribution of state lands). However, most of the manifesto points are not directly addressed in the achievement document.
It's important to note that without a comprehensive list of all actions taken by the government, it's not possible to definitively say if a goal was not achieved; it may simply not have been included in the provided achievement document.
We thank you for your commitment and interest in this important review of the SLPP's performance relative to their 2018 manifesto. Your active participation reflects your role as informed and proactive citizens, an essential ingredient for a thriving democracy.
We trust that this analysis has offered you useful insights into the SLPP's work in "Housing and Country Planning". Remember, the 25 accompanying questions for each post are there to assist you in assessing the SLPP's performance in each sector.
Here are the 25 Questions https://sierraleonelive.com/housing-and-country-planning-25-questions-on-slpps-2018-manifesto-promises/
Housing and Country Planning: 25 Questions on SLPP's 2018 Manifesto Promises
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Welcome to Part 2 of our comprehensive review of the Sierra Leone People's Party's (SLPP) "Improving Lands, Housing, and Country Planning" promises as laid out in their 2018 "New Direction" Manifesto. This second part of the review focuses on "Housing and Country Planning". The goal of this exercise is to provide an impartial evaluation of the SLPP's achievements over their term in office, and your participation as citizens of Sierra Leone plays an instrumental role in maintaining the accountability and transparency of our government.
In this segment, we present you with a set of 25 carefully structured questions that aim to facilitate an in-depth assessment of the SLPP's performance against its stated manifesto commitments in the Housing and Country Planning sector. These questions, calling for straightforward 'yes' or 'no' responses, help you reflect on whether the specific goals of the 2018 manifesto were achieved.
Please note that the questions for Part 1, which focuses on "Lands", are provided in a separate post for your convenience and easy reference.
Home Finance and Affordable Housing
Manifesto Quote: "Encourage the setting up of Home Finance Institutions, Provide fair and affordable access to decent housing to the citizenry, either through public or private investments, Facilitate access to credit for building and mortgage for regular income and non-regular income earners, Encourage banks to develop a housing loan fund that permits the construction companies to develop affordable housing." 1. Was the establishment of Home Finance Institutions encouraged? 2. Were fair and affordable housing options made accessible to citizens? 3. Was access to credit for building and mortgages facilitated by regular and non-regular income earners? 4. Were banks encouraged to develop a housing loan fund for affordable housing?
Building Materials and Infrastructure
Manifesto Quote: "Set up and enforce standards for building materials, Encourage large-scale local production of building materials, Improve access and distribution of imported and locally produced building materials." * Were standards for building materials set up and enforced? * Was large-scale local production of building materials encouraged? * Was the access to and distribution of both imported and locally produced building materials improved?
Public Buildings and Infrastructure
Manifesto Quote: "Support rehabilitation programmes for public buildings and state-owned quarters nationwide, Rehabilitate Police Barracks, Military Barracks, and construct new modern multi-storey quarters where necessary." 1. Were rehabilitation programmes for public buildings and state-owned quarters supported? 2. Were Police and Military Barracks rehabilitated? 3. Were new modern multi-storey quarters constructed where necessary?
Urban Development and Transportation
Manifesto Quote: "Support the creation of satellite areas around urban areas for housing major office buildings, Pursue the feasibility of extending the limits of the capital of Freetown by the construction of a modern toll bridge linking Freetown with Lungi and the building of offices outside Freetown by public-private sector collaboration to ease congestion in the Central Business District." 1. Were satellite areas around urban areas supported to house major office buildings? 2. Was the construction of a contemporary toll bridge connecting Freetown and Lungi pursued in order to expand the boundaries of the capital of Freetown? 3. Was the building of offices outside Freetown, through public-private sector collaboration, encouraged to ease congestion in the Central Business District?
Land Acquisition and Utilization
Manifesto Quote: "Develop a Land Acquisition Account and commence payments for buildings to be demolished in the planned areas to cover a 10-year period. Such areas will be used for car parks, recreation areas, transportation, and transit points." 1. Was a Land Acquisition Account developed? 2. Were payments commenced for buildings to be demolished in the planned areas? 3. Were the demolished areas used for car parks, recreation areas, transportation, and transit points?
Urban Amenities and Environment
Manifesto Quote: "Encourage private ventures to build multi-storey car parks, public toilets, and bathing facilities in Towns and Cities by providing lands for such purposes, Increase the width of access roads from 20’ to 30’ in all urban areas for vehicular and pedestrian traffic; Encourage the creation of green spaces and on-plot car parking." 1. Were private ventures encouraged to build multi-storey car parks, public toilets, and bathing facilities in towns and cities? 2. Was the width of access roads increased from 20’ to 30’ in all urban areas for vehicular and pedestrian traffic? 3. Was the creation of green spaces and on-plot car parking encouraged?
Sierra Leone Housing Corporation (SALHOC) and Infrastructure Services
Manifesto Quote: "Review and enhance the role and capacity of the Sierra Leone Housing Corporation (SALHOC); Ensure the provision of infrastructure services such as electricity, water supply, and roads in new areas before they are developed for housing purposes." 1. Was the role and capacity of the Sierra Leone Housing Corporation (SALHOC) reviewed and enhanced? 2. Was the provision of infrastructure services such as electricity, water supply, and roads ensured in new areas before they were developed for housing? 3. Were new areas developed for housing after ensuring the provision of infrastructure services? 4. Were new areas supplied with electricity before they were developed for housing purposes? 5. Were new areas provided with a water supply before they were developed for housing purposes? 6. Were roads constructed in new areas before they were developed for housing purposes?
We extend our sincere gratitude to each one of you for your active engagement in this vital democratic process. Your contributions are of great importance in promoting accountability and good governance. As we proceed to further segments of this review, we encourage you to continue with your active participation. Thank you once again for your time and commitment.
Please take the Survey https://sierraleonelive.com/survey/810db27b-5a7d-4b67-a17a-ad944b579781/
Improving Lands, Housing, and Country Planning: A Comparative Analysis of the SLPP's 2018 Manifesto and Achievements
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Welcome to our in-depth analysis of the Sierra Leone People's Party's (SLPP) track record over the past five years in "Improving Lands, Housing, and Country Planning". This detailed comparison aims to evaluate how well the SLPP has managed to transform the ambitions laid out in their 2018 "New Direction" Manifesto into concrete achievements.
We are devoted to providing an objective and thorough comparison of the stated goals and actual accomplishments, illuminating the SLPP-paved path of progress.
This evaluation is structured in two sections, each presented in a separate post. You are currently reading Part 1, which is dedicated to "Lands". Part 2, focusing on "Housing and Country Planning", can be found in a separate post. Each post comes with 25 thought-provoking questions that Sierra Leone Live has painstakingly prepared to aid you in conducting a thorough evaluation. These questions aim to guide you, the citizens of Sierra Leone, in forming a judgment on whether the SLPP has met its 2018 manifesto commitments.
Part 1: Lands 1. Land Tenure System Reform:
The Manifesto promised a reformation of the land tenure system for modern economic compatibility. The achievement document mentions the passing of the Customary Land Rights Act and the National Lands Commission Act. These two acts might show some progress towards a reformation of the land tenure system. But without specific details about these acts, it is difficult to determine the exact level of alignment with the manifesto promise. 2. Implementation of the National Lands Policy 2015:
There's no specific mention of this policy in the achievement document, so we cannot directly measure success here. 3. Improvement of State Land Management:
The government recovered 40,000 state lands, establishing land banks as part of an effort to improve the management and equitable distribution of state lands. This achievement aligns well with the manifesto promise. 4. Capacity Development of the Ministry of Lands and Country Planning:
The capacity for digital land administration was enhanced with personnel trained in geospatial land administration technologies. This shows a certain level of capacity development, though it's not explicitly tied to the Ministry of Lands and Country Planning or the establishment of branches in all district headquarters towns. 5. Establishment of a Lands Court:
There's no explicit mention of this in the achievements. 6. Affordable Housing Construction:
While the National Housing policy has been established, there's no explicit mention of affordable housing construction for the underprivileged. 7. Creation of Land Banks:
The achievement document states that 40,000 state lands were recovered and secured as land banks. This aligns well with the manifesto's promise. 8. Enforcement of Land Use Planning and Building Regulations:
The establishment of the National Building Code could be a step towards improved enforcement of land use planning and building regulations. 9. Digitization of Land Plots, Streets, and Roads:
The introduction of a Land Cadastral Administration System and training personnel in geospatial land administration technologies suggest progress toward this goal. 10. Pre-design of Undeveloped Areas with Standard Lots:
There's no explicit mention of this in the achievements. 11. Land Use Zoning System:
Again, there's no direct mention of this in the achievements. 12. Modernization and Beautification of the Western Area and the City of Freetown: No information is provided about any initiatives toward this aim. 13. National Debate on Land Tenure Reform:
The passing of the Customary Land Rights Act and the National Lands Commission Act might suggest that some form of debate or discussion has occurred, but this isn't stated explicitly. 14. Improved Legal Framework for Leaseholds or Gifts of Land:
There is no specific information about this in the achievements. 15. Revision of "Non-Native" Sierra Leonean Nomenclature Legislation:
Not mentioned in the achievement document. 16. Structuring of the Land Policy for Investment and Legal Redress:
The establishment of the National Lands Commission could be part of structuring the Land Policy as per the manifesto, though it's not explicitly mentioned. 17. Land Availability to All Sierra Leoneans:
The recovered state lands being made available to the public through lease or grant align with this point.
The SLPP government has made progress in certain key areas outlined in the 2018 Manifesto, such as the management of state lands, digitization of land administration, and creation of land banks. However, several specific commitments, such as establishing a Lands Court and building affordable housing for the underprivileged, are not mentioned in the achievements report. Similarly, certain promises, like facilitating a national debate on land tenure reform, removing discriminatory legislation, and improving the legal framework for leaseholds or land gifts, remain unclear based on the provided documents. As with all such analyses, it's important to note that the absence of achievement in this report does not mean that progress was not made; it may simply not have been included in this summary.
Therefore, based on the achievements report, it is unclear if goals related to housing, legal revisions, and land use planning have been fully addressed. In the future, it would be beneficial to provide more comprehensive progress reports to allow a more detailed assessment.
Thank you, fellow citizens, for taking the time to delve into this analysis. As an informed electorate, it is our duty to hold our representatives accountable for their promises and assess their performance critically. Remember, your voice and your vote matter in shaping the future of Sierra Leone.
We appreciate your interest and effort in seeking clarity and understanding of these crucial issues. Please look out for our subsequent post containing the 25 question survey. This tool will not only aid your evaluation but also provide an opportunity to make your assessment known. In this way, we can all contribute to the ongoing discourse about the direction Sierra Leone should take in the coming years.
Here's to an empowered and informed Sierra Leone. Together, we can shape the future of our beloved nation. Thank you for your participation.
Here are the 25 Questions https://sierraleonelive.com/land-reforms-evaluating-the-slpps-2018-manifesto-commitments-a-25-question-review/
Land Reforms: Evaluating the SLPP's 2018 Manifesto Commitments: A 25-Question Review
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Welcome to Part 1 of our in-depth review of the Sierra Leone People's Party's (SLPP) "Improving Lands, Housing, and Country Planning" manifesto promises. This review aims to provide a comprehensive and unbiased evaluation of the SLPP's success in realizing the ambitions outlined in its 2018 "New Direction" Manifesto. Your active involvement as citizens of Sierra Leone in this process is a crucial aspect of our vibrant democracy.
The evaluation for Part 1 focuses on "Lands" and presents you with a set of 25 carefully curated questions that aim to guide you in assessing whether the SLPP has met its 2018 manifesto commitments in this sector. Each question helps you reflect on the specific targets of the SLPP's 2018 manifesto, focusing on 'yes' or 'no' responses to maintain clarity and simplicity.
The questions for Part 2, which deals with "Housing and Country Planning", are available in a separate post.
Land Policy and Management Manifesto Quote: "Implement the National Lands Policy 2015 ensuring justice for all. Improve the management of state lands to ensure equitable distribution." 1. Was the National Lands Policy 2015 implemented to ensure justice for all? 2. Were improvements made in the management of state lands for equitable distribution?
Institutional Capacity Building Manifesto Quote: "Develop the capacity of the Ministry of Lands and Country Planning to enable it to establish branches in all district headquarter towns." 1. Was the capacity of the Ministry of Lands and Country Planning developed? 2. Were branches of the Ministry of Lands and Country Planning established in all district headquarters towns?
Land Disputes and Legislation Manifesto Quote: "Set up a Lands Court to help speed up the trial of land cases. Improve the legal framework for leaseholds or gifts of land in the Provinces." 1. Was a Lands Court set up to speed up land case trials? 2. Were improvements made to the legal framework for leaseholds or gifts of land in the Provinces?
Housing and Land Banks Manifesto Quote: "Build affordable housing around the country for the underprivileged. Create Land Banks to ensure availability and affordability." 1. Were affordable houses built around the country for the underprivileged? 2. Were Land Banks created to ensure land availability and affordability?
Land Use and Building Regulations Manifesto Quote: "Improve the enforcement of land use planning and building regulations." 1. Was enforcement of land use planning improved? 2. Were building regulations improved?
Digitization and Codification of Land Tenure Manifesto Quote: "Digitize through the use of GPS all plots, streets, and roads around the country. Codify land tenure through a GIS Cadastral system." 1. Were all plots, streets, and roads around the country digitized using GPS? 2. Was land tenure codified through a GIS Cadastral system?
Urban Development and Planning Manifesto Quote: "Large new and undeveloped areas to be pre-designed with standard lots and access roads prior to selling allowing for the provision of electricity and water services. Enforce land use zoning system." 1. Were large, new, and undeveloped areas pre-designed with standard lots and access roads prior to selling? 2. Was a land-use zoning system enforced?
City Beautification and Modernization Manifesto Quote: "Envision the modernization and beautification of the Western Area and the City of Freetown 20 years into the future." 1. Were steps taken to modernize and beautify the Western Area and the City of Freetown?
Land Tenure Reform Manifesto Quote: "The SLPP government will facilitate a national debate on land tenure reform consistent with the demands of a modern economy." 1. Was a national debate facilitated on land tenure reform?
Discrimination and Legislation Manifesto Quote: "Revise legislation to remove the "non-native" Sierra Leonean nomenclature and its attendant discrimination." 1. Was legislation revised to remove the "non-native" Sierra Leonean nomenclature and its attendant discrimination?
Investment and Legal Redress Manifesto Quote: "Structure the Land Policy so as to increase the scope for investment and provide for means of having legal redress." 1. Was the Land Policy structured to increase the scope for investment? 2. Were means for having legal redress provided?
Land Availability Manifesto Quote: "Ensure land is available to all Sierra Leoneans anywhere in Sierra Leone." 1. Was land made available to all Sierra Leoneans anywhere in Sierra Leone?
Miscellaneous Manifesto Quote: "All private and state lands will be plotted as multiples of the standard lot." 1. Were all private and state lands plotted as multiples of the standard lot?
Manifesto Quote: "Flyovers will be built in key locations, and critical road works in the City widened." 1. Were flyovers built in key locations? 2. Were critical roads in the City widened?
Manifesto Quote: "Create parking and green spaces around them." 1. Were parking lots and green spaces created around them?
Manifesto Quote: "Improve the legal framework for leaseholds or gifts of land in the Provinces in order to make them amenable for collateral security and investment." 1. Was the legal framework for leaseholds or gifts of land in the Provinces improved to make them amenable to collateral security and investment?
We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to each of you for your active participation in this vital democratic process. Your input is invaluable in maintaining the accountability and transparency of our government. We encourage you to continue with this spirit of active citizenship as we move on to Part 2 of this review.
Thank you once again for your time and involvement.
Take the Survey https://sierraleonelive.com/survey/183f145f-3529-4014-ad15-ba4b72c77c82/
Sierra Leone Foreign Affairs and Diplomacy: An In-Depth Comparison of the SLPP's 2018 Manifesto Promises and Achievements in 2023
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Welcome to our comprehensive comparison of Sierra Leone's Foreign Affairs and Diplomacy policies outlined in the SLPP's 2018 New Direction Manifesto with the actual achievements reported after five years in office. Sierra Leone Live is committed to providing citizens with clear and objective information to evaluate the government's performance against its declared intentions. The political landscape is intricate and often challenging to navigate, and we understand the value of discerning analysis in fostering civic responsibility and accountability.
As part of this initiative, we've looked closely at the key goals outlined by the SLPP regarding foreign affairs and diplomacy and measured them against the realities delivered over the past five years. This comparative analysis will serve as a critical tool to find out the extent of alignment between the government's promises and its delivered outcomes.
Besides our analysis, Sierra Leone Live will also provide 25 carefully designed questions for our readers. These questions, informed by the comparison and analysis we present, aim to prompt further reflection on the SLPP's performance and to engage citizens in the active evaluation of the government's track record. By considering these questions, you, the citizens, will be better equipped to make informed decisions on the efficacy and integrity of the government's work. 1. Elaboration of a robust foreign policy: The achievements report doesn't specify the creation of a new foreign policy, although some achievements suggest actions that are consistent with a foreign policy focused on expanding Sierra Leone's global influence (e.g., the opening of new Embassies, securing visa-free travel for diplomats, and the endorsement for a seat in the UN Security Council). 2. Restructuring the Foreign Ministry: A functional management review of the Ministry suggests some restructuring, although the document does not provide specific details on what changes were made or how they reflect the new national policy objectives. 3. Introduction of professionalism in the Foreign Ministry: The establishment of a Foreign Service Academy, which typically serves to train high-quality diplomatic personnel, might reflect an effort toward enhancing professionalism in the Foreign Ministry. However, specific details regarding recruitment or training improvements aren't outlined. 4. Evaluation and rehabilitation of foreign embassies: The opening of new embassies in strategic locations aligns with this objective. However, the report doesn't provide explicit information on the evaluation, rehabilitation, or revitalization of existing embassies. 5. Evaluation and performance criteria for consular personnel: This point isn't directly addressed in the achievements document. The functional management review might include this, but it's not explicit. 6. Support for Research and Documentation: SLPP did not directly address this point in the achievement document. 7. Support for language proficiency training: SLPP did not directly address this point in the achievement document. 8. Representation and performance in ECOWAS, AFRICAN UNION, and commitment to international treaties: Sierra Leone's contribution to the growth of the ECOWAS Parliament and endorsement by ECOWAS and the AFRICAN UNION for a seat in the UN Security Council are clear indications of increased representation and performance in these regional bodies. 9. Commitments to the Commonwealth, the Non-Aligned Movement, the UN, and multilateral organisations: The country's co-sponsorship of a UN resolution, as well as a request for the President of Sierra Leone to co-chair a UN Education session, shows maintained and perhaps strengthened commitments to the UN. 10. Development of a new policy approach with the European Union post-Brexit:The report doesn't directly address this point.
Additional achievements in the 2023 report not outlined in the 2018 Manifesto include: * Securing Visa-Free Travel to certain countries for diplomats and Service Passport holders. * Sierra Leone co-sponsored a UN Resolution on Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse, and Violence. * ECOWAS and the AFRICAN UNION endorsed Sierra Leone for a seat in the non-permanent category of the UN Security Council. * Recognition for work in education, including a request for the President to co-chair a UN Education session and an award for the Minister of Education.
While the SLPP seems to have made strides towards its 2018 manifesto goals in foreign affairs and diplomacy, not all original points were directly addressed in the 2023 report. New achievements beyond the original manifesto were recorded.
Our comparison and analysis reveal both alignments and disparities between the SLPP's 2018 New Direction Manifesto and its reported achievements after five years in office. The landscape of foreign affairs and diplomacy has undeniably evolved over this period, with notable successes and areas requiring further attention.
As Sierra Leone Live, we encourage our readers to reflect on this information and consider the accompanying questions we've provided in a separate post. Your engagement is a testament to the vibrant civic spirit of our nation, and your opinions matter in shaping the future course of our beloved Sierra Leone.
Thank you for your time and interest in this endeavor. Together, let us continue to build a more informed and participatory democracy.
Here are the 25 Questions https://sierraleonelive.com/sierra-leone-foreign-affairs-and-diplomacy-commitments-25-key-questions-on-the-slpps-2018-manifesto-and-its-2023-achievements/
Sierra Leone Foreign Affairs and Diplomacy Commitments: 25 Key Questions on the SLPP's 2018 Manifesto and its 2023 Achievements
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Greetings, citizens of Sierra Leone! We are embarking on a collective journey of accountability and transparency, crucial pillars of our vibrant democracy. Today, we present to you a series of questions drawn directly from the Sierra Leone People's Party's (SLPP) 2018 Manifesto on Foreign Affairs and Diplomacy.
The essence of these questions is to facilitate a robust assessment of our government's performance against the pledges it made. We've distilled the manifesto's commitments into 25 key "Yes" or "No" questions, each corresponding to specific promises made in 2018.
We encourage you to consider each question carefully, referring to public records, media reports, and your personal perceptions of the country's trajectory over the past five years. These questions serve as a tool for active citizen engagement and promote critical reflection on the path our nation has taken under the current government.
Foreign Policy
Manifesto Quote: "Elaborate a new robust foreign policy for Sierra Leone with a clearly focused re-orientation that will de-emphasize dependence on foreign aid in favour of promoting favourable development and trade relations." 1. Was a new, robust foreign policy elaborated for Sierra Leone? 2. Were efforts made to de-emphasize dependence on foreign aid? 3. Were favourable development and trade relations promoted?
Restructuring of the Foreign Ministry
Manifesto Quote: "Restructure the Foreign Ministry to fully reflect the new national policy objectives." * Was the Foreign Ministry restructured to reflect new national policy objectives?
Professionalism in the Foreign Ministry
Manifesto Quote: "Take appropriate measures to introduce professionalism in the Foreign Ministry by injecting and maintaining the highest degree of careerism, starting with the recruitment and training of very high calibre personnel as diplomats." 1. Were appropriate measures taken to introduce professionalism in the Foreign Ministry? 2. Was there an emphasis on the recruitment and training of high-calibre personnel as diplomats?
Evaluation of Foreign Embassies
Manifesto Quote: "Evaluate our foreign embassies and missions for rehabilitation, upgrading, and revitalizing." 1. Were foreign embassies and missions evaluated for rehabilitation, upgrading, and revitalization?
Performance Criteria for Consular Personnel
Manifesto Quote: "Screen and evaluate all consular personnel and introduce performance criteria consistent with national development outcomes." 1. Was there screening and evaluation of all consular personnel? 2. Were performance criteria introduced that were consistent with national development outcomes?
Support for Research and Documentation
Manifesto Quote: "Support Research and Documentation to equip Foreign Ministry personnel with quality information at all times." 1. Was there support for research and documentation in the Foreign Ministry?
Language Proficiency Training
Manifesto Quote: "Support training schemes to enable our diplomats acquire second and third language proficiencies." 1. Were training schemes supported to enable diplomats to gain additional language proficiency?
Representation and Performance in ECOWAS and AU
Manifesto Quote: "Raise the level of representation and performance in the organs of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union (AU) and maintain full commitment for the domestication of all relevant international treaties and protocols." 1. Was the level of representation and performance in ECOWAS and the AU raised? 2. Were commitments maintained for the domestication of all relevant international treaties and protocols?
Commitments to International Organisations
Manifesto Quote: "Maintain and strengthen national commitments to the Commonwealth, Non-Aligned Movement and the United Nations and all other multilateral organisations." 1. Were national commitments to the Commonwealth maintained and strengthened? 2. Were national commitments to the Non-Aligned Movement maintained and strengthened? 3. Were national commitments to the United Nations and other multilateral organisations maintained and strengthened?
Policy Approach with the European Union Post-Brexit
Manifesto Quote: "Taking into account Brexit, develop a new development and foreign policy approach with the European Union." 1. Was a new development and foreign policy approach with the European Union developed, considering Brexit?
General Performance and Accountability 1. Was there transparency in the execution of foreign policy? 2. Were the actions of the Foreign Ministry in alignment with the national policy objectives? 3. Was the performance of the consular personnel satisfactory? 4. Was the efficiency and effectiveness of the diplomatic service improved? 5. Were there improvements in the overall professionalism and competence in the Foreign Ministry? 6. Was there significant growth in Sierra Leone's international relations? 7. Were there any significant challenges encountered in implementing the manifesto's goals? 8. Overall, was the New Direction 2018 Manifesto effectively implemented in terms of foreign affairs and diplomacy?
Thank you for taking the time to take part in this important exercise of democratic accountability. Your involvement is vital in shaping the political discourse and ensuring that our leaders remain true to their commitments. It is your attention, your questions, and your votes that drive our nation forward. We appreciate your active participation, and we thank you for your ongoing commitment to the growth and development of Sierra Leone.
Take the Survey
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Sierra Leone Energy Supply: A Comparative Analysis of SLPP's 2018 Manifesto Versus 2023 Achievements
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Welcome to Sierra Leone Live's comprehensive comparison and analysis of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) and its 2018 New Direction manifesto against its achievements in the energy sector after five years in office. This analysis will provide a detailed exploration of how the promises made in the 2018 manifesto align with the actual achievements reported in 2023. The aim of this comparison is to equip you, the citizens, with the facts and figures necessary to gauge the performance of the SLPP in the energy sector.
Our political and data analysts have meticulously dissected each goal outlined in the 2018 manifesto and evaluated its corresponding implementation, or lack thereof, over the past five years. From electricity supply restoration to rural electrification initiatives to investments in renewable energy, each point in the manifesto has been thoroughly compared with the tangible progress noted in the achievement report.
To foster further understanding and active civic participation, Sierra Leone Live has also compiled a list of 25 pertinent questions that will accompany this analysis. These questions will aid you in discerning whether the SLPP has indeed met its manifesto promises.
The following is a point-by-point analysis comparing the New Direction 2018 Manifesto to the Achievement Report after five years. We’ll discuss whether each point in the manifesto was achieved and highlight key indicators of progress not specifically mentioned in the manifesto. 1. Restoration of electricity supply to all district capitals: According to the report, 9 out of 16 district capitals have been connected, meaning some progress has been made. However, it falls short of full accomplishment, assuming the remaining district capitals are still without electricity. 2. Rural electrification for towns exceeding 20,000 population:The report does not provide specific data on this. However, the fact that 31% of households now have access to electricity suggests some progress in this area. Without a baseline or location-specific data, it's hard to definitively evaluate the progress in rural electrification. 3. Establishment of a Rural Electricity Board and Fund: There's no mention of this in the achievements, so it's unclear if these were established and what their impact might be. 4. Connection of at least five villages and two towns in each district to the grid or standalone renewable schemes annually: There's no specific data on this in the achievement report. It mentions increased installed generation capacity and expanded transmission lines, which could facilitate this, but without more specific information, we can't evaluate the progress. 5. Massive investment in renewable energy:Achieved. The report shows renewable energy generation capacity increased from 10% to 35%. 6. Promotion of renewable and modern forms of energy like LPG:Is not explicitly mentioned in the report. 7. Encouragement of mini-hydro and solar schemes with financial incentives—not explicitly mentioned in the report 8. Enhancement of female access to modern energy: The report does not provide data on this. 9. Encouragement of mining companies to sell excess power to the grid: Not explicitly mentioned in the report 10. Review and strengthening of the regulatory agency for the water and electricity sectors:Not explicitly mentioned in the report. 11. Promotion of energy efficiency measures nationwide: The report mentions the reduction of the cost of operations, which might show some efficiency measures, but it's not clearly stated. 12. Reform of the power sector, including connection to the West African Power Pool:Is not explicitly mentioned in the report.
Additional achievements mentioned in the report that were not in the manifesto include: * Increased installed generation capacity from 105 MW in 2018 to 160 MW in 2023. * Electricity generation per capita now stands at 55 KWH. * The Government has expanded the transmission line to 740 km. * The EDSA deficit was reduced to 60%. * Aggregate Technical, Commercial, and Collection Losses were reduced to 40%.
Some progress was made on a few goals outlined in the manifesto. However, many of the specific commitments were not explicitly addressed in the achievement report, making it difficult to evaluate the overall performance. The government has made strides in increasing overall generation capacity, especially in renewable energy, and in expanding access to electricity. This suggests progress towards the broader objective of making energy more widely available. More specific data would be needed to evaluate progress.
Here are the 25 Questions: https://sierraleonelive.com/evaluating-slpps-energy-supply-promises-25-key-questions-on-the-2018-manifesto-commitments/
Evaluating SLPP's Energy Supply Promises: 25 Key Questions on the 2018 Manifesto Commitments
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Welcome to Sierra Leone Live's interactive survey, crafted specifically to assess the energy sector developments from 2018 to 2023, as promised by the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) in their New Direction Manifesto. We have carefully curated a set of 25 essential 'Yes' or 'No' questions for you, the citizens, to help gauge how effectively the promises made by the SLPP have materialized in reality.
These questions span a variety of critical sub-categories, including electricity supply, rural electrification, renewable energy, and more. Each question directly references the commitments made in the 2018 manifesto, creating a direct link between the government's stated objectives and their implementation over the past five years.
By answering these questions, you are engaging in an invaluable process of democratic participation, holding those in power accountable, and ensuring the future betterment of our beloved Sierra Leone.
Electricity Supply
Manifesto Quote: "Restore electricity supply to all district capitals." 1. Was electricity restored to all district capitals?
Rural Electrification
Manifesto Quote: "Initiate a rural electrification programme that will supply electricity to all towns with a population exceeding 20,000." 1. Was a rural electrification programme initiated? 2. Were towns with populations exceeding 20,000 supplied with electricity?
Rural Electricity Infrastructure
Manifesto Quote: "Institute a Rural Electricity Board and a Rural Electricity Fund to promote electrification of rural areas with a view to making electricity readily and widely available in rural areas." 1. Was a Rural Electricity Board instituted? 2. Was a Rural Electricity Fund instituted?
Grid Expansion
Manifesto Quote: "Each year, at least five villages and two towns in each district join the national grid or are connected off-grid on standalone solar or mini-hydro schemes." 1. Were at least five villages and two towns in each district added to the national grid each year? 2. Were standalone solar or mini-hydro schemes implemented in at least five villages and two towns in each district each year?
Renewable Energy
Manifesto Quote: "Massive investment in the renewable energy potential of the country in the areas of solar, hydro, wind, and biomass." 1. Was there a massive investment in renewable energy? 2. Were investments made in solar energy? 3. Were investments made in hydro energy? 4. Were investments made in wind energy? 5. Were investments made in biomass energy?
Modern Energy Forms
Manifesto Quote: "Promote the use of renewable and modern forms of energy like Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG)." 1. Was the use of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) promoted?
Energy Schemes
Manifesto Quote: "Encourage the start of min-hydro schemes and solar energy schemes and provide special financial incentives to companies in this sector." 1. Were mini-hydro schemes started? 2. Were solar energy schemes started? 3. Were special financial incentives provided to companies in this sector?
Female Access to Energy
Manifesto Quote: "Enhance female access to modern energy by investing in rural electrification, clean cooking fuel (propane gas), and household energy needs." 1. Was there an enhancement of female access to modern energy? 2. Were investments made in clean cooking fuel (propane gas) for rural households?
Power from Industries
Manifesto Quote: "Encourage mining companies and other major industries to sell excess power to the national grid for the supply of power to the communities in which they operate and other contiguous areas." 1. Were mining companies and other major industries encouraged to sell excess power to the national grid?
Regulatory Agency
Manifesto Quote: "Review and strengthen the institutional capacity of the regulatory Agency for the water and electricity sectors." 1. Was the institutional capacity of the regulatory agency for the water and electricity sectors reviewed and strengthened?
Energy Efficiency
Manifesto Quote: "Promote energy efficiency measures nationwide." 1. Were energy efficiency measures promoted nationwide?
Power Sector Reforms
Manifesto Quote: "Follow up on the reform of the power sector, including connection in the West African Power Pool." 1. Were there follow-ups on the reform of the power sector? 2. Was a connection made in the West African Power Pool? 3. Were initiatives made to improve the transmission and distribution efficiency of the national power grid? 4. Was there a significant reduction in power outages and improved reliability in the power supply?
Thank you for your interest and participation in this survey. Your involvement is a testament to the vibrant democracy of our nation, ensuring our leaders uphold their commitments and our country continues to progress. The collective voice of our citizenry, as reflected in this survey, plays a crucial role in shaping the trajectory of our country's development. Your participation truly makes a difference. Thank you once again, and we look forward to your valuable insights.
Please take the Survey https://sierraleonelive.com/survey/f9ad7563-b8f5-4cb3-9bba-4761c1eeba55/
Sierra Leone Corruption Crackdown and Accountability: A Comparative Assessment of SLPP's 2018 Manifesto Commitments and Subsequent Achievements
Welcome to our in-depth comparison of the Sierra Leone Peoples Party's (SLPP) 2018 manifesto pledges against its reported achievements in the years following. Our primary focus will be on the critical issue of fighting corruption and improving accountability, a cornerstone promise of the SLPP's "New Direction" campaign. Corruption is not only an impediment to economic development and social justice but also a significant obstacle to the democratization of Sierra Leone.
The SLPP government pledged a robust stance on corruption, viewing it as a matter of national security, and proposed many strategies to tackle it. We have dissected these promises and matched them with the actual accomplishments reported in 2023, providing a clear picture of the government's performance in this area.
To facilitate further citizen engagement and informed decision-making, Sierra Leone Live will also provide a set of 25 targeted questions alongside this analysis. These questions are crafted to help you, as citizens, critically assess whether the SLPP government has delivered on its 2018 manifesto promises in combating corruption and enhancing accountability. 1. Fight Against Corruption as a National Security Issue:The achievements report shows the recovery of tens of billions of Leones by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), suggesting that the SLPP worked in its anti-corruption stance as promised. The seizing of assets from corrupt public officials further highlights the government's dedication to this issue. 2. Review of the ACC Act:The manifesto promised to review the ACC Act within the first 100 days in office, including provisions for publishing asset declaration forms. The achievement report states that the Anti-Corruption Act was amended, which is in line with their promises. 3. Leadership in the Fight Against Corruption:The achievement report doesn't directly address the commitment of the political leadership to fighting corruption. However, the actions taken in amending the ACC Act and recovering funds from corrupt officials indirectly show leadership involvement. 4. Categorize and Measure Corruption:The achievement report doesn't specify whether corruption was categorized and measured as per the economic costs, as pledged in the manifesto. 5. Implementation of Recommendations in Annual Audits:The achievement report does not mention the implementation status of recommendations from annual audits. 6. Adherence to the Access to Information Act:While not specifically mentioned, improvements in corruption perception under the SLPP government, as measured by Transparency International and the Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law in Sierra Leone, suggest an increase in transparency, which could be tied to implementing the Access to Information Act. 7. National Public Sector Transparency and Accountability Initiative (NAPSTAI): The achievement report does not mention this initiative specifically. 8. Support to CSOs:The achievement report does not mention support for Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) or their capacity to prepare shadow reports. 9. Inter-agency Cooperation:The achievement report does not explicitly mention improvements in inter-agency cooperation to prevent, detect, and punish corrupt practices. 10. Results-Based Management (RBM):The achievement report does not specifically mention the implementation of RBM. 11. Social Accountability:Improvements in the corruption perception index might suggest increased social accountability, although this isn't directly mentioned in the achievement report. 12. Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS) and District Budget Oversight (DBO):They do not mention these specific elements in the achievement report. 13. Code of Conduct for Public Officials:The achievement report does not mention the enforcement of a comprehensive code of conduct for public officials. 14. Special Anti-Corruption Division in the High Court:The achievement report does not specifically mention the establishment of this division.
Additional Achievements * The achievement report mentions the award of SL 79% in 2022 by the MCC, an improvement from 49% under the previous government. * The Afro Barometer recorded a decline in the public's perception of corruption from 70% to 40%, showing a marked improvement in governance.
While certain actions have been taken to fulfill some promises outlined in the 2018 Manifesto, notably the fight against corruption and the review of the ACC Act, the achievement report does not comprehensively respond to all points outlined in the Manifesto. Further detail would be required to fully assess the fulfillment of each promise.
We thank you for your time and commitment to understanding the complexities of these important issues and for being an engaged citizen. Your interest in scrutinizing the government's performance against its promises is crucial for a thriving democracy and a future where corruption has no place.
Remember, each one of us has a part to play in building a better Sierra Leone. In a separate post, you will find the survey with 25 questions. We encourage you to look into this and provide your valuable insights. This is your opportunity to express your views on the government's efforts to fight corruption and improve accountability. Let us stand together, demand accountability, and shape the future of our beautiful country.
Here are the 25 Questions https://sierraleonelive.com/anti-corruption-commitments-and-achievements-25-critical-questions-on-the-slpps-2018-manifesto/
Anti-Corruption Commitments and Achievements: 25 Critical Questions on the SLPP's 2018 Manifesto
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
We invite you to take part in an important evaluation of our government's commitments and actions against corruption. The Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) has made several pledges in its 2018 "New Direction" manifesto, many of which focused on the critical issue of combating corruption and enhancing accountability. As the stewards of our nation, it is our responsibility to assess the extent to which they have fulfilled these promises.
To aid in this review, we have created 25 yes-or-no questions based directly on the commitments made in the 2018 manifesto. These questions, designed to spark reflection and discussion, will provide a structured way to measure the government's progress in these areas. By engaging with these questions, you will help create a comprehensive evaluation of our government's efforts against corruption, giving us a clear picture of the successes and areas that may need more attention.
Anti-Corruption Act (ACC) and Constitution Review: Manifesto Quote: "Review within the first 100 days the ACC Act to include the publication of all assets declaration forms of all public officials before they take office and upon leaving office." 1. Was the ACC Act reviewed within the first 100 days as pledged? 2. Were the asset declaration forms of all public officials published before they took office? 3. Were the asset declaration forms of all public officials published upon their departure from office?
Manifesto Quote: "Review the relevant provisions of the Constitution of Sierra Leone 1991 (including Section 119 in particular) and the ACC Act to strengthen the ACC’s investigative and prosecutorial mandate..." 1. Was the 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone reviewed, particularly Section 119, to strengthen the ACC's mandate? 2. Were the ACC's investigative and prosecutorial mandates strengthened?
Systems and Framework Development: Manifesto Quote: "Develop value systems and implement a robust merit and reward system in public and private life." 1. Was a robust merit and reward system developed and implemented in public and private life? 2. Were value systems developed as promised?
Manifesto Quote: "Adopt a new framework to ensure accountability and transparency in the public sector..." 1. Was a new framework adopted to enhance accountability and transparency in the public sector? 2. Was the National Public Sector Transparency and Accountability Initiative (NAPSTAI) established?
Manifesto Quote: "Set up a system for planning, monitoring, and reporting on Development Results referred to as Results-Based Management (RBM) wherein development targets will be set at the start of each year..." 1. Was a Results-Based Management (RBM) system set up? 2. Were annual development targets set as part of RBM?
Corruption Categorization and Penalties: Manifesto Quote: "Categorize corruption and measure it in terms of its economic costs to the nation such as low, medium, high, and very serious, in a manner that attracts harsher and stiffer penalties for more serious infractions." 1. Was corruption categorized as low, medium, high, or very serious? 2. Were harsher penalties implemented for more serious infractions?
Implementation of Recommendations and Acts: Manifesto Quote: "Ensure the full implementation of all recommendations in annual audits of the ASSL and of Ministries, departments, and Agencies." 1. Were all recommendations in the annual audits of the ASSL and of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies fully implemented?
Manifesto Quote: "Commit to adhering to and implementing the Access to Information Act to deepen the fight against corruption." 1. Was the Access to Information Act implemented to deepen the fight against corruption?
Support for CSOs and Inter-agency Cooperation: Manifesto Quote: "Provide support to CSOs to enhance their capacity to prepare shadow reports on issues of transparency and corruption." 1. Were CSOs supported to enhance their capacity to prepare appropriate shadow reports?
Manifesto Quote: "Enhance inter-agency cooperation at the local and national government levels to prevent, detect, and punish corrupt practices." 1. Was inter-agency cooperation enhanced to prevent, detect, and punish corrupt practices?
Public Accountability and Conduct: Manifesto Quote: "Improve social accountability, in which public officials and non-state actors will give an account of their stewardship." 1. Was social accountability improved with public officials and non-state actors giving accounts of their stewardship?
Manifesto Quote: "Popularize and enforce a comprehensive code of conduct for public officials to regulate their conduct whilst in public office." 1. Was a comprehensive code of conduct for public officials popularized and enforced?
Public Expenditure Tracking and Judicial Specialization: Manifesto Quote: "Strengthen Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS), District Budget Oversight (DBO) by Citizens." 1. Was the Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS) strengthened? 2. Was District Budget Oversight (DBO) by citizens enhanced?
Manifesto Quote: "Establish a special anti-corruption division in the High Court to promote judicial specialization and expeditious trial of corruption cases." 1. Was a special anti-corruption division established in the High Court? 2. Were corruption cases tried more expeditiously because of the establishment of this division?
Leadership Commitment:
Manifesto Quote: "Commit the political leadership to lead in the fight against corruption." 1. Were political leaders committed to leading the fight against corruption? 2. Was any concrete action taken by the leadership to fight corruption?
Your participation is crucial in this endeavor, and we express our deepest gratitude for your time and commitment. Ensuring accountability and fighting corruption requires a collective effort, and citizen engagement is the cornerstone of this fight. By answering these questions, you are directly contributing to the ongoing work of creating a more transparent, accountable, and corruption-free Sierra Leone. Thank you for taking an active role in shaping the future of our beloved nation. We look forward to your thoughtful and insightful responses.
Please take the Survey https://sierraleonelive.com/survey/f8d4f4d7-887d-4175-b2da-88f81b1dd25f/
Improving Management of Marine Resources: A Comparative Report on the SLPP's 2018 Manifesto Commitments and Achievements
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Welcome to Sierra Leone Live's comprehensive analysis and comparison of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) "Improving Management of Marine Resources" commitments as outlined in their 2018 "New Direction" manifesto. This exercise forms part of our broader campaign aimed at measuring the extent to which the SLPP fulfilled its election promises and assessing the effectiveness of its leadership over the last five years.
In this analysis, we will dissect the manifesto's key objectives in managing marine resources, juxtapose them with the achievements documented after five years, and provide an unbiased view of the party's performance in this sector. To make this interactive and promote civic engagement, Sierra Leone Live will provide 25 questions alongside the analysis. This will help you, the citizens of Sierra Leone, critically evaluate the performance of the SLPP and decide if they have met their 2018 manifesto targets.
Good Governance and Sustainable Management of the Fisheries Manifesto: The manifesto outlined plans for strengthening the policy and regulatory framework of fisheries. This included revising existing fisheries policies, developing a strategic action plan, and conducting institutional and management reviews. It also focused on registering all fishing vessels and improving the data collection system.
Achievement: The government achieved several of these goals. It enacted the Fisheries and Regulations Act 2021 and developed the Aquaculture and Inland Fisheries and Regulatory Framework. The surveillance of the country's waters improved, along with the enhancement of the fishing license scheme. A comprehensive fish stock assessment was also carried out. Thus, these accomplishments show a high level of adherence to the manifesto goals.
Reduction of Illegal Fishing Manifesto: The Manifesto is aimed at establishing a legal and regulatory environment for combating illegal fishing and revitalizing the Joint Maritime Committee (JMC).
Achievement: The improved monitoring and surveillance systems and enhanced fisheries license scheme both contribute to the reduction in illegal fishing. They made no specific mention of the JMC in the achievement report.
Improved Handling of Fish and Fisheries Products Manifesto: The manifesto included constructing fish landing site clusters, building or rehabilitating existing landing sites, training on hygiene practices, rehabilitation of laboratories, strengthening export capacities, and facilitating the establishment of micro-credit facilities for women engaged in fisheries.
Achievement: Five cold rooms were constructed in different districts, and solar-powered cold room facilities were built in key fishing communities, improving fish handling and quality. However, the achievements document does not explicitly mention training on hygiene practices, rehabilitation of laboratories, or facilitation of micro-credit facilities for women in fisheries, showing areas of unfulfilled commitments.
Aquaculture Development Manifesto: The manifesto aimed at developing a regulatory framework for sustainable aquaculture, constructing pilot hatchery stations, developing a business model and market analyses for feed production and farming technology, and identifying linkages between wild fisheries and aquaculture.
Achievement: The government developed six commercial fish farms across the country, signifying some progress in aquaculture development. However, it is not clear if the manifesto's specific goals regarding the development of a regulatory framework, hatchery stations, business models, and analyses were achieved.
Additional Achievements not specifically outlined in the manifesto but included in the report: 1. The sector's contribution to GDP increased from 8% in 2018 to 12% in 2023, signifying the growing importance of fisheries in the country's economy. 2. A $55 million grant was secured from the Chinese Government to construct a fish harbour and ancillary structures in the Black Johnson, Western Area Peninsular.
The SLPP appears to have made significant progress in the areas of policy and legislative framework, surveillance, and infrastructure development. However, some manifesto commitments, particularly around training, rehabilitation of laboratories, and facilitating microcredit for women in fisheries, are not clearly reported as achievements. The government has also made progress in areas not explicitly stated in the manifesto, such as securing external funding and growing the fisheries' contribution to the GDP. It's also worth noting that the COVID-19 pandemic may have affected the realization of some goals.
We have now come to the end of our analysis of the "Improving Management of Marine Resources" section of the SLPP's 2018 manifesto. As Sierra Leone Live, we hope this has provided you with insightful, transparent, and useful information to assess the performance of the SLPP over the past five years in this sector.
We appreciate your time and commitment to engaging with this process. An informed citizenry forms the backbone of a thriving democracy. We urge you to examine the 25-question survey provided in a separate post to further interact with this analysis and express your opinions.
Thank you for your continued trust in Sierra Leone Live as your reliable source of balanced and accurate information. Together, we contribute to the prosperity and democratic health of our beloved nation, Sierra Leone.
Here are the 25 Questions https://sierraleonelive.com/improving-management-of-marine-resources-25-key-questions-assessing-the-fulfillment-of-the-slpps-2018-manifesto-commitments/
Improving Management of Marine Resources: 25 Key Questions Assessing the Fulfillment of the SLPP's 2018 Manifesto Commitments
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Welcome to Sierra Leone Live's interactive segment on the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) "Improving Management of Marine Resources" commitments from their 2018 "New Direction" manifesto. To assist you, our esteemed citizens, in evaluating the SLPP's fulfillment of its pledges, we have curated a set of 25 "Yes" or "No" questions. We structure these inquiries to assess each promise made by the SLPP in 2018, thus summarizing the progress made in managing marine resources.
Your involvement in this process is critical, as it enhances democratic accountability, encourages transparency, and fosters a government that responds to the people. Please take the time to answer each question based on your knowledge, perception, and experiences over the last five years.
Good Governance and Sustainable Management of Fisheries 1. Was the existing fisheries policy revised and the fisheries and aquaculture legislation completed? 2. Was a Strategic Action Plan developed to implement the policy? 3. Were the institutional and management reviews of the MFMR conducted? 4. Was a web-based database of all industrial fishing fleets developed? 5. Were surveys and systematic registrations of all artisanal canoes conducted? 6. Was the MFMR data collection system enhanced? 7. Was the research institute (IMBO) enhanced? 8. Were periodic indirect surveys of key fish stocks (Pelagic and demersal) conducted? 9. Were all fisheries management information, such as revenues, license fees, vessels committing infractions, fines paid by vessels, etc., made public for transparency? 10. Were Management Plans prepared and implemented that set levels of sustainable exploitation for targeted fisheries and created rights and allocation mechanisms for such fisheries? 11. Were community-led management systems introduced at the community level? 12. Were inclusive communication strategies developed to inform the public about the government's vision and development programs for the fisheries sector?
Reduction of Illegal Fishing 1. Was an enabling legal and regulatory environment established for combating illegal fishing? 2. Was the Joint Maritime Committee (JMC) revitalized? 3. Were effective and sustainable surveillance systems implemented?
Improved Handling of Fish and Fisheries Products 1. Were fish landing site clusters constructed? 2. Were Fish Harbours with solar-powered cold chain facilities constructed? 3. Was there construction or rehabilitation of existing landing sites? 4. Was training on basic hygiene practices and sanitary operating procedures conducted? 5. Were existing laboratories for fish quality rehabilitated, and did they support accreditation to certify fish and fisheries products for export to the EU and other foreign destinations? 6. Was the capacity of the competent authority to certify fish and fisheries products for export strengthened? 7. Were there training and demonstrations on new smoking and drying technologies? 8. Was there facilitation of the establishment of microcredit facilities for women engaged in fisheries?
Aquaculture Development 1. Was a policy and regulatory framework for sustainable aquaculture developed? 2. Were pilot hatchery stations constructed to produce fingerlings in pre-determined locations?
We would like to express our sincere gratitude for your time and involvement in this process. Your active participation in answering these questions provides invaluable insight into our ongoing assessment of the government's performance. Each response contributes to the larger dialogue about our nation's direction and progress. Thank you for your commitment to fostering an informed and engaged citizenry in Sierra Leone. Together, we are shaping the future of our beloved nation.
Please take the Survey
https://sierraleonelive.com/survey/7fcabea9-43f9-4ac5-9148-cd19e2b90f23/
Telecommunication Transformation in Sierra Leone: A Comparative Analysis of the SLPP's 2018 Manifesto Commitments and Five-Year Achievements on Improving Communication Technology
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Welcome to this comprehensive review and comparison of the New Direction's 2018 manifesto and the achievements reported by the SLPP government over the last five years. Our focus today is on one of the key components of the manifesto: Improving Communication Technology. As we all know, advancements in this sector play a pivotal role in the nation's socio-economic growth, touching every aspect of our lives from governance to education, from business operations to healthcare, and from social connectivity to entertainment.
In Sierra Leone, the SLPP made a promise in 2018 to catalyse such advancements and create a digital revolution that benefits all citizens. Now, five years down the line, it's time for us to evaluate the progress made, the promises kept, and those that may have fallen by the wayside. We will dive into the specifics of these pledges and their corresponding actions, highlighting key areas of development and pointing out where there might still be work to be done.
As part of this process, Sierra Leone Live will also provide 25 carefully curated questions in a separate post. These questions will serve as a tool for each of us to personally evaluate whether the SLPP government has lived up to its promises. Your participation and views matter because they design these policies and advancements to impact you.
Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructure
Manifesto: The manifesto places emphasis on improving telephony and communication services, including increasing broadband access and liberalising the sector.
Achievements: The government extended the National Fibre Backbone to five additional districts, creating the infrastructure for improved communication services and showing the fulfillment of the promise for better telecommunication services. However, the achievements document does not mention the liberalisation of the sector, an aspect included in the manifesto.
Regulatory Bodies
Manifesto: Promised to de-politicise NATCOM (the National Telecommunications Commission) to improve its efficiency.
Achievements: The document does not mention any specific action taken towards the de-politicization of NATCOM, so it's unclear if this goal has been achieved.
Electronic Governance System
Manifesto: Included the introduction of an electronic governance system.
Achievements: This pledge seems to have been fulfilled as the government introduced an e-Cabinet during COVID, rolled out a time and attendance management system to 24 MDAs, and developed e-passes during lockdowns, contributing to a more digital governance system.
Access to ICT
Manifesto: Promised to increase public access to all aspects of ICT.
Achievements: The number of internet users increased significantly, from 307,000 in 2017 to 2.67 million in 2022, showing significant strides towards this goal. However, it's not clear if these improvements were equally distributed, particularly among the rural poor, as the manifesto promised.
Education and ICT Skills Development
Manifesto: Emphasized the provision of computer training and facilities in public libraries, schools, and colleges, as well as the encouragement of science teaching.
Achievements: The document does not mention any direct achievements related to these points. However, the establishment of the Director of Science, Technology, and Innovation might support these goals, depending on the Director's role and initiatives.
Security of Information
Manifesto: Advocated for the establishment of digital storage centres and backup services to secure government documents.
Achievements: The government enacted the Cybercrime Act of 2021, providing legal backing for digital security. However, there is no explicit mention of the creation of digital storage centres or backup services for government documents.
Policy and Legal Framework
Manifesto: While there was no explicit mention of updating policies or laws in the manifesto, the emphasis on liberalizing the sector and creating an enabling business environment suggested policy and legal adjustments.
Achievements: The New Direction Government enacted the Cybercrime Act of 2021 and the New Communications Act of 2022, aligning with the original manifesto's indirect implications. Also, a national digital development policy was developed, which may further drive the sector's growth.
Community Radio Stations
Manifesto: Promised to increase the establishment of community radio stations.
Achievements: The document does not provide information related to this point, making it difficult to assess the achievement of this goal.
Broadband Access
Manifesto: The party aimed to enhance broadband access across the country.
Achievements: The extension of the National Fibre Backbone can be seen as a step towards achieving this goal, but the report does not explicitly discuss broadband access.
While there were several accomplishments over the five years, fulfillment of the New Direction's manifesto promises seems mixed. Some pledges, such as improving communication technology and implementing electronic governance, were realized, while others, such as de-politicizing NATCOM and increasing computer education, were not explicitly mentioned in the achievements document. There are achievements like enacting cybercrime and communication acts that were not in the manifesto but contribute to improving the ICT sector in the country.
However, without detailed data or additional context, it's challenging to comprehensively evaluate the performance or the extent to which these achievements have impacted the population, especially groups like the rural poor.
We have now completed our review and comparison of the SLPP government's 2018 manifesto with the reported achievements in Communication Technology over the past five years. Your engagement in this process is not only welcomed but also crucial, as it helps hold our government accountable and foster transparency.
We understand that fully absorbing this information and making an informed judgment might require some time. That's why we encourage you to revisit the points discussed and look at our survey, comprising 25 questions, in a separate post. This will further aid you in assessing whether the SLPP has met its 2018 manifesto targets.
Remember, your insights, your voice, and your perspectives matter. They play a crucial role in shaping the future of Sierra Leone. So, we thank you for taking the time to delve into this analysis and for your forthcoming participation in the survey.
Together, we can continue to ensure that they keep the promises made.
Here are the 25 Questions https://sierraleonelive.com/improve-communication-technology-in-sierra-leone-25-essential-questions-on-the-slpps-2018-commitments/
Empowering Women in Sierra Leone: A Comparative Report on the SLPP 2018 Manifesto and its Achievements after 5 Years
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Sierra Leone Live is delighted to present a comprehensive comparison and analysis of the progress made in empowering women and achieving gender equality in line with the commitments outlined in the New Direction 2018 Manifesto. In our pursuit of transparency and accountability, we aim to provide you with the information to assess whether the SLPP government has met its targets set forth in the manifesto.
As part of this analysis, Sierra Leone Live has prepared a series of 25 questions that delve into various aspects of women's empowerment, encompassing education, entrepreneurship, agriculture, energy access, political participation, and implementing gender laws and policies. These questions have been designed to facilitate a thorough evaluation of the progress made in empowering women during the specified period.
Our team has meticulously compared the promises outlined in the 2018 manifesto with the achievements reported after five years in office. By examining this data, we aim to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of the extent to which the SLPP government has fulfilled its commitments to gender equality and women's empowerment. 1. Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment:
- New Direction 2018 Manifesto: The manifesto promised to promote gender equality, equity, empowerment, and protection of women's rights through various actions.
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Achievements after 5 Years: The Gender Equity and Women's Empowerment Law was enacted, ensuring a minimum 30% quota for women's representation in political positions and public service. This achievement aligns with the manifesto's commitment to increasing women's chances in politics through constitutional amendments and implementing a 30% Quota Bill.
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Education and Training for Women:
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New Direction 2018 Manifesto: The manifesto pledged to provide training and educational opportunities for women, establish a Women's Development Fund, and offer free education for women pursuing sciences, engineering, and medical disciplines at the university level.
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Achievements after 5 Years: Scholarships were provided for women studying STEAM subjects, showing progress towards fulfilling the manifesto's commitment to supporting women's education and training. However, specific details about the establishment and operation of the Women's Development Fund were not mentioned in the achievements report.
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Women in Agriculture:
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New Direction 2018 Manifesto: The manifesto aimed to promote women in agriculture through various means, including direct support for large-scale farming and agro-processing activities, providing market information, facilitating exports, improving processing facilities, and enhancing female access to land and strategic resources.
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Achievements after 5 Years: The achievements report does not provide explicit details regarding progress in promoting women in agriculture. It mentions empowering women through provisions in the Mines and Minerals Act, but it does not specifically address the agricultural sector.
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Access to Modern Energy:
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New Direction 2018 Manifesto: The manifesto promised to enhance female access to modern energy by investing in rural electrification, clean cooking fuel, and household energy needs.
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Achievements after 5 Years: The achievements report does not mention progress in enhancing female access to modern energy. Therefore, it is unclear if they addressed this objective.
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Procurement Laws and Support for Women-Led Organizations:
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New Direction 2018 Manifesto: The manifesto proposed making amendments to procurement laws to give preferential treatment to performing female contractors and providing support for women-led organizations in rural areas.
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Achievements after 5 Years: The achievements report does not specify progress related to the proposed amendments to procurement laws or support for women-led organizations. Therefore, it is uncertain whether these goals were accomplished.
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National Commission for Gender Affairs and Expertise Development:
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New Direction 2018 Manifesto: The manifesto aimed to establish a National Commission for Gender Affairs to develop, coordinate, monitor, and support the implementation of gender laws and policies, as well as improve expertise in gender through training programs.
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Achievements after 5 Years: The achievements report does not mention the establishment or progress of the National Commission for Gender Affairs or the support for training programs in gender. Thus, it is unclear if these initiatives were successfully implemented.
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Women's Rights and Protection:
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Achievements after 5 Years: The achievements report highlights several significant accomplishments, including the provision of free healthcare for pregnant women and lactating mothers nationwide, the establishment of a toll-free line for reporting Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) cases, the granting of the right for women to own land under the National Land Commission Act 2022, and the initiation of the Hands of Our Girls campaign to protect teenage girls from early sex and marriage. These achievements align with the manifesto's overall objective of protecting women's rights and promoting their well-being.
While the achievements after 5 years show progress in certain areas, there are gaps between the commitments outlined in the New Direction 2018 Manifesto and the specific achievements reported. Some key areas where the achievements report lacks explicit information include progress in promoting women in agriculture, enhancing female access to modern energy, amending procurement laws, supporting women-led organizations, establishing the National Commission for Gender Affairs, and improving expertise through training programs. It is important to note that the analysis is based solely on the information provided and does not account for any potential unreported accomplishments or contextual factors that may have influenced the implementation of the manifesto's goals.
We would like to express our gratitude to all the citizens of Sierra Leone for their active engagement in assessing the progress made in empowering our women. By critically examining the data and information provided, you contribute to a more informed and empowered society. Your involvement helps shape the narrative and direction of policies and initiatives related to gender equality and women's empowerment. Note that the 25 questions are in a separate post, which follows the analysis.
Here are the 25 Questions https://sierraleonelive.com/empowering-sierra-leone-women-25-questions-on-analyzing-progress-in-gender-equality-and-womens-empowerment/
Empowering Sierra Leone Women: 25 Questions on Analyzing Progress in Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
We are pleased to present a series of 25 questions focused on assessing the progress made in empowering women and achieving gender equality within the framework of the New Direction 2018 Manifesto. These questions aim to delve into various aspects of women's empowerment, including education, entrepreneurship, agriculture, energy access, political participation, and implementing gender laws and policies.
By examining these questions, we can gain insight into the extent to which the SLPP fulfilled the commitments outlined in the manifesto. It is important to assess the accomplishments and challenges faced during the specified period, ensuring transparency and accountability in pursuing gender equality and women's empowerment. 1. Were training and educational opportunities provided for women as outlined in the manifesto? 2. Was a Women's Development Fund established to support female entrepreneurs? 3. Were women in agriculture directly supported for large-scale farming and agro-processing activities, as mentioned in the manifesto? 4. Was market information provided to women in agriculture about local and export markets facilitating the exporting of farm products? 5. Were improved facilities for fish processing and poultry processing provided to promote women in agriculture? 6. Was female access to land and other strategic resources promoted, as stated in the manifesto? 7. Was female access to modern energy enhanced through investments in rural electrification, clean cooking fuel, and household energy needs? 8. Were amendments made to procurement laws to give preferential treatment to female contractors? 9. Was support provided for women-led organizations in rural areas to take part in economic and political activities? 10. Was free education provided to women pursuing sciences, engineering, and medical disciplines at the university? 11. Was a National Commission for Gender Affairs established to develop, coordinate, monitor, and support the implementation of gender laws and policies? 12. Was expertise in gender improved through supporting training programs for gender in institutions? 13. Were national and international instruments to support women's empowerment domesticated and implemented? 14. Was the 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone amended to increase the chances of women taking part in politics? 15. Were all political parties mandated to enact gender policies specifying a threshold for women in executive positions, local councils, and parliamentary positions? 16. Was the minimum 30% Quota Bill reviewed and enacted to create the chance for women to hold 30% of positions in elective and appointive positions? 17. Were training and funding provided for female candidates for public elections? 18. Was gender equality promoted as a mainstream intervention or a stand-alone initiative? 19. Were gender laws and policies monitored and supported by the National Commission for Gender Affairs? 20. Were women in agriculture provided with support for large-scale farming and agro-processing activities? 21. Were market information and facilitation for the exporting of farm products provided to women in agriculture? 22. Were improved facilities for fish processing and poultry processing provided to promote women's participation in these sectors? 23. Was female access to land and other strategic resources promoted? 24. Was female access to modern energy enhanced through investments in rural electrification, clean cooking fuel, and household energy needs? 25. Was preferential treatment given to female contractors through amendments to procurement laws?
Your participation in providing answers to these questions will contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the progress made in empowering women. Your insights and perspectives are valuable in evaluating the impact of policies and initiatives on the lives of women across Sierra Leone.
Thank you for taking the time to engage with these questions and sharing your knowledge and experiences. Together, let us foster a society where gender equality is realized, women are empowered, and their rights are protected.
Sports Manifesto Achievements: SLPP's Pledges vs. Performance - A Comparative Analysis of the 2018 Manifesto and Reported Achievements
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Welcome to Sierra Leone Live's deep dive into the comparison and analysis of the Sports sector in our country, focusing on the promises made by the SLPP government in their 2018 manifesto titled "New Direction" and their achievements after five years in office. Sports play a vital role in uniting our nation, and it's essential to hold our leaders accountable for their promises towards the development of this sector. We'll be providing an unbiased, data-driven analysis, comparing the intentions of the SLPP as outlined in their 2018 manifesto with the progress they reported in 2023.
To help you, the citizens, gauge the success of the SLPP government in meeting its sports manifesto targets, Sierra Leone Live is accompanying this analysis with a set of 25 questions. These questions guide your evaluation process, encouraging you to consider accomplishments and areas for improvement holistically. 1. Review of the policy and legal environment for sports development. This is not directly mentioned in the Achievements document. Without specific reference, it's unclear if the policy and legal environment for sports were reviewed. 2. **Increase in budgetary support for sporting activities, especially football, athletics, cricket, volleyball, and basketball:*The Achievements document specifically mentions that the government increased budgetary support for these activities. This shows a direct alignment with the manifesto's promise. 3. Establishment of a Sports Development Fund, financed from various sources, including corporate establishments, international sporting organizations, and the government: SLPP did not specifically mention this in the achievements. Therefore, it is unclear if this fund was established and how it was financed. 4. Implementation of a comprehensive capacity-building programme for all sporting disciplines:The Achievements document does not specifically mention this point. It's unclear if such a program was implemented. 5. Reactivation of school and community sporting activities to identify and develop talents for national and international competitions:This point is directly confirmed in the Achievements document, which states that school and community sporting activities have been reactivated to identify and develop talents. 6. Resumption of national competition for all sporting activities:This point is implied in the Achievements document through the reactivation of the National Premier League in Football and the introduction of the Female Premier League in 2022. However, it is not explicitly stated if this applies to all sporting activities. 7. Establishment of sports academies and provision of facilities for sports development and recreation around the country:SLPP did not specifically mention this in the Achievements document. Therefore, it is unclear if sports academies were established and the additional facilities provided. 8. Development of administrative, technical, and support services for sports:The Achievements document confirms that administrative, technical, and support services for sports have been developed. 9. Building standard stadium facilities in all regions and Western Rural to enhance the capacity of Sierra Leone:***The Achievements document does not mention this point. Therefore, it is not clear if SLPP built standard stadium facilities across all regions.
Additional Achievements (not specified in the 2018 Manifesto): * Ensured Sierra Leone’s participation in major international competitions, including the AFCON Tournament in Cameroon 2021 and the WAFU Under 20 Boys and Girls in Senegal 2021. * undertaken a successful institutional rearrangement of sports and football governance institutions, enhancing stability within the institutions. * The government entirely financed and supported University athletes and officials in both the Africa and West Africa University Games in Ethiopia and Nigeria, respectively.
Out of the nine promises made in the 2018 New Direction Manifesto, three are clearly achieved, as per the 2023 document (increased budgetary support, reactivation of community sports, and development of administrative, technical, and support services). There are partial alignments for two points (capacity building program and national competition), but these are not explicitly confirmed. Four points (review of policy, Sports Development Fund, sports academies, and stadiums) do not have corresponding achievements reported in the 2023 document. There are also additional achievements that were not specified in the 2018 manifesto.
Thank you for taking the time to engage in this review of our government's actions in the sports sector. Your dedication to holding our leaders accountable for their promises is vital to the progress and development of our nation. We encourage you to refer to the survey provided in a separate post to answer the 25 questions we have prepared based on our analysis. By partaking in this process, you are actively taking part in shaping the future of sports in Sierra Leone. Thank you once again for your active involvement and let's together drive our nation towards a prosperous future.
Here are the 25 Questions: https://sierraleonelive.com/slpps-2018-sports-manifesto-25-key-questions-on-implementation-and-achievements/
SLPP's 2018 Sports Manifesto: 25 Key Questions on Implementation and Achievements
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Welcome to our citizen survey on the New Direction 2018 Sports Manifesto by the SLPP government. Your voice is vital in this national dialogue, and we design this survey to assess the implementation of the promises made in 2018. These questions are crafted to reflect the key points outlined in the manifesto, offering you a clear path to evaluate the progress made in our sports sector over the past five years. Each question requires a simple "Yes" or "No" response, enabling a straightforward assessment.
Policy and Legal Environment Manifesto Quote: "Review the policy and legal environment for sports development." 1. Was the policy environment for sports development reviewed? 2. Was the legal environment for sports development reviewed?
Budgetary Support Manifesto Quote: "Increase budgetary support to sporting activities, in particular football, athletics, cricket, volleyball, and basketball." * Was there an increase in budgetary support for football? * Was there an increase in budgetary support for athletics? * Was there an increase in budgetary support for cricket? * Was there an increase in budgetary support for volleyball? * Was there an increase in budgetary support for basketball?
Sports Development Fund Manifesto Quote: "Establish a Sports Development Fund that will be financed from various sources, including corporate establishments, international sporting organizations, and the government." 1. Was a Sports Development Fund established? 2. Were corporate establishments involved in financing the Sports Development Fund? 3. Were international sporting organizations involved in financing the Sports Development Fund? 4. Was the government involved in financing the Sports Development Fund?
Capacity Building Manifesto Quote: "Develop and implement a comprehensive capacity-building programme for all sporting disciplines." 1. Was a comprehensive capacity-building program developed for all sporting disciplines? 2. Was the capacity-building program implemented?
Community Engagement Manifesto Quote: "Reactivate school and community sporting activities with a view to identifying and developing talents for national and international competitions." 1. Were school sporting activities reactivated? 2. Were community sporting activities reactivated?
National Competitions Manifesto Quote: "Recommence national competition for all sporting activities." 1. Were national competitions for all sporting activities resumed?
Sports Academies and Facilities Manifesto Quote: "Establish sports academies and provide facilities for sports development and recreation around the country." 1. Were sports academies established around the country? 2. Were facilities for sports development provided around the country? 3. Were facilities for sports and recreation provided around the country?
Administrative and Technical Support Manifesto Quote: "Develop the administrative, technical, and support services for sports." 1. Was administrative support for sports developed? 2. Was technical support for sports developed?
Stadium Facilities Manifesto Quote: "Build standard stadium facilities in all regions and Western Rural to enhance the capacity of Sierra Leone." 1. Were standard stadium facilities built in all regions? 2. Were standard stadium facilities built in Western rural areas? 3. Did the stadiums built enhance the capacity of Sierra Leone? 4. Were these stadiums built to the standard?
Your engagement in this process is invaluable, and we thank you deeply for taking the time to take part. By answering these questions, you are contributing to our shared understanding of the government's successes and the areas that need more focus. Your insights will help shape the future of sports in Sierra Leone. Thank you again for your commitment to our nation's development and for ensuring our government's accountability. We appreciate your time and your thoughtful responses.
Take the Survey https://sierraleonelive.com/survey/1814d7f8-8d35-4adb-bd09-eed77ca21d97/
Empowering the Youth: A Comparative Analysis of the SLPP’s 2018 Manifesto and Achievements
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Welcome to our comprehensive comparative analysis focused on 'Empowering the Youth', a significant commitment made by the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) in its 2018 manifesto, titled 'New Direction'. The analysis we present today aims to shed light on the degree to which the party has fulfilled its promises over the past five years, with a particular emphasis on youth empowerment strategies and initiatives.
To make this a participatory exercise, Sierra Leone Live will provide 25 important questions alongside this analysis. These questions will serve as a guide and a tool for you, the citizens of Sierra Leone, to better assess and understand the progress, or lack thereof, made by the government in relation to its 2018 manifesto commitments.
We encourage you to critically engage with these questions and this analysis in order to gain a clearer picture of the SLPP's performance. Your active participation and informed opinion matter for the continued growth and prosperity of Sierra Leone. 1. Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET)
Manifesto: The manifesto proposed providing technical skills to the youth in the job market.
Achievement: The report of achievements after 5 years shows that over 2000 youths were trained through the Youth Service Schemes and thousands more in various trades and skills. It also includes the training of over 200 young people in tractor operations and basic maintenance.
National Youth Scheme Manifesto: The manifesto outlined plans to review and support the implementation of the National Youth Service by promoting internships and public-private partnerships.
Achievement: The achievement report shows that over 2000 youth were trained through the Youth Service Schemes, showing the implementation of this plan. However, there's no specific mention of the review process, internships, or public-private partnerships.
Economic Empowerment Manifesto: The manifesto proposed establishing a special Youth Empowerment Fund and promoting youth engagement in agriculture.
Achievement: The achievements report shows that 411 young entrepreneurs affected by COVID-19 were supported with a stimulus grant and that several youth-led organizations were established, which corresponds with the plan for economic empowerment. There's evidence of youth engagement in agriculture with the creation of 190 Chiefdom Youth Farms. However, there's no mention of a specific Youth Empowerment Fund.
Public Works Manifesto: The manifesto aimed to create jobs for the youth in housing and public works, with a focus on training and implementing national housing programs.
Achievement: The achievements report does not provide specific evidence of progress in this area. It mentions the establishment of 28 carwash centres across the country, which may fall under public works, but there's no reference to housing construction or urban renewal programmes.
Music and Performing Arts Manifesto: The manifesto had goals to review and enforce copyright laws, establish institutions for music, film, and video production training, promote Sierra Leonean music nationally and internationally, and establish an Arts Gallery and Theatre for Performing Arts.
Achievement: There are no mentions of achievements in this area in the provided report.
Sports Manifesto: The manifesto outlined plans to review sports development policy, increase budgetary support for sporting activities, establish a Sports Development Fund, build standard stadium facilities, and reactivate school and community sporting activities.
Achievement: Please see the sports report for details in this area.
The Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) made progress on its 2018 manifesto goals, particularly in the areas of vocational training and economic empowerment for the youth. However, progress is less clear or lacking in public works, music, and the performing arts. Please note that this is based on the documents and may not fully represent the whole spectrum of their achievements.
As we conclude this analysis, we would like to express our gratitude to all the citizens of Sierra Leone who have taken the time to look into the survey and review the comparison between the SLPP's 2018 manifesto and the achievements over the past five years. Your interest and participation in such an evaluation process not only strengthen our democracy but also helps in holding our elected officials accountable.
It's crucial to keep in mind that our current collective engagement will determine our collective future. Stay tuned for the 25 questions that Sierra Leone Live will provide in a separate post, intended to further the dialogue and critical thinking around these issues.
Thank you, and we look forward to continuing to serve as a reliable platform for political analysis, data, and citizen engagement.
Here are the 25 Questions https://sierraleonelive.com/commitments-to-youth-empowerment-25-key-questions-on-the-slpps-2018-manifesto/
Commitments to Youth Empowerment: 25 Key Questions on the SLPP's 2018 Manifesto
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Welcome to our 25-question survey based on the 'New Direction' 2018 Manifesto of Sierra Leone's SLPP. This survey is designed specifically to engage and empower you, the citizens of Sierra Leone, in assessing the performance of the government over the past five years. Each question focuses on a specific promise made in the 2018 Manifesto, focusing primarily on youth empowerment.
We encourage you to answer these "yes" or "no" type questions based on your knowledge and observation. Your active participation and informed responses will give us all a clearer understanding of the SLPP's performance against its commitments.
Remember, your participation is not just about holding the government accountable; it's also about being an active and informed participant in our democracy and shaping the future of our country.
Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Manifesto Quote: "The objective of TVET is to provide technical skills to youth in areas relevant to the job market as prescribed under the section on education and training." 1. Was the objective of TVET achieved? 2. Were technical skills provided to the youth?
National Youth Scheme Manifesto Quote: "Review the current design of the National Youth Service and support its implementation." 1. Was the National Youth Service reviewed and supported? 2. Were internships promoted to enhance the capacity of graduates? 3. Was a public-private partnership promoted in the redesign and implementation of the scheme?
Economic Empowerment Manifesto Quote: "Establish a special Youth Empowerment Fund to support youth engaged in small and medium scale entrepreneurial ventures." 1. Was a special Youth Empowerment Fund established? 2. Were youth engagements in agriculture promoted through direct support?
Public Works Manifesto Quote: "The SLPP Government will increase investment in housing and public works to create jobs for youth." 1. Was there an increase in investment in housing and public works? 2. Were youth trained in using local materials and technology for housing construction? 3. Was a national programme for housing and urban renewal implemented?
Music and Performing Arts Manifesto Quote: "Review and enforce the copyright laws." 1. Were copyright laws reviewed and enforced? 2. Were standards for the promotion of music and performing arts established? 3. Were institutions and training at the vocational and university levels in music, film, and video production established?
Sports Manifesto Quote: "The SLPP government will review the policy and legal environment for sports development." 1. Was the policy and legal environment for sports development reviewed? 2. Was budgetary support for sporting activities increased? 3. Was a sports development fund established? 4. Was a comprehensive capacity-building programme for all sporting disciplines developed and implemented? 5. Were school and community sporting activities reactivated? 6. Was national competition for all sporting activities recommenced? 7. Were sports academies established and facilities for sports development and recreation provided around the country? 8. Were the administrative, technical, and support services for sports developed? 9. Were standard stadium facilities built in all regions and Western Rural?
Economy and Private Sector Development Manifesto Quote: "Everything will be done to improve the competitiveness of the economy and create the enabling environment for the private sector to invest in the country and take part fully in its development." 1. Were efforts made to improve the competitiveness of the economy? 2. Was an enabling environment created for the private sector to invest in the country? 3. Were initiatives undertaken to facilitate the full participation of the private sector in the country's development?
We would like to express our deepest gratitude for your involvement in this important exercise. Your time, engagement, and thoughtful responses are valuable and appreciated. Together, we are working towards a better understanding of our government's performance and fostering a stronger and more accountable democracy. Thank you for taking a step forward in shaping Sierra Leone's future.
Developing Sierra Leone's Tourism Sector: A Comparative Analysis of the SLPP's 2018 Manifesto and Achievements
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Welcome to our comprehensive comparison and analysis of the efforts made towards developing the Tourism Sector in Sierra Leone. Over the past five years, the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) has been committed to implementing the tourism policies outlined in their 2018 'New Direction' manifesto. This critical analysis aims to evaluate the SLPP's progress toward achieving its stated objectives in the tourism sector.
To further enrich this discussion and promote civic engagement, Sierra Leone Live has prepared a set of 25 questions related to this analysis. We encourage every citizen to take part and use these questions as a guide to evaluate whether the SLPP has met its 2018 manifesto targets. By exploring these questions, we hope to ignite a dialogue about the advancements in tourism and the areas that may need further attention and improvement.
Improving Policy and the Legal Environment In the Manifesto: * The SLPP aimed to review and upgrade all tourism-related laws, regulations, and policies for consistency with global best practices. * They planned to create a master plan for the tourism sector and establish a Tourism Information Register (TIR).
Achievements: * The National Heritage Bill was passed, which establishes a commission aimed at enhancing artists and musicians' participation in the Sierra Leone economy, thus suggesting the review and upgrade of tourism-related laws. * SLPP drafted a New Tourism and Wildlife Policy, which aligns with the manifesto's goal of a master plan for the tourism sector. * A tourism information office was established in Freetown, which may be a partial fulfillment of the Tourism Information Register plan. However, this isn't clear and may require further inquiry.
Rehabilitating and Developing Historic and Cultural Sites In the Manifesto: * SLPP intended to prepare a rehabilitation plan for all strategic historic sites in Sierra Leone and establish public-private partnerships to manage these sites.
Achievements: * The National Heritage Bill indicates the intention to protect, preserve, and restore cultural heritage sites and historic buildings. However, there's no explicit mention of public-private partnerships or comprehensive rehabilitation plans.
Developing Infrastructure In the Manifesto: * The SLPP planned to designate tourist attraction areas and provide necessary infrastructure such as water, electricity, and communications. * They also proposed developing tourist infrastructure like beach resorts, eco-villages, and research camps. * They intended to facilitate the construction of a toll bridge to link Freetown and Lungi Airport.
Achievements: * A jetty was constructed on Bunce Island, contributing to tourism infrastructure development. * Parliament ratified an agreement to establish a significant tourist destination in the Western Area, demonstrating progress toward designating tourist attraction areas. * However, there is no explicit mention of providing utilities, other infrastructure, or the Freetown-Lungi Airport toll bridge.
Promoting Marketing and Improve the International Image of Sierra Leone In the Manifesto: * The party proposed developing an improved web portal for tourism promotions, participating in international tourist activities, and collaborating with embassies and missions to showcase the tourist potential of Sierra Leone to the outside world. * They also planned to contract an international PR firm to promote Sierra Leone's international image and showcase its tourist potential.
Achievements: * Sierra Leone's image was rebranded, which increased the number of tourists, especially among African Americans retracing their roots. * The successful hosting of the Budapest-Bamako Freetown Finish event helped increase international tourism. However, there's no mention of an improved web portal or collaborating with embassies or missions.
Developing Skills in Tourism In the Manifesto: * The SLPP aimed to conduct a Skills Audit of the Tourism Sector, prepare a Manpower Development Plan, upgrade the existing school for hotel management and tourism, introduce higher education programmes for tourism, and promote a public-private partnership for tourism training.
Achievements: * SLPP did not explicitly address this area in the achievement report.
Diversifying Tourism Products In the Manifesto: * The party planned to promote adventure tours and support local entrepreneurs in tourism-based activities linking rural economies, harvest seasons, wildlife, farming practices, art, culture, and religions.
Achievements: * A New Tourism and Wildlife Policy was drafted to maximize the benefits of unique and interesting wildlife for tourism promotion, which partially aligns with the aim of diversifying tourism products. * There is no explicit mention of supporting local entrepreneurs in tourism-based activities or promoting adventure tours.
The SLPP appears to have made progress in areas outlined in its manifesto, such as improving the policy and legal environment, developing infrastructure, promoting and improving Sierra Leone's international image, and partially diversifying tourism products. However, it's not clear if all the objectives were fully achieved, especially in areas like developing skills in tourism, complete rehabilitation and development of historic sites, and specific infrastructure goals such as the toll bridge to link Freetown and Lungi Airport.
Thank you for taking the time to examine our analysis and comparison of the tourism sector's development based on the SLPP's 2018 manifesto and their achievements over the past five years. We appreciate your engagement and commitment to staying informed about the progress and direction of our country.
Your voice and opinion matter in shaping the future of Sierra Leone. We invite you to continue this discussion by looking into the survey we have provided in a separate post. We designed these questions to help you delve deeper into the topic and decide whether the SLPP met its 2018 manifesto targets. Your insights and thoughts are vital in this democratic process, and we look forward to your active participation.
Here are the 25 Questions https://sierraleonelive.com/25-critical-questions-on-the-development-of-the-tourism-sector-as-per-the-slpps-2018-manifesto/
25 Critical Questions on the Development of the Tourism Sector as Per the SLPP's 2018 Manifesto
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
We welcome you to an important civic exercise. The growth and development of Sierra Leone's tourism sector are significant components of our nation's prosperity. In 2018, the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) outlined their vision for the sector in their 'New Direction' manifesto. Today, we have compiled a set of 25 questions designed to provide a thorough assessment of the progress made in achieving these outlined objectives.
These questions, framed around the specific policy actions outlined in the manifesto, offer a unique opportunity for you, the citizens of Sierra Leone, to evaluate the performance of the SLPP. They are categorised into key areas such as Improving Policy and Legal Environment, Developing Historic Sites, Developing Infrastructure, Marketing Promotion and Image Improvement, Skills Development and Diversification of Tourism Product.
As you answer these "yes" or "no" questions, consider the extent to which each of these policy actions has been fulfilled based on your experiences and observations. This process isn't just about accountability; it's about shaping a shared vision for our nation's future.
Improving Policy and the Legal Environment
Manifesto Quote: "Review and upgrade all tourism-related laws, regulations, and policies to ensure consistency with regional and global best practices." * Were all tourism-related laws, regulations, and policies reviewed and upgraded? * Was a master plan developed for the tourism sector in line with the revised laws and policies? * Was a Tourism Information Register (TIR) established?
Rehabilitating and Developing Historic and Cultural Sites
Manifesto Quote: "Prepare a rehabilitation plan for all strategic historic sites in Sierra Leone." * Was a comprehensive rehabilitation plan prepared for all strategic historic sites in Sierra Leone? * Were public-private partnerships established to manage historic sites?
Developing Infrastructure
Manifesto Quote: "Designate tourist attraction areas and provide them with the needed infrastructure, including water, electricity, and communications." * Were tourist attraction areas designated and provided with the needed infrastructure? * Were specific tourist infrastructures such as beach resorts, eco villages, and research camps developed? * Was the construction of a toll bridge facilitated to link Freetown and Lungi Airport?
Promoting Marketing and Improving International Image
Manifesto Quote: "Develop an improved web portal for tourism promotions." * Was an improved web portal developed for tourism promotion? * Were international tourist activities participated in by Sierra Leone? * Were collaborations established with embassies and missions to showcase the tourist potential of Sierra Leone in the outside world? * Was an international PR firm contracted to promote the international image and showcase the tourist potential of Sierra Leone?
Developing Skills in Tourism
Manifesto Quote: "Conduct a Skills Audit of the Tourism Sector." * Was a skills audit of the tourism sector conducted? * Was a manpower development plan prepared for the tourism sector? * Was the existing school for hotel management and tourism upgraded in terms of materials, equipment, and staffing? * Were higher education programmes for tourism introduced? * Was a public-private partnership promoted for tourism training?
Diversifying Tourism Products
Manifesto Quote: "Promote adventure tours such as safaris, jungle tours, and mountain trekking." * Were adventure tours such as safaris, jungle tours, and mountain trekking promoted? * Was support extended to local entrepreneurs to promote tourism-based activities linked to the rural economy? * Was tourism linked with harvest seasons, wildlife, farming practices, art, culture, and religions? * Was local art promoted as a tourism product? * Were local farming practices highlighted in tourism efforts? * Were efforts made to promote local culture and religion in the tourism sector? * Was wildlife leveraged effectively for tourism? * Were local entrepreneurs supported in their tourism ventures?
These questions provide a comprehensive review of the SLPP's commitments in their 2018 manifesto and to help the citizens of Sierra Leone assess the progress made.
We want to express our deepest gratitude for your involvement in this exercise. Your participation is vital to our shared democratic process and reflects the strength of our collective commitment to Sierra Leone's growth and development. By engaging in this evaluation, you contribute significantly to our ongoing conversation about the future of tourism in Sierra Leone. Your voice, your perspective, and your insights truly matter. Thank you for taking the time to engage with these questions and for your continued commitment to our country.
Take Our Survey https://sierraleonelive.com/survey/5bcc13e0-ba2b-49f8-b6e8-d763d7a17bf7/
Exploring Progress: 25 Key Questions Assessing the SLPP's Performance in Improving Health Care Since the 2018 Manifesto
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Greetings to the citizens of Sierra Leone!
Your participation and active involvement in the transformation of the health sector are paramount. As per the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP's) 2018 New Direction Manifesto, a series of commitments were made to enhance the healthcare services in our country. Today, we present a series of questions based on the manifesto's pledges, aiming to objectively assess how well these promises have been delivered. These questions are specifically designed to help us better understand the progress made toward achieving the strategic objectives outlined in the manifesto.
The following 25 questions cover six crucial areas: - Health Governance, Health Financing, Human Resource Management, Expanding and Improving Free Health Care Management, Disease Prevention, Control and Surveillance, and Service Delivery. Each question corresponds to a commitment made in the manifesto, and your response will help to analyze the progress made.
We request that you kindly take some time to respond to these questions with a simple "yes" or "no.". Your responses will aid in creating a constructive dialogue around healthcare improvement in Sierra Leone, and collectively, we can strive toward a healthier future for all.
Health Governance Manifesto Quote: "The New Direction's strategic objective in the health sector is to transform the under-resourced, ill-equipped, dysfunctional, and inadequate health infrastructure and healthcare delivery system to make them high-quality, efficient, reliable, cost-effective, affordable, and sustainable, capable of responding to epidemics such as cholera and Ebola virus disease."
Questions: 1. Was the capacity for health planning, management, monitoring, and coordination enhanced? 2. Was a new National Health Policy and Action Plan developed? 3. Was a robust policy and legal framework for Public-Private-Partnership in the health sector developed? 4. Was a new NGO/donor coordination policy developed? 5. Was a blood bank policy implemented to ensure that blood is available in facilities at critical moments? 6. Were laws and policies relating to regulatory bodies reviewed and made more functional? 7. Was the Health Management and Information System (HMIS) strengthened to support informed strategic decision-making?
Health Financing
Manifesto Quote: "Increase budgetary allocation to health and sanitation from its current level of less than 10% to 15% and ensure timely disbursement of allocated resources."
Questions: 1. Was the budgetary allocation to health and sanitation increased to 15% as required by the Abuja Declaration? 2. Was the National Health Insurance Scheme reviewed and implemented to provide universal access to health care? 3. Were interventions by the government and donors, including NGOs, better coordinated? 4. Was the management of all resources allocated to the health sector strengthened?
Human Resource Management Manifesto Quote: "Improve on the conditions of health workers for all categories to attract and retain them."
Questions: 1. Was the Health Service Commission made functional and a comprehensive Human Development Plan developed? 2. Were the conditions of health workers in all categories improved?
Expanding and Improving Free Health Care Management Manifesto Quote: "Expand coverage for free health care to cover not only children under five years, pregnant women and lactating mothers but to include all school going children."
Questions: 1. Was the coverage for free health care expanded to include all school-going children? 2. Was the free health care program legislated? 3. Were national, district, and community-based monitoring of free healthcare drugs and services strengthened?
Disease Prevention, Control, and Surveillance Manifesto Quote: "Improve waste management in growing urban communities."
Questions: 1. Were measures taken to improve waste management in urban communities? 2. Were campaigns against diseases intensified and hygienic practices promoted? 3. Were maternal and child immunisation programs scaled up and sustained?
Service Delivery Manifesto Quote: "Increase the number of health facilities to ensure that every citizen can access health facilities within 3 mile radius."
Questions: 1. Was the number of health facilities increased to ensure every citizen can access health care within a 3-mile radius? 2. Was a National Ambulance Service introduced? 3. Were blood transfusion units established in all district hospitals? 4. Was a National Tele-medicine Programme introduced? 5. Was a flagship programme for sexual and reproductive health for adolescents launched to reduce teenage pregnancy and maternal mortality? 6. Were modern Infectious and Tropical Disease Control Centres established in Freetown and in the regional capitals?
Thank you so much for your time and involvement. We deeply appreciate your willingness to take part in this critical assessment. Your responses will contribute significantly to our understanding of the healthcare situation in Sierra Leone and will help guide the way forward. Together, we can ensure that our healthcare system serves us better and creates a healthier Sierra Leone for us all. Your voice matters; thank you for making it heard.
Take the Survey https://sierraleonelive.com/survey/fd586191-3634-41df-aa96-ba9f574add6c/
Improving Health Care, 2018-2023: A Comparative Report on the SLPP's 2018 Manifesto Commitments and Achievements
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
In a vibrant democratic society like ours, one of the core functions of informed citizenship is to scrutinize and assess the performance of the government against the promises it made during the election. This exercise serves to hold our elected representatives accountable for their words and actions. Today, we embark on this crucial exercise by comparing the stated goals of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) in its 2018 New Direction manifesto with its achievements after five years in office, focusing specifically on the health sector.
Healthcare is a sector of immense importance to the well-being and prosperity of Sierra Leone. Given its significance, it is vital to review and analyze the steps our government has taken to improve health services across the country, as outlined in their 2018 manifesto, and whether they have successfully delivered on these commitments.
Sierra Leone Live will supplement this analysis with 25 specific questions designed to facilitate a deeper understanding and provoke thought and conversation about these issues. It is our belief that these questions will empower you, the citizens of Sierra Leone, to form an informed perspective on the progress made by the SLPP in healthcare improvement. 1. Health Governance: * 2018 Manifesto: The manifesto highlighted many governance improvements, such as strengthening health planning, introducing a new National Health Policy, promoting public-private partnerships, and improving data collection. * Achievements: There are no direct mentions of improvements in health governance. Progress in this area is not directly reported in the 5-year achievement document. 2. Health Financing: * 2018 Manifesto: A goal was to increase the health budget to 15% and to establish a National Health Insurance Scheme. * Achievements: The budgetary allocation to healthcare increased from 6% to 11.6%, which falls short of the 15% goal.There's no mention of the National Health Insurance Scheme. 3. Human Resource Management: * 2018 Manifesto: The manifesto proposed strengthening human resource management, improving health workers' conditions, and offering special incentives for medical doctors in remote areas. * Achievements: The achievements show that 5,000 staff and 8,700 community health workers were trained and posted, and 21 medical doctors received specialized training.However, there's no specific reference to improving conditions for health workers or incentives for those in remote areas. 4. Free Health Care: * 2018 Manifesto: The goal was to expand free health care to cover school-going children and legislate this program. * Achievements: The achievements do not directly mention an expansion of free health care or legislation related to it. 5. Disease Prevention, Control, and Surveillance: * 2018 Manifesto: There were plans for improving waste management, promoting hygienic practices, and developing better diagnostics and treatment facilities. * Achievements: Achievements include cervical cancer screening at eight facilities and the vaccination of 183,000 girls with the HPV vaccine, alongside a 70% COVID-19 vaccination rate.However, there's no mention of waste management or introducing hygienic practices. 6. Service Delivery: * 2018 Manifesto: The manifesto planned to increase the number of health facilities, introduce a National Ambulance Service, establish blood transfusion units in all district hospitals, and develop mental health facilities. * Achievements: The achievements report shows that the number of health facilities increased from 1,397 to 1,569. There were hospital-on-wheels services for over 20,000 patients, 220 solar refrigeration units for vaccine storage, and four dialysis stations established.However, there's no mention of a National Ambulance Service, increased blood transfusion units, or the development of mental health facilities.
Overall, the 5-year achievements show progress in several areas outlined in the New Direction 2018 Manifesto, particularly regarding infrastructure development and human resource training. However, several key areas mentioned in the manifesto, such as increasing budget allocation to 15%, improving health governance, and expanding free healthcare services, don't appear to have been fully addressed based on the achievements listed.
Thank you for taking the time to review this analysis and comparison of the SLPP's 2018 manifesto commitments with the achievements reported in five years. We believe informed citizens like you are the bedrock of our democracy. Your efforts to understand and evaluate the performance of the government play a crucial role in maintaining accountability and promoting transparency.
Please remember to refer to the separate post for the accompanying survey. We encourage you to take part and contribute to this important dialogue. Your voice matters, and we hope this analysis will provide you with the information necessary to form an informed opinion about the progress and performance of the SLPP. Together, we can ensure a vibrant and accountable democracy that delivers on its promises to its citizens.
Management of Mineral Resources: Evaluating Progress as Per the 2018 SLPP Manifesto
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
In the ever-evolving realm of political stewardship, it is of utmost importance to evaluate the strides taken by our leaders in meeting the promises they set out to achieve. A key component of such an analysis in our nation pertains to the crucial sector of Mineral Resources Management.
In 2018, the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) laid out a detailed plan in their manifesto titled "New Direction." This blueprint sets the course for reforming and enhancing the management of our mineral resources to foster socio-economic development. Now, after five years, it's crucial that we assess the progress made against the goals that were set.
Sierra Leone Live is committed to providing a comprehensive, fact-based analysis of the SLPP's achievements vis-à-vis the 2018 manifesto's targets. In this context, we have prepared a detailed comparative study of the stated goals and the documented accomplishments in the realm of Mineral Resources Management.
To facilitate an even more interactive and engaging analysis, Sierra Leone Live will also provide a set of 25 carefully crafted questions. These questions will serve as a guide to help you, the citizens, decide whether the SLPP met its 2018 manifesto targets. Your responses will add significant value to the discussion and lead us toward a more informed consensus. 1. Review the Mines and Minerals Act 2009 to realign with the Mining Policy and be consistent with international best practices. The achievement document mentions that the 2009 Mines and Minerals Act was reviewed and a new act, the Mines and Mineral Development Act of 2022, was enacted. This shows that the SLPP fulfilled its manifesto promise to review the legislation. 2. Review the relevant law to allow for the establishment of a Natural Resources Account for all revenues generated from extractives. There is no specific mention of a Natural Resources Account in the achievements document, so it's unclear if this goal has been accomplished. 3. Decentralize mining revenue collection and utilization in line with the increased national decentralization programme under the New Direction. Introducing a royalty to district mining development funds and the DACDF shows decentralizing mining revenues, which aligns with this manifesto promise. 4. Strengthen the National Minerals Agency (NMA). This point is not directly addressed in the achievements document, making it unclear whether the NMA was strengthened, as per the manifesto. 5. Allocate percentages of revenue from the mining sector to education, health, and the general development of mining communities. There's no direct mention of funds allocated to education, health, or the general development of mining communities. The document mentions allocations to district mining development funds and the DACDF, but it doesn't specify the sectors these funds support. 6. Ensure full transparency in the sector through complying with the EITI standards, make all contracts public, and provide updated and validated information on tax and other contributions from the mining sector to the government. According to the achievements document, the SLPP government has complied with EITI standards and has introduced tools like the MCAS and the GoSL Online Repository to improve financial transparency, which aligns with this manifesto point. 7. Require mining companies to increase procurement of goods and services from Sierra Leone to strengthen trickle-down effects from the mining sector. This point is not directly addressed in the achievements document. 8. Require transactions between mining companies and their affiliates to be made upon arms-length terms (including pricing). There's no direct evidence in the achievements document that this point has been addressed. 9. Discourage advance taxation except under exceptional circumstances. They do not address this point in the achievements document. 10. Ensure that companies provide meaningful employment for Sierra Leoneans, especially in management positions, and carry out requisite training. The total number of mining sector jobs has increased by 73%, and over 200 Engineering and Geology graduates were supported with advanced training, showing progress in this area. 11. Put in place policies and mechanisms to support value additions to our mineral resources. There's no explicit mention of value additions in the achievements document. 12. Ensure that all mining companies comply with the local content policy. While this point is not addressed directly, the increase in large and small-scale mining companies may suggest some level of local content policy compliance. 13. Enforce corporate social responsibility in all mining activities. This point is not directly addressed in the achievements document.
While some significant strides seem to have been made to the mining sector policy and legislation, transparency, and job creation, there are several areas where the achievements document doesn't provide explicit information to confirm if the goals outlined in the 2018 manifesto have been met. It would require further information or data to complete a comprehensive comparison.
As stewards of our beloved Sierra Leone, our collective efforts in examining our leaders' accomplishments will only strengthen our nation's democratic foundation. A vibrant democracy thrives on the active participation of its citizens, and your input is invaluable in this process.
Thank you for taking the time to delve into this critical analysis and for contributing to our national discourse. Your contribution will not only help us understand the current state of affairs better but also shape the path for the future.
Please note that the survey, comprising the aforementioned 25 questions, will be provided in a separate post. We eagerly look forward to your insightful responses, as we all continue to work together for a better and brighter Sierra Leone.
Thank you once again, and may we continue to seek, together, the prosperity of our nation.
Here are the 25 Questions https://sierraleonelive.com/25-pertinent-questions-on-the-slpps-2018-manifesto-pledges-for-improving-the-management-of-mineral-resources/
APC LEADERSHIP SUCCESSION: A POLITICAL RISK SCENARIO
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
Potentially, stakeholders in Sierra Leone active in one of the biggest political parties ruled by an authoritarian ruler like former President Ernest Bai Koroma should gain a thorough understanding of potential "succession dilemmas" in order to be geared up to react to a variety of political risk scenarios that could affect their interests.
This article explores why former President Koroma’s regime type continues to make the All People's Congress political party more exposed to succession risks and lines out the continuous negative impact that succession struggles may have on the All People's Congress with Ernest Bai Koroma orchestrating the actions behind the scenes.
The former APC-led government of President Koroma is one political party where succession issues have been venomous and continue to pose a serious political risk soon, just as they did during his era. The country’s importance derives from its wealth in natural resources, notably iron ore, diamonds, gold, rutile, timber, bauxite, titanium, ilmenite, and recently oil and gas, etc., and its critical financial role in the West’s engagement in supporting regimes that are making it easy for them to loot our wealth successfully in collaboration with rogue rulers.
Ernest Bai Koroma is still playing politics as a one-man show.
For ten years and two weeks, Ernest Bai Koroma firmly ruled Sierra Leone in an authoritarian manner by narrowing the political landscape and making himself bigger.
The history of the "After You, Na You," "More Time," and "Chairman and Leader for Life" campaigns clearly exemplified the political risks that succession issues in fake democratic systems might entail. Already in 2015, then-President Koroma, through his irresponsible APC Youth Wing, attempted to extend his democratic mandate and thus contributed to a hostile climate in the country. Later, his handpicked successor, Mr. Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara, faced a violent internal uprising caused by popular discontent because of nepotism and corruption and was successfully sabotaged by former President Koroma himself as he ensured all critical political players within the party that had the knowledge and experience required for the APC's victory in the 2018 general elections were fired or sidelined before and during the campaign process.
Fast forward to the 2023 presidential elections, and Ernest Bai Koroma again repeated his past actions and reimposed his 2018 presidential flagship aspirant as the APC presidential flagship aspirant. This time he did so after allowing his preferred presidential flagship aspirant to campaign throughout the country for five years, despite a press release from his party that restricted all interested party members eying for the All People's Congress presidential flagship aspirant position to stop their campaigns until the party gets a presidential flagship aspirant in their convention. This means Ernest Bai Koroma's preferred presidential flagship aspirant was given an unmerited political advantage to campaign, while others eying for the same position strictly could not engage in any political activities to sell their mandate within and beyond their party.
If we are to understand the implications of the succession issue for the political future of our country, it is crucial to look at what really characterises Ernest Bai Koroma's regime type, namely authoritarian power mechanisms. Despite some formal legal, rational, and bureaucratic structures, all power was and still is derived directly from former President Koroma.
This is a political ruler who earned his legitimacy not from ideology and even less from democratic processes, but from a patriarchic cult of personality and effective patronage networks. In his patronage networks, then President Koroma exercised power by appointing people close to him, family and friends, to official positions in key ministries, state companies, agencies, or sovereign wealth funds, typically surrounding the rutile, discovered oil, diamond, iron ore, or bauxite industries, which they then used to advance his interests at the expense of the nation. Nepotism, corruption, sycophancy, bootlicking, and massive poverty were pervasive in his regime.
In exchange, privileged elite groupings supported his presidency, often by securing votes in their constituency as foundations and support groups and opposing anyone who threatened the president’s authority. Administrative and economic structures were built on the loyalty and dependencies of personal networks woven around former President Koroma.
As the contraption ruler, he used greed and rivalry within the elites to play different groups off against each other to strengthen his own position.
Former President Koroma was a proven master of balancing the interests of different elite groups in the country. The balance of power within his regime was extremely precarious, given that it hinged on the vitality and survival of a single ruler. This continues to make the question of succession to the then-autocratic ruler in his pseudo-democratic regime such a fundamental issue.
With no democratic institutions and established rules in place to secure a transparent and accountable transition of power from one elected government leader to the next, the risk of violent revolution or elite power struggles was always present in his pseudo-democratic regime.
THE APC "SUCCESSION DILEMMA"
Former President Koroma, as an authoritarian leader, was to a certain extent aware that his way of ruling within the APC Party and the country at large was based on favours and fear and that when fear is gone, there might be repercussions. Today, many believe one important goal for him was to secure favourable terms for himself and his relatives.
A very obvious succession strategy was the clear designation of a hand-picked successor by himself, which he repeated in the 2023 general elections. But others are saying this is not a very popular strategy either. So he allegedly made a safe deal with the then-main opposition SLPP Party leader.
One reason for the then-President's reluctance to ensure his party succeeded him in governance might be what Robbins Burling called the "succession dilemma" in his 1974 book Passage of Power.
According to this concept, an authoritarian ruler will be reluctant to nominate a successor while he is still fit enough to rule because if he does, this would weaken his own position.
Elites would start responding to the second man, anticipating the imminent end of the incumbent. Political enemies of the incumbent would rally around the second in command, hoping to oust the former.
The leader in waiting might see his chance come to shorten the wait.
APC ELITES NEGOTIATIONS AND INFIGHTING
It is always the case that when an autocratic president leaves the stage and there is no clearly designated successor or the incumbent picks someone who is unacceptable to powerful forces within the elites, particularly if they believe that the new leader will not honour the established patronage arrangements, there will be negotiations about a successor between the different elite groupings.
In these negotiations, elite factions rally around potential successors, hoping to end up on the winning side. Negotiations can appear to be successful openly, but inwardly they are not, and they gave clean opportunities for the very deceitful and autocratic former President Koroma to succeed in his dangerous mission of dishonesty against political party comrades.
Sometimes, however, existing political cleavages between elite groups bear the risk of future infighting.
In the APC currently, the cleavage runs right between the family and friends of former President Koroma.
A faction of the rogue beneficiaries from the most important elite faction within the APC family surrounding Ernest Bai Koroma’s deceitful actions, others, mainly represent the new idea of reforming the party to meet the test of time, while long-time friends of Ernest Bai Koroma make up the old guard, mostly found in high administration offices during his corrupt regime.
The latter is supported by other groups, particularly the rationally minded youth and the oppressed majority during his regime, who favour genuine political party reforms from outside Ernest Bai Koroma and his family.
These two main elite factions have differing views on the APC's future. While the business elite favours further economic and, hence, the political opening of the country to win genuine investors and move the country forward concretely, the old guard supports a more cautious approach.
Succession struggles threaten foreign stakeholders in two ways. Elite infighting after a ruler causes political volatility and unpredictability and bears the risk of violent clashes between the supporters of opposing factions.
Succession may cause new leadership that often goes hand in hand with a transformation of the overall elite structure. Foreign stakeholders must be careful not to become entangled in the succession struggle and be prepared to face a new leadership.
Stakeholders with a good relationship with the former ruler, for instance, or those suspected of having supported the losing side in the struggle, might be subject to reprisals.
A thorough analysis of our political landscape can help us make informed decisions based on various succession scenarios.
POLITICIANS SIERRA LEONEANS WANT PEACEFUL ELECTIONS
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
Foremost, God, our creator, is very interested in the welfare of his children. Our politicians must not pretend they have the people's interests at heart more than the creator of the universe.
He says in Jeremiah 29:11: For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans of welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. (RVS)
Do you believe this? Well, that is reality. Let those aspiring for power and control get some new education. No political party or politician is worth dying for because the welfare, the future, and the hope of Sierra Leone ultimately do not lie in their hands but in the hands of God. They must realise that they're only stewards or managers of the state's resources.
Public office is not an avenue for theft and ill-gotten wealth creation, as some have shown in Sierra Leone. It's about selfless service to your nation and people. It's an oath you make to God and man to be upright and diligent in managing the resources efficiently and effectively for maximum national benefit. Understanding this basic spiritual principle is the most important foundation to lie on before embarking on seeking the mandate of the people through peaceful elections.
Why and how must we ensure peaceful elections?
We must ensure peaceful elections because peace is God's idea and forms the basis for national development. Peace secures the future and destinies of nations. Peace builds unity and togetherness. The opposite is true. Disruptive elections destroy lives and properties. Disruptive elections impoverish not just a people but many generations to come. It leads to an uncertain future for children and youth. Trained and productive human capital is lost, and many more setbacks ensue.
How can we ensure peaceful elections?
Peaceful elections are not dependent on just one group alone working to ensure peace but on a multiplicity of bodies, structures, and individuals working diligently to ensure a peaceful process before, during, and after the elections. However, it will take the action or inaction of just one body, group, or individual to disrupt the elections.
To the politicians and their political parties
Election to public office should not be a do-or-die affair, nor is it about winning power at any cost. It is not about character assassination or inciting one group against another. It is not about using hate speech or indecent language. It is a battle of ideas. The battle of winning the hearts and minds of the electorate. The selling of genuine programmes and policies for bettering the lives of citizens.
Elections are about credibility, integrity, and trust in the candidates and teams with the requisite competencies to manage resources efficiently for most people. In ensuring peaceful elections, the conduct of politicians and party members is crucial to a successful election. Candidates declaring themselves winners before the official announcement by the electoral officer can be a dangerous path to take. The Ivory Coast is a good example of how entrenched positions taken by politicians after results are announced can plunge a beautiful country into anarchy. We believe our politicians have learned valuable lessons from the Ivory Coast.
For every competition, there are rules. Let those with the mandate of declaring results be the sole body to do so. Accept the results as announced; don't make trouble because they're not in your favour. This is where true leadership and respect for the rule of law come in. Opposing groups taking entrenched positions, especially the losing sides, do not augur well for national peace.
The Citizenry
This includes all legal members of the state. Registered voters, especially, must be responsible. We must obey the rules as they pertain to nationhood and elections. Voters must know all the processes involved in voting and all that is expected of them, checking and cross-checking for their vital personal information to ensure that everything has been captured.
Exercise your franchise, leave the scene peacefully, and go home to await the results later. Voting grounds are not the place for spreading rumour, campaigning, or arguing. When all comport themselves, a peaceful election is the ultimate result.
Observer Missions/Election Watchers
Observing the processes and reporting the facts is the purpose of this body. With a football game, we may describe them as the match commissioners. These officials watch every aspect of the game and submit a report to the proper authorities.
Some election watchers may have quite a lot of experience from other countries that they can bring to bear in elections. Their positive advice and direction can also help the overall electioneering process.
Ensuring peaceful elections is everyone's business. The peace we all seek must be worked at carefully and diligently. The consequences of not having a peaceful election are very negative for Sierra Leone.
For individuals and parties seeking political leadership, elections are not a do-or-die affair. The nation needs to stay intact even after a very competitive process. The atmosphere will be competitive but must remain peaceful. Whether winners or non-winners, the nation remains one nation, one people, and one country with a common destiny.
Peace is possible when God and man work hand in hand.
25 Key Questions on Transforming Agriculture and Boosting Food Security; SLPP's 2018 Manifesto Promises
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Welcome to our in-depth comparison of Transforming Agriculture and Boosting Food Security. Following the SLPP's 2018 manifesto, "New Direction," Sierra Leone has been on a journey to improve agricultural practices and increase food security over the past five years. It is crucial for us as responsible citizens to evaluate how far we've come and whether the promises laid out in this roadmap have been met.
Sierra Leone Live has taken the initiative to aid this important reflection process. We will provide 25 key questions based on the manifesto's objectives and the achievements reported over the past five years. These questions aim to stimulate thought, trigger conversations, and ultimately help you, the citizens of Sierra Leone, make an informed judgment on whether the SLPP has met its 2018 manifesto targets in the areas of agriculture and food security.
Increasing investment in agriculture: Manifesto quote: "Increase budgetary allocation to the agriculture sector to 10% in line with the Maputo Accord." 1. Was the budgetary allocation to the agriculture sector increased to 10%? 2. Were schemes implemented that compelled people seeking political office to invest in agriculture? 3. Were mining firms encouraged to invest in agriculture as part of their resettlement plans? 4. Were local banks incentivized to lend to the private sector for agricultural purposes? 5. Was the policy and legal framework on land tenure revisited to make agriculture attractive to foreign investors?
Increasing Food Crop Production Manifesto quote: "Improve the seed bank system through rejuvenating the seed multiplication centres to attract reliable private sector players in seed multiplication." 1. Was the seed bank system improved? 2. Was mechanized commercial farming developed and implemented? 3. Were non-traditional crops introduced to diversify crop production? 4. Was the input and output market system reviewed? 5. Were duty-free supports provided to local industries engaged in the fabrication of farm tools?
Increasing Cash Crop Production Manifesto quote: "Adopt the use of improved varieties of cocoa, coffee, cashew, oil palm, and non-traditional cash crops." 1. Were improved varieties of cash crops adopted? 2. Were cash crop cooperatives established and training provided for cash crop processing? 3. Was the capacity of the Standard Bureau upgraded to effectively monitor the quality of cash crops?
Increasing Livestock Production Manifesto quote: "Revive livestock research stations, notably the Teko Livestock Research Centre and the Musaia Livestock Station." 1. Were livestock research stations revived? 2. Were veterinary clinics reestablished in all districts? 3. Was support provided to establish and expand hatcheries?
Improving Water Management Manifesto quote: "Develop productive in-land valley swamps (IVS) and waterways to increase productivity." 1. Was a national soil conservation and management program developed? 2. Was a national irrigation and drainage program developed to reduce dependence on rain-fed agriculture?
Improving Land Management Manifesto quote: "Improve mechanisms of land leases for bio-fuel for the benefit of food production with less or no social conflict." 1. Were the mechanisms of land leases for biofuel improved? 2. Were clear policies and laws relating to the leasing of land developed?
Improving Governance and Research in the Agricultural Sector Manifesto quote: "Develop a robust policy framework and action plan to guide the planning and development of the sector." 1. Were a robust policy framework and action plan developed for the agricultural sector? 2. Was agricultural research promoted through the establishment and strengthening of research institutions? 3. Was the capacity of the Ministry of Agriculture at all levels strengthened?
Re-introduction of cooperativesManifesto quote: "Re-introduction of co-operatives to improve value addition and marketing of food crops, cash crops, and livestock products." 1. Were cooperatives reintroduced to improve value addition and marketing of agricultural products? 2. Were land agreements made public?
As we conclude this comparison, we want to express our gratitude for your interest and participation. Citizen engagement is vital to holding our government accountable, stimulating progress, and ensuring that Sierra Leone continues to thrive. We thank you for taking the time to critically evaluate our nation's journey in transforming agriculture and boosting food security. Remember, every perspective counts, and your voice is a critical element of our national narrative. Thank you for being part of this survey and for your continued commitment to the betterment of our beloved Sierra Leone.
Take the Survey https://sierraleonelive.com/survey/e424b0e4-6490-4dd2-a99c-8a95ddc4fc70/
Transforming Agriculture and Boosting Food Security: Evaluating the SLPP's 2018 Manifesto Commitments in Sierra Leone
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Welcome to Sierra Leone Live, where we strive to empower our fellow citizens with information to help us shape a better future. Today, we delve into a critical discussion: the comparison between Transforming Agriculture and Boosting Food Security in our beloved country. The Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) laid out a robust plan in their 2018 manifesto titled 'New Direction,' a blueprint meant to guide a revolution in the agriculture sector and uplift the nation's food security status. But how far have we come since then? To what extent have we actualized the manifesto's goals?
To aid this assessment, Sierra Leone Live has meticulously formulated 25 questions based on the targets set in the 'New Direction' manifesto. We will delve into each of these questions, providing analysis and context to help you, the citizens, decide if the SLPP met its 2018 manifesto targets. This review will span various sections of the manifesto, from increasing investment in agriculture and food crop production to improving governance and research in the agricultural sector, with the primary goal of fostering a deeper understanding and sparking informed conversations.
Increasing Investment in Agriculture
Manifesto: Emphasizes increasing budget allocation to the agriculture sector, promoting domestic financing schemes, compelling political figures to invest in agriculture, encouraging local banks to lend to the private sector for agricultural purposes, and revisiting land tenure policies.
Achievements: The achievements document mentions a $10 million Agricultural Credit Facility provided at a single-digit interest rate to the private sector. However, it does not mention any changes in budget allocation, land tenure policies, or investment by political figures or mining firms.
Increasing Food Crop Production
Manifesto: Lists a number of strategies for increasing food crop production, including improving the seed bank system, developing mechanized farming, diversifying crop production, reviewing the input and output market system, reviewing farm input regulations, providing duty-free support, promoting public-private partnerships in tractor management, and improving crop varieties and water management.
Achievements: There's a noted increase in rice production with a yield improvement from 1.1 tons/ha to 1.78 tons/ha, and rice self-sufficiency at 75% up from 46% in 2019. The government also provided 410 tractors and enacted policies for seeds and fertilizers, suggesting some level of mechanization and regulatory changes. The establishment of the Sierra Leone Seeds Certification Agency (SLeSCA) may reflect an improvement in the seed bank system. However, there's no mention of other crop types, diversification, input/output market system reviews, or duty-free support.
Increasing Cash Crop Production
Manifesto: Prioritizes improving varieties of cash crops, supporting cash crop cooperatives, training in processing cash crops, upgrading the Standard Bureau's capacity, and supporting plantation establishment and rehabilitation.
Achievements: There is no mention of cash crops in the achievements document.
Increasing Livestock Production
Manifesto: Outlines strategies for reviving livestock research stations, re-establishing veterinary clinics, supporting university and farmer initiatives for expanding hatcheries, promoting maize production for feed inputs, establishing pilot-intensive cattle production areas, providing tertiary-level training in animal health, and establishing livestock clinics.
Achievements: The achievements document does not mention any initiatives or progress related to livestock production.
Improving Water Management
Manifesto: Suggests developing productive In-land Valley Swamps, increasing and rationalizing water resources, developing soil conservation and management programs, and creating national irrigation and drainage programs.
Achievements: There is no direct mention of water management in the achievements, but the drafting of an Irrigation Masterplan may point toward some progress in this area.
Improving Land Management
Manifesto: Proposes improving land lease mechanisms, developing clear land leasing policies and laws, making land agreements public, defining and implementing regulatory frameworks, and improving environmental management mechanisms.
Achievements: There is no mention of land management improvements in the achievements document.
Improving Governance and Research in the Agricultural Sector
Manifesto: Calls for a robust policy framework and action plan, enhancing the capacity of agricultural stakeholders, promoting agricultural research, and strengthening the capacity of relevant institutions.
Achievements: Several policies and regulations have been enacted, including those for Seeds, Fertiliser, Livestock, and Mechanisation, and the Sierra Leone Agricultural Research Institute (SLAARI) was established. This suggests some progress in this area.
Re-introduction of Co-operatives
Manifesto: Plans to improve value addition and marketing of food crops, cash crops, and livestock products by reintroducing cooperatives.
Achievements: There is no explicit mention of cooperatives in the achievements document.
Job Creation for Youth in Rural Areas
This point was not in the original manifesto but is mentioned in the achievements. The establishment of 190 chiefdom youth farms across the country contributing to a total of 3800 seasonal jobs indicates progress in job creation in the agricultural sector.
Efficacy in Service Delivery in the Sector
The manifesto did not directly address this, but in the achievements, an e-voucher system was developed and launched, reducing waste and slippages in input provision to farmers by 35%. Additionally, an interactive voice response system expanded the reach of agriculture advisory services to farmers at lower costs.
Infrastructure Development
Although not specifically mentioned in the manifesto, the achievement document mentions the construction of 169 km of feeder roads, extending market access for farmers.
Policies, Laws, and Regulations
While the manifesto stressed the need for a robust policy framework, the achievement document provides specific enacted policies and regulations supporting a private sector-led agriculture service delivery, including policy for Seeds, Fertiliser, livestock, and Mechanisation.
Resource Mobilisation
There is no specific counterpart in the manifesto, but the achievements document mentions that the government policies and programmes have mobilized over $200 million of partner funds for the sector.
The areas where progress is reported, such as the increase in rice production, the establishment of several laws and regulations, and job creation, indicate some adherence to the manifesto's goals. For instance, the increase in rice production could be tied to efforts to improve food crop production, and the enactment of new policies aligns with the goal of improving governance and research.
The lack of information in the achievement report about other goals, like cash crop and livestock production, improvements in land and water management, and the reintroduction of cooperatives, makes it difficult to assess the full extent of the achievements in relation to the initial manifesto.
The achievements document does not specify any numbers or metrics for some of the stated accomplishments, which makes it challenging to determine the true extent of progress. For instance, while the document mentions that youth farms have created jobs, it does not specify the number of jobs created per farm, or how this number compares to job creation goals.
It's important to note that while the achievement document mentions the mobilization of more than $200 million in partner funds for the sector, it does not detail how this funding was distributed or what specific initiatives it supported.
Efforts to increase investment in agriculture show some alignment with the initial goals, particularly with the implementation of the $10 million Agriculture Credit Facility.
While the achievement document details several important strides, a comprehensive evaluation would ideally include further data and context, including external factors, unforeseen challenges, and detailed performance metrics.
Here are the 25 Questions https://sierraleonelive.com/25-key-questions-on-transforming-agriculture-and-boosting-food-security-slpps-2018-manifesto-promises/
Balancing Aspirations and Reality: A Comparative Analysis of SLPP's 2018 Manifesto Objectives and Achievements in Developing the Financial Sector and Deepening Financial Inclusion in Sierra Leone
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
As we continue our commitment to foster transparency and hold our government accountable, Sierra Leone Live presents a comprehensive review and comparison of the government's objectives outlined in the 2018 manifesto under the 'New Direction," focusing on two crucial domains: Developing the Financial Sector and Deepening Financial Inclusion. These two areas are of critical importance in fostering economic growth, reducing income inequality, and uplifting the socioeconomic conditions of our citizens.
Over the past five years, the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) has implemented various initiatives in line with these aims, and it's now time to reflect and evaluate.
To help you, the citizens, gauge the success of these initiatives and whether the SLPP met its manifesto targets, we have compiled a list of 25 key questions. We designed these questions to measure the impact of these policies and their alignment with the original objectives set out in the 2018 Manifesto. By participating in this survey, you'll be able to compare the aspirations laid out five years ago with the current reality and decide for yourself if the promises were fulfilled. * Capacitating Bank of Sierra Leone: The Manifesto spoke about strengthening the regulation and supervisory role of the Central Bank, improving risk-based supervision of commercial banks, and reviewing the current Banking Act, among others. The achievements document highlights that the Banking Act was reviewed and revised. SLPP enacted a Deposit Protection Bill to insure small depositors against losses from market failures. The reduction in bank risk exposure, with most commercial banks having more than enough Capital Adequacy Ratio and declining non-performing loans, shows strengthened risk-based supervision. * Strengthening Commercial Banking: The Manifesto aimed to make the commercial banking sector more competitive and align it with international best practices. The achievements document shows that the state-owned banks are now stable, with one making a profit. However, there is no mention of the review of policies and laws, development of a Code of Ethics, or strengthening of the Association of Commercial Banks that were identified in the Manifesto. * Expanding Micro-Finance Opportunities to Potential Entrepreneurs: The Manifesto aimed to review policies and laws relating to micro-finance and strengthen micro-finance institutions. The achievements document does not provide specific information regarding these objectives. * Re-establish Development Bank and Strengthen Commercial Banking: The goal was to re-establish the National Development Bank with private sector participation and delink community banks from the central bank and link them with the Development Bank. The achievements document doesn't mention these specific points. * Strengthen Non-Bank Financial Institutions: The Manifesto outlined a comprehensive review of NASSIT, a review of the NASSIT Act, and the development of a framework for regulation and supervision of NASSIT's investment arm, among others. The achievements document shows that an institutional review of NASSIT has been conducted, and management and investment decisions have been improved. However, it does not mention the NASSIT Act review, changes to the Insurance Act 2000, or strengthening of the capital market, as mentioned in the Manifesto. * Improving Training: The Manifesto planned to revise the curriculum for banking training in line with international standards, establish a national school of banking and finance, and organise a yearly conference on the financial sector. There's no mention of these objectives in the achievements document. * Overall Impact on the Sector and Financial Inclusion: The achievements document mentions an increase in the number of adults with a bank account, increased access to digital financial services, increased bank profitability, and increased deposits. However, there is no reference point for these figures in the Manifesto.
While there have been some notable accomplishments that align with the objectives of the New Direction 2018 Manifesto, particularly in the areas of capacitating the Bank of Sierra Leone and strengthening commercial banking, several areas like expanding micro-finance opportunities, re-establishing the Development Bank, and improving training do not show clear progress based on the achievements document. It would be beneficial to have more specific metrics or KPIs to measure the achievement of these objectives more accurately.
Thank you for taking the time to go through this comparison and taking part in our survey. As engaged citizens, your role in evaluating and holding our government accountable is invaluable.
Remember, each of us has the power to make a difference. By engaging in critical discussions and using tools like these, we can continue to push for improvements, strive for excellence, and ensure that Sierra Leone moves in the right direction.
Stay informed, stay involved. Sierra Leone's future is in our hands, and together, we can continue to make it brighter.
Progress Assessment: A Comparative Analysis of the SLPP's 'New Direction' Manifesto and its Achievements in Developing Sierra Leone's Private Sector (2018-2023)
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Greetings, citizens of Sierra Leone.
As an engaged and proactive community, it is our responsibility to assess the progress and performance of our governing body. Here, we're taking a detailed look at the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), specifically focusing on its 2018 manifesto promises related to developing the private sector.
In 2018, the SLPP presented a manifesto titled "New Direction", which contained an outline of ambitious plans and objectives designed to stimulate the private sector's growth and development. It encapsulated this in a series of strategic initiatives laid out on page 14 of the manifesto. As the government now completes its five-year tenure, it is a pertinent time to revisit those commitments and gauge the degree to which they have met them.
Sierra Leone Live has crafted a series of 25 questions based on these manifesto promises. These questions are aimed at fostering an understanding among citizens about the achievements and potential shortcomings of the SLPP government regarding their private sector development goals. 1. Increasing Access to Finance:Manifesto Promise: The government intended to introduce a partial guarantee scheme, strengthen the regulatory framework for Micro-finance Institutions, expand mobile technology for credit access and repayment, re-establish National Development Banks, and establish a fund to provide access to medium and long-term capital for SMEs.
Achievements: The provided achievements report doesn't detail specific accomplishments related to these promises, but it mentions that a credit facility of Le40 billion was provided to over 7,000 beneficiaries through the MUNAFA Fund. It is unclear whether this aligns with the outlined manifesto promises, as we lack specifics on the type and scope of the credit facility. 2. Reducing the Cost and Risk of Doing Business:Manifesto Promise: The SLPP committed to review and modernize business laws and policies, deregulate the investment climate, establish a One-Stop-Shop (OSS) for business registration, implement a land policy, review licensing procedures, and capacitate fast track commercial courts for dispute resolution.
Achievements: The government established the National Investment Board as a one-stop-shop, which can be seen as a realization of the OSS promise. They also formulated several national policies, including the National Agribusiness Policy and Strategy, National Trade Strategy, National Cooperative Policy, Industrial Development, and Special Economic Zone Policy, and enacted the Consumer Protection Act 2020, which potentially addresses some of the regulatory and policy-related promises. However, there are no explicit mentions of specific changes to labour laws, land policies, or licensing procedures. 3. Promoting Local Entrepreneurship:Manifesto Promise: The SLPP proposed to establish a Presidential Initiative on local entrepreneurship and social enterprise, continue supporting business plan competitions, invest in entrepreneurial skills training, develop the capacity of business organizations, and review and implement the Local Content Act.
Achievements: While there's no explicit mention of a Presidential Initiative or continuation of business plan competitions, the government provided capacity building and cash support to over 200 private sector players in the agro-processing space, potentially touching upon the promise of capacity building for business organizations. However, no information is provided on implementing the Local Content Act. 4. Capacity Building:Manifesto Promise: The government planned to enhance its capacity in project identification and trade negotiations, create a forum for engaging the private sector, strengthen the Sierra Leone Investment and Export Promotion Agency (SLIEPA), and deliver priority programmes aligning with international conventions.
Achievements: There's evidence of capacity building and trade negotiation enhancement as the government negotiated several bilateral and international trade agreements, including with the US’s AGOA, ECOWAS, and AfCFTA. Establishing the National Investment Board indirectly strengthens the investment facilitation infrastructure, potentially fulfilling the promise to strengthen SLIEPA. 5. Developing the Infrastructure:Manifesto Promise: The SLPP aimed to develop a framework for road prioritization based on investment potential, improve electricity supply, and re-establish a special industrial zone with uninterrupted utilities to attract investment.
Achievements: The achievements report mentions the launch of the Koya Industrial Zone with the potential for at least 10 factories, which aligns with the promise of establishing an industrial zone. However, there's no information about improvements to the electricity supply or the development of a road prioritization framework.
As we conclude our comparison and analysis, we would like to extend our deepest gratitude to you, the citizens of Sierra Leone, for participating in this review process. Your engagement and awareness are crucial for holding our leaders accountable and ensuring the continued growth and development of our beloved nation.
This process of examination does not end here. We must continue to be aware and informed about our government's performance. Remember, our collective action and shared responsibility are the bedrock of a vibrant and progressive democracy.
Thank you once again for taking the time to look into this survey, and let's continue to strive for a prosperous Sierra Leone together.
Here are the 25 Questions
Evaluating Promises: 25 Critical Questions on the SLPP's Manifesto Commitments to Develop Sierra Leone's Private Sector
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
In 2018, the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) presented to us a vision, a "New Direction," focusing on elevating the private sector and bringing prosperity to our nation. As engaged citizens, it is crucial for us to assess the progress made in achieving the promises laid out in this manifesto.
To facilitate this, we have created a list of 25 questions, carefully crafted to cover each area the SLPP promised to address in their manifesto. These questions seek to examine whether the actions taken over the past five years align with the promises made. Each question corresponds directly to a particular promise, helping us discern how far we have come and where we stand today.
Remember, your involvement helps to shape the future of our nation. By answering these questions, you are contributing to the greater narrative of Sierra Leone, ensuring our leaders are held accountable and our governance remains transparent and answerable.
Increasing Access to Finance "Introduce a partial guarantee scheme to provide loans to high potential private sector entities in order to reduce the cost of finance for investment." 1. Was a partial guarantee scheme introduced to aid private sector entities? 2. Were the regulatory frameworks for microfinance institutions reviewed and strengthened? 3. Has there been an expansion of mobile technology to improve access to credit and repayment? 4. Were National Development Banks re-established to provide equity capital for Sierra Leonean in businesses? 5. Was a fund established to provide access to medium and long-term capital to support SMEs?
Reducing the Cost and Risk of Doing Business "Review all policies and laws governing business and update them in line with best practice" 1. Were all policies and laws governing business reviewed and updated? 2. Were regulatory reforms broadened and deepened in areas like labour laws and property registration? 3. Was the legal and regulatory framework governing business modernised? 4. Was the investment climate deregulated to boost investment and private sector development? 5. Was a One-Stop-Shop established that reduces business registration from 10 days to 2/3 days? 6. Was a land policy implemented to ease leasing, ownership, and disposal of land? 7. Were licensing procedures reviewed and the number of municipal licenses reduced?
Promoting Local Entrepreneurship "Establish a Presidential Initiative on local entrepreneurship and social enterprise" 1. Was a Presidential Initiative for local entrepreneurship and social enterprise established? 2. Has there been continued support for business plan competitions to reward innovative Sierra Leoneans? 3. Has entrepreneurial skills training been mainstreamed and institutionalised at tertiary education levels and business organisations? 4. Was the Local Content Act reviewed and implemented to give preference to Sierra Leoneans in the award of contracts and employment? 5. Were fiscal incentives withdrawn from companies that do not comply with employment and local content laws? 6. Were policies and laws relating to SMEs reviewed?
Capacity Building "Enhance Government's capacity in viable project identification and appraisals, trade negotiations through technical assistance to the Ministry of Trade and Industry" 1. Has the government enhanced its capacity for viable project identification, appraisals, and trade negotiations? 2. Was a forum created for constantly engaging the private sector, especially through Chambers of Commerce? 3. Was the Sierra Leone Investment and Export Promotion Agency (SLIEPA) strengthened?
Developing the Infrastructure "Develop a framework to ensure that prioritisation of roads is based on investment potential of particular areas" 1. Was a framework developed to ensure that prioritisation of roads is based on investment potential? 2. Was the electricity supply in Freetown and all district capitals improved? 3. Was a special industrial zone re-established outside Freetown with an uninterrupted power supply, water, and communications to attract investment? 4. How effective has the Sierra Leone First Policy been in ensuring priority for Sierra Leoneans in businesses and employment?
Thank you for taking the time to involve yourself in this important process. Your input is invaluable and your dedication to Sierra Leone is clear. Your active participation is not just a service to yourself, but to your fellow citizens and to our nation.
We encourage you to continue engaging in such activities and appreciate your commitment to ensuring the growth and prosperity of Sierra Leone. Together, let us continue to build a better future for our beloved nation.
Thank you once again.
https://sierraleonelive.com/survey/e1cdf3ef-60bb-4cff-a0a9-1f969488d6b6/
Assessing the New Direction: A 25-Question Review of SLPP's 2018 Manifesto Commitments on Macro-economic Transformation, Revenue Mobilisation, Public Expenditure Management, Public Debt Management, and Exchange Rate Management,
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By the Sierra Leone Live Team
As part of our commitment to fostering a well-informed and engaged community, Sierra Leone Live has created this special segment where we put forward a series of questions directly sourced from the SLPP's 2018 New Direction Manifesto. This initiative helps all of us evaluate whether they have met the goals outlined in this manifesto.
We believe that active citizenship and informed participation are the bedrock of a vibrant democracy. Your opinions, thoughts, and insights matter to us, and by extension, to our nation. We have prepared 25 pointed questions across various sections of the manifesto, including Macro-Economic Transformation, Revenue Mobilisation, Public Expenditure Management, Public Debt Management, and Exchange Rate Management.
While answering these questions, we ask you to reflect on the progress our nation has made in the years since the manifesto was released and to consider the areas where further work is required.
Macro-economic transformation and Revenue Mobilisation Manifesto Quote: "The overall objectives of the New Direction for revenue mobilization is to increase domestic revenue from the current 11.1% of GDP to 20% of GDP within 3 years..." 1. Was domestic revenue increased to 20% of GDP within the past three years? 2. Was the tax system reviewed and made more transparent and accountable? 3. Were all holders of elective offices and political appointees, including the President and Vice President, paying tax on their earnings? 4. Was a National Tax Policy developed and legislated? 5. Was the capacity of the National Revenue Authority enhanced in tax assessment, collection, and reporting? 6. Were all audit report findings and recommendations implemented? 7. Was the Treasury Single Account (TSA) system implemented?
Public Expenditure Management Manifesto Quote: "The New Direction specific policy actions that will be pursued to manage public spending in an efficient and effective manner are..." 1. Was a standardized overseas travel policy for public service developed and introduced? 2. Was the Ministry of Finance separated from the Ministry of Development and Economic Planning? 3. Was a National Development Monitoring and Evaluation System developed? 4. Has spending on government vehicles and fuel been reduced? 5. Was the decentralization process deepened for efficiency in public spending on social services? 6. Was the authority of the Public Service Commission re-established as the primary authority to recruit civil servants?
Public Debt Management Manifesto Quote: "The New Direction will introduce the practice of annual debt ceilings beyond which Government cannot borrow..." 1. Was the practice of annual debt ceilings introduced? 2. Was external financing of social services limited to grants? 3. Was the institutional and legal framework for accessing external and domestic debt reformed?
Exchange Rate Management Manifesto Quote: "The New Direction exchange rate management strategic objective is to maintain low, stable and competitive exchange rate through increasing exports and reducing imports of consumer goods..." 1. Was the exchange rate maintained as low, stable, and competitive? 2. Was the policy framework for rural banking and financing reviewed to support cash crop production and marketing? 3. Was supportive marketing infrastructure and facilities improved? 4. Was Agro-processing promoted to add value to farm products for exports and maintain low import levels? 5. Was a competitive interest rate sustained to attract foreign capital? 6. Was single-digit inflation maintained to improve the purchasing power of the currency?
Innovative Revenue Sources and Tax Laws Manifesto Quote: "Mobilise resources from non-traditional sources such as issuing of Diaspora Bonds within the context of controlling the debt burden..." 1. Were resources mobilized from non-traditional sources such as the issuing of Diaspora Bonds? 2. Were strategic partnerships with cryptocurrency and crowdfunding platforms developed? 3. Were tax laws, especially rental income taxation, enforced, and has a timely settlement of all tax obligations been ensured?
We wish to express our heartfelt thanks to every one of you for taking the time to engage with these questions. By participating in this process, you are actively contributing to the dialogue and discourse that drives our nation forward. We firmly believe that every citizen's voice has the power to shape Sierra Leone's future. So, thank you for getting involved, and for taking this significant step towards a more informed and empowered Sierra Leone.
Together, let's continue to live, question, and grow for the betterment of our beloved nation.
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Evaluating Progress: A Comparative Analysis of SLPP's 2018 Manifesto Promises Versus Realized Outcomes in Macro-Economic Transformation of Sierra Leone.By the Sierra Leone Live TeamSierra Leone has always had a vibrant political atmosphere, and an important part of this democratic process is the fulfillment of electoral promises. A notable point of reference for measuring the success of a ruling party is its electoral manifesto. Today, we bring to you a comprehensive analysis comparing the New Direction 2018 Manifesto of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) and the list of achievements presented by the same party after five years in office.This political and data analysis aims to evaluate how well the SLPP delivered on the promises in their 2018 manifesto. By using an unbiased approach, we aim to objectively assess the party's performance in several areas, including macroeconomic management, domestic revenue mobilization, public expenditure management, public debt management, exchange rate management, and response to crises.Sierra Leone Live will ask 25 questions to help citizens gauge whether the SLPP met its 2018 manifesto targets. This will enable citizens to take part in an informed discussion about the achievements of the SLPP government, providing a clear picture of the extent to which the administration fulfilled its promises.Analyzing the two documents, the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) made progress on several of the goals outlined in the 2018 New Direction Manifesto. Let's go through the main areas outlined in the manifesto and the corresponding achievements in five years:Revenue Mobilisation:Manifesto: The goal was to increase domestic revenue from 11.1% of GDP to 20% of GDP within three years. Also, they aimed to review existing tax laws, enforce tax laws, and develop a more robust and transparent policy for granting duty waivers.Achievements: SLPP made Progress, with the domestic revenue GDP ratio standing at 15.7% in 2021, which is not quite the 20% goal but certainly an improvement from the 11.1%. New revenue acts have been enacted, and they have made the tax collection process more transparent and digital.Public Expenditure Management:Manifesto: The plan was to evaluate and introduce reforms to strengthen public expenditure management, develop the capacity of the ministries, and reduce spending on the purchase and maintenance of government vehicles, among other actions.Achievements: Several strategies have been implemented in line with the goals, such as the development of the Arrears Clearance Strategy and payroll reforms. They've also upgraded and expanded the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) and developed a new standardized overseas travel policy. These changes show that they've taken measures to manage public spending more effectively.Public Debt Management:Manifesto: The goal was to introduce the practice of annual debt ceilings and to access concessional loans with low-interest rates and long grace periods, among other policies.Achievements: The government seems to have maintained a sustainable approach to borrowing, ensuring that no more than 20% of the external resources mobilized were concessional loans. The medium-term debt management strategy was also updated, aligning with their initial objectives.Exchange Rate Management:Manifesto: The manifesto outlined goals to maintain a low, stable, and competitive exchange rate and to maintain single-digit inflation.Achievements: The government mentioned it maintained a flexible exchange rate regime and intervened in the foreign exchange market to smoothen exchange rate volatility. However, there's no explicit mention of the inflation rate in the achievement document, so it's unclear if the single-digit inflation goal was achieved.Other areas:The New Direction manifesto outlined plans to establish strategic partnerships with cryptocurrency and crowdfunding platforms, but there's no mention of this in the achievements document.A notable achievement that wasn't explicitly mentioned in the manifesto is the implementation of monetary policy and the launch of the Switch for a cashless economy.The manifesto also mentioned developing the capacity of local councils in revenue assessment and collection, but the achievements document doesn't provide details on this.Crises Response Measures: The 2018 manifesto did not directly address crisis response measures; however, the government showed its capacity to respond to crises in the achievements document. They instituted measures to ensure commodity supply, support the importation of essential goods, provide subsidies, support agriculture, and MSMEs, and provide cash transfers to vulnerable groups.After a thorough analysis of the SLPP's 2018 manifesto and its achievements after five years in office, it's clear that the SLPP made some strides in certain areas. However, it's also clear that some areas still require more focus and commitment. We hope that this comparison has provided you, the citizens of Sierra Leone, with a clearer understanding of the SLPP's performance against their original commitments.We would like to thank all Sierra Leone citizens for taking the time to delve into this survey. Your interest and engagement are essential for the growth and development of our nation. We are reminded that our democracy is strongest when our citizens are informed and engaged. It's our hope that this analysis has provided you with useful insights and will encourage further discussion and engagement in our country's democratic process. Thank you and let's keep the conversation going.
Based on the "New Direction 2018 Manifesto," here are 25 questions aimed at ascertaining the achievements of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP).By the Sierra Leone Live TeamFunctional Adult Literacy Education1. Has the government established at least one Functional Adult Literacy Centre using existing school facilities in every chiefdom? 2. Are there special functional literacy programs designed for women? 3. Has there been a review of the development of a curriculum for adult literacy? 4. Have they integrated literacy programs into agricultural and livelihood programs?
Technical and Vocational Education1. Was a polytechnic established in every district capital, fully equipped for technical and vocational education and training? 2. Are there technical and vocational centers in all chiefdoms that provide training in areas relevant to the rural sector? 3. Was the curriculum and certification for TVET reviewed and standardized for government and private service providers? 4. Is there a national apprenticeship scheme providing internships for trainees of TVET institutes and direct training for youth? 5. Was the budgetary allocation and disbursement for technical and vocational education increased? 6. Was a policy adopted for private companies to provide infrastructure, modern tools, and specialized training to TVET institutes? 7. Were District Councils and the private sector granted autonomy to supervise TVET?
Higher Education1. Did the SLPP establish a separate Ministry of Higher Education? 2. Were all statutes relating to higher education reviewed? 3. Have they restructured the university system to employ its own leadership as chancellors? 4. Are there initiatives in place to encourage judicious internal resource allocation and management at universities? 5. Are faculties within universities well-compensated, motivated, productive, and accountable? 6. Was the curriculum of tertiary education upgraded to match skills gained to job requirements? 7. Are there incentive schemes in place to encourage Sierra Leonean writers? 8. Was entrepreneurial education introduced at the university?
Civic Education1. Was a National Programme on Civic Education launched? 2. Were a curriculum and materials for civic education developed? 3. Was Civic Education reintroduced in schools?
General1. Have any mechanisms been put in place to measure the quality and acceptability of local TVET degrees and certificates, both nationally and internationally? 2. Has there been any move to encourage tertiary institutions to invest in profitable ventures and use profits to develop the university? 3. Were any steps taken to develop Research and Development at the University?
SLPP's 2018 Manifesto Versus 2023 Achievements: A Comparative Analysis of Promises and Progress in Adult Literacy, Technical and Vocational Education, Higher Education, and Civic Education
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
In the dynamic world of politics and governance, tracking the progress and impact of political manifestos is key to understanding the performance of elected bodies. In 2018, the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) came to power with a clearly articulated manifesto titled "New Direction." This manifesto aimed to effect meaningful changes across the various sectors of the country, focusing on adult literacy, technical and vocational education, higher education, and civic education.
Now, five years later, it's imperative to assess how the SLPP has performed against the commitments outlined in its 2018 manifesto. This process involves comparing the objectives and plans set out in the manifesto with the reported achievements of the party over its five years in office. To gain a clearer understanding of these achievements and gauge their impact on the citizens of Sierra Leone, Sierra Leone Live will pose 25 targeted questions to the people of Sierra Leone. This approach offers a comprehensive, grounded, and multi-perspective analysis of the SLPP's performance, crucial to creating an informed dialogue on the impact of political actions in the nation. 1. Adult Literacy Education:
The manifesto outlined plans to increase access to adult literacy programs, with plans for literacy centers, programs for women, curriculum development, and integration into livelihood programs. However, the 5-year achievement report doesn't mention adult literacy, which makes it challenging to gauge progress in this area. 1. Technical and Vocational Education:
The manifesto detailed several objectives, such as establishing polytechnics and vocational centers, reviewing and standardizing curriculums, increasing budget allocation, and involving private companies.
The achievement report shows progress in this area. They have established technical and vocational centers in all districts. There's also mention of the establishment and upgrade of technical universities. Introducing an education sector plan and strengthening the Education Management Information System (EMIS) suggest improved oversight, which could be linked to the manifesto's desire to review and standardize the curriculum. However, the report does not directly mention curriculum standardization. 1. Higher Education:
The manifesto proposed establishing a separate Ministry of Higher Education, reviewing related statutes, changing university leadership structures, and encouraging internal initiatives for faculty compensation and resource management.
The achievement report lists several measures aligned with these goals, such as the depoliticization of universities through the University Act of 2021. They have provided free tuition for women studying STEAM subjects, expanded grant-in-aid schemes, increased staff wages, and introduced a student loan scheme, showing an effort towards improving financial support for students and staff. However, there is no mention of the establishment of a separate Ministry of Higher Education. 1. Civic Education:
The manifesto intended to launch a National Programme on Civic education and reintroduce civic education in schools. The achievement report mentions nothing about civic education. 1. Entrepreneurial Education and R&D in Universities:
The manifesto also proposed introducing entrepreneurial education and developing research and development at the university, but the 5-year achievement report does not provide information on these points.
The achievements listed in the report seem to show that the SLPP has made progress in the fields of higher education and technical and vocational education. However, it's unclear how much progress, if any, has been made in adult literacy, civic education, entrepreneurial education, and research development based on the information provided. It would be beneficial to gather more data or request a comprehensive update from the SLPP in these areas.
Let’s conclude
The analysis provided above offers a critical comparison between the SLPP's 2018 manifesto and its achievements over the last five years. It's clear that while strides have been made in certain areas, especially technical and vocational education, and higher education, there appear to be gaps in reporting progress in areas like adult literacy and civic education. These observations raise important questions about the implementation and reporting of political commitments.
We recognize that this analysis is only part of the picture, and we can gain much from the firsthand insights of the people of Sierra Leone. As we move forward to engage the public with the 25 questions, we look forward to deepening our understanding of the impact of the SLPP's governance on their everyday lives.
We would like to extend our sincere gratitude to the people of Sierra Leone for their engagement in this process. It is their responses, and their lived experiences, that will bring a fuller understanding of the achievements and shortfalls of the SLPP, allowing for a more informed, constructive dialogue on our nation's political progress. Thank you, Sierra Leone, for your participation and for helping shape this essential conversation.
Sierra Leone Live Presents: 25 Critical Questions on SLPP's Education Manifesto Implementation
Dear citizens of Sierra Leone,
As we delve into understanding the progress made in our education sector over the past five years, we believe your insights are invaluable.
You are the lifeblood of our society, and your experiences and perceptions form the bedrock of our collective knowledge.
We have thus prepared a set of 25 questions, divided into five categories, that focus on various aspects of the education sector.
These questions are based on the Sierra Leone People's Party's 2018 manifesto, and we seek your candid responses to understand the ground realities better.
The categories are:
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Education Governance and Financing
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Education Financing and Management
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Improving Conditions of Teachers
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Increasing the number of Qualified Teachers
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Increasing Access to Quality Education
Your responses will help us evaluate the SLPP's performance against their manifesto promises and provide a broader perspective on the development of our education sector.
Education Governance (Manifesto Quote: "The New Direction education policies will focus on education governance and financing...") 1. Have you observed a shift from the 6-3-4-4 system of education to the 6-3-3-4?
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Do you believe there is effective implementation of the Free Education Programme for primary and secondary levels?
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Have you noticed an improvement in education planning, management, monitoring, and coordination?
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Are you aware of any new National Education Policy and Action Plan?
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Do you see evidence of a robust policy and legal framework for Public-Private-Partnerships in education?
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Are NGOs/donors more accountable and integrated into public education programmes now?
Education Financing (Manifesto Quote: "Increase government budgetary allocation and disbursement from less than 15% to 20% of GDP in line with the Education for All (EFA) target")
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Have you noticed an increase in the government's budgetary allocation to education?
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Are there signs of improved coordination of interventions by government, donors, and NGOs in education?
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Do you believe there is better management of resources allocated to the education sector?
Improving Conditions for Teachers (Manifesto Quote: "In the New Direction, the SLPP will raise the morale and productivity of our teachers.") 1. Are you aware of any special incentive scheme for Science and French teachers, or those in remote areas and special needs institutions?
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Have you heard of the BEST TEACHER award being introduced at national and district levels?
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Do you know of teachers who have benefited from free university education for their children?
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Have there been functional changes in the Teacher Service Commission that have impacted teachers' career paths?
Increasing Number of Qualified Teachers (Manifesto Quote: "Increase the number of Qualified Teachers")
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Do you know of any teacher training campuses/colleges established in district capitals?
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Have you noticed an expansion and improvement in distance learning education for teachers?
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Are you aware of any program providing free tuition for teacher education?
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Has there been an introduction or expansion of teaching foreign languages, especially French, in teacher training colleges?
Increasing Access to Quality Education (Manifesto Quote: "Introduce free quality education from pre-school to senior secondary school")
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Is there an evident introduction of free quality education from pre-school to senior secondary school?
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Have you noticed development in child-friendly schools with recreational facilities, toilet facilities, and safe places in each district?
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Are you aware of any policy or program to remove the double shift system in schools?
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Have you noticed an improvement in school bus services in urban towns?
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Has there been an introduction of functional district libraries equipped with computers and mobile library services?
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Are you aware of High Schools of Excellence for Science and Technology education being established in all regions?
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Do you see French being made a core subject in Junior and Senior Secondary Schools?
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Have you seen an increase in the number of primary, junior secondary, and senior secondary schools in your district or electoral ward as promised in the manifesto?
These questions are designed to gauge the perceptions of Sierra Leoneans on the implementation of the education promises in the SLPP's 2018 Manifesto.
We sincerely thank you in advance for participating in this survey.
Your insights will play a significant role in the nation's discourse on education and contribute to our shared journey toward a more inclusive and progressive Sierra Leone.
Thank you for taking the time to assist us in understanding the state of our nation's education better.
Kind Regards, Sierra Leone Live Team
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Evaluating Progress: A Five-Year Review of SLPP's Education Promises in Sierra Leone
By the Sierra Leone Live Team
Welcome to Sierra Leone Live, where we are dedicated to fostering a rich dialogue on the state of our nation. Today, we embark on an in-depth analysis of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) manifesto from 2018 and a review of their achievements over the last five years. This exercise aims to ascertain whether the SLPP has fulfilled the promises outlined in its manifesto, particularly in the area of education.
The first phase of our analysis will focus primarily on Basic and Senior Secondary Education, exploring key themes such as governance, financing, teacher conditions, quality of education, and policy changes. In comparing the SLPP's 2018 manifesto with their list of achievements over the past five years, we hope to offer clear insights into the areas where the party has excelled as well as those where further progress may be needed.
Following our analysis, Sierra Leone Live will post 25 pertinent questions for you, the citizens of Sierra Leone. Your responses will provide invaluable perspectives on whether the SLPP has indeed lived up to its manifesto's claims in 2018. We urge all Sierra Leoneans to engage in this important discourse that will shape our understanding of the current state of education and, ultimately, the future direction of our nation.
In subsequent phases of our analysis, we will delve into other crucial aspects of the SLPP's 2018 manifesto and its five-year record. Our next focus will be Adult Literacy Education, Quality Technical and Vocational Education, and Higher Education. We invite all our readers to stay tuned and engage with us on this enlightening journey.
Remember, your voice matters, and together, we can ensure that Sierra Leone continues to move in a direction that upholds the principles of transparency, accountability, and inclusive progress.
The "NEW DIRECTION" Manifesto (2018) Versus CONSOLIDATING GAINS AND ACCELERATING TRANSFORMATION (2023)
Improving Basic and Senior Secondary Education
Upon examining the SLPP's 2018 manifesto and the achievements after 5 years in office, there appears to be some progress and achievements made in some of the areas outlined in the original manifesto. Here's a breakdown of some of the main components: 1. Education Governance and Financing: The 2018 manifesto pledged to enhance the capacity for education planning, management, and coordination, increase government budgetary allocation to 20% of GDP, and develop a new policy to attract additional donor and private sector investment in education. The achievements document reported that 22% of the government budget had been allocated to education over the past four years. This exceeds the manifesto's target, suggesting successful implementation of the education financing and management plans. 2. Improving Conditions of Teachers: The manifesto focused on raising the morale and productivity of teachers through various initiatives like the BEST TEACHER award, a housing scheme for teachers, and free university education for three children of every school teacher with at least 10 years’ teaching experience. In the achievements report, salary increases for teachers, new recruitments, and training were highlighted, with a 45% salary increase planned for 2023–2025. While the achievements align with the general direction of improving conditions for teachers, some specific manifesto points like the housing scheme and free education for teachers' children were not directly mentioned in the achievements report. 3. Increasing the Number of Qualified Teachers: The manifesto planned to establish teacher training campuses in all district capitals, expand and improve distance learning education for teachers, provide free tuition for teacher education, and expand the teaching of foreign languages. The achievements document reports the recruitment and training of 25,000 teachers, but it doesn't specify if the other objectives were achieved. 4. Increasing Access to Quality Education: The manifesto proposed initiatives such as free education from pre-school to senior secondary school, promoting the development of child-friendly schools, expanding school feeding programs, and removing the double shift system within 3 years. The achievements document reports implementing free education, providing school meals for over 600,000 learners, providing sanitary pads to teenage girls, and introducing technology to support remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there's no specific mention of progress on building child-friendly schools or on the double shift system. 5. Policies, Laws, and Regulations: The manifesto planned to revert to the 6-3-3-4 education system, implement a free education program, and enhance education management. It also detailed plans to develop a new National Education Policy and Action Plan, a policy for public-private partnership, an NGO/donor coordination policy, and monitoring. The five-year report outlines several new policies and laws, such as the Basic and Senior Secondary Education Act 2023, a new school feeding policy, and the Annual National Teachers Award program. It also mentions the reintroduction of civics into the curriculum. 6. Education Outcomes: The achievements document reports increased enrolment rates, improved public exam pass rates, improved numeracy and literacy, and decreased teenage pregnancy. These outcomes suggest that the education initiatives implemented during the past five years have been impactful, though it's not clear how they compare with the specific targets set in the manifesto. 7. Inclusion: While the first document doesn't emphasize inclusivity, the second document highlights the passing of a radical inclusion policy allowing access to education for pregnant girls, the disabled, and learners in remote areas.
It appears that the SLPP has made some strides in many of the areas detailed in their 2018 manifesto, especially in education governance and financing, teacher conditions, and increasing access to education. However, some specific manifesto goals were not directly mentioned in the achievements document, suggesting that there may be areas for continued focus and improvement. It would be useful to have more detailed information and data to further assess the extent of progress made.
PRUDENCE AND POPULISM IN SIERRA LEONE POLITICSBy Mahmud Tim KargboA salutary form of populism can challenge the post-democratic rule of elites in Sierra Leone. But can it govern?Prudence might seem like the last virtue that should be consulted in our present climate. To some, it indicates timidity, undue caution, and a moral hesitancy to do the things that are most needed. Others associate it with cunning—the savvy achievement of narrow ends.These popular renditions of prudence need to be informed by their classical dimensions. Such an account of this virtue can improve our politics, guiding those who hold power to exercise it in all of its strengths and limitations. Prudence, Greg Weiner notes in his wonderful study, Old Whigs: Burke, Lincoln, and the Politics of Prudence, "is the virtue associated with reason. It has, in this sense, a deeply normative case, which is to say that the point of prudence is not what Aristotle calls ‘cunning.’"Edmund Burke warned that in poorly ordered democracies, "moderation will be stigmatised as the virtue of cowards and compromise as the prudence of traitors." Sierra Leone's political tenor at certain times, perhaps including our own, separates us from prudence. But that is not because we are more daring or more scientifically certain of our course. Rather, it is due to our moral and political weaknesses. The majority of politicians in Sierra Leone think they know far more than they do. Believing that their ideology and the knowledge it provides will perfect us, they demand less of us than we should. What need is there for virtue and responsibility when you have all the answers and only need to enforce them? One result is that the majority of our politicians, in the first resort, demean those who are our fellow citizens merely because they are locked in disagreement.Prudence, Burke held, is "the god of this lower world." On this score, Weiner says prudence is "inflected with caution but not confined to it, bound to circumstances, and finding expression in the particular yet grounded in the absolute." Aristotle argues that it is a "habit concerned with action under the guidance of reason." Aquinas adds that Providence is "the principal part of prudence," showing us "why things are ordained to their end...Prudence, then, is the habit of thinking, choosing, and acting according to the demands of reason. In civic affairs, those choices involve judgment and deliberation over what matters and what does not, or what at least merits less emphasis. Statesmen must navigate the problems that are upon them with the facts they have, and their judgments could prove to be wrong.The opposite of prudence is the god of abstraction and rationalist certainty, leading us to project ideological rigidity and rashness, if not violence, in political debate. Burke famously confronted the French Revolutionaries, who demanded absolute freedom and absolute equality in disregard of the principles and circumstances of the French government, religion, culture, and history. This was precisely their point—to pull down foundations and rebuild on unreal premises and ideas. Their separation of principle and circumstance was the source of their revolutionary extremism and violence. From a desire for the totality of freedom, liberated from the French past and its constraints, the revolutionary regime ended in absolute tyranny. Burke’s formulation was that "circumstances... give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour and discriminating effect."Can populism govern?Inherently complicating the recovery of prudence for us is the populist moment we labour in. This term is frequently used as an accusation of unseriousness or illiberalism towards a group or party the author dislikes. As John O’Sullivan noted, "liberalism without democracy" is an apt description of the system of government towards which the West has been moving since 1989, and populism is the resistance to it. Sierra Leone is increasingly governed in a post-democratic sense, with bureaucracies and courts imposing their wills or with key issues removed from actual debate by the leaders of one or more parties. Populism challenges post-democratic governance and reopens dismissed or ignored issues.Populism is part of our democratic republic, but so is the republican principle that combines and shapes how institutions should inform both popular sovereignty and populism. The republican principle grounds our Constitution’s legitimacy in the sovereignty of the Sierra Leonean people by selecting their governing officers. All power is derived from the people, and that ongoing consent must be secured.Those who govern, however, are not the people themselves. Rather, elected officials take their cues from the duties and limits defined by the Constitution. The performance of their office is not a mere conduit for the popular will. The justice they achieve must come through the process of lawmaking. And those results should emerge through deliberation, reaching an outcome that may not be the exact one mandated by voters but one that they can endorse, approving its rough approximation to their own.Populism erupts when enough members of the populace believe their leaders have betrayed them. They no longer wish to be governed through institutions that constitutionally exist in a degree of separation from their own will because they think the "republican principle" is no longer efficacious for the achievements of a limited and just government. And this isn’t hard to understand when one considers how many limits and separations of power in the Constitution now seem to exist only on paper and not in the actual procedures and exercised powers of the government.And there are multiple reasons for the people to believe that their elites have governed in disregarding the people’s will for some time. There has been a breakdown between popular sovereignty and republican institutions. Populism, from this view, is an attempt to secure justice when the officers of these institutions have failed. We see a rise in judicial activism, administrative state power, endless and irresponsible spending, and dubious foreign policy connections. And now comes the importation and spread of narcotics, with the national security apparatus monitoring the destruction of the potential human resources of the country despite government claims of human capital investment. Sierra Leone is almost post-constitutional in practice, replete with capricious power that frequently breeds unreliable policy outcomes.But can populism, of the left or the right, govern? Populism’s desire for more direct self-government frequently leads to a politics of outrage that is devoid of respect for institutions. Populism’s inherent, if not fatal, weaknesses are seen in its inability to join its deeply felt need for justice to institutions and to republican principles.The country splits sharply across key issues of lawlessness, the fight against corruption, fiscal policy, favouritism, and national cohesion policy, to name only a few. No one leader or political party is likely to sweep its opponents from the field. Capitulation by either side, given these entrenched divisions, doesn’t appear likely. Those who would lead a democratic republic like Sierra Leone must do so within the tensions, circumstances, and limits that define it.Populism and ConstitutionalismSuch a critique does not ignore that our governing institutions and many policy areas require substantial reform. But prudential populism must account for the elements that obstruct the restoration of constitutional self-government. Populism must join with and be balanced by popular sovereignty and republican institutionalism if it is going to have a salutary effect on our constitutional order.Our annual national deficit is seemingly beyond the reach of political decisions to curtail it. It just grows, and who is the fool to say otherwise?Prudence will recognise no compromise here; to compromise on the Constitution is to lose everything, every opportunity for reform, and our continued existence as a people. But this demands pro-institutional politics that we might call prudential populism. Some voices on the right now extend the populist principle to its breaking point, seemingly calling for a new country. They refuse to serve the God of this lower world. To follow them is to accept an unpredictable set of consequences.Moreover, such prudential populism must work with popular sovereignty to make arguments capable of securing majorities around policies that shape the constitutional republic we want. Part of prudence involves providing counsel and providing explanations to the populace—outraged or otherwise—when they are wrong. Prudence must modulate republicanism to prevent it from descending into a rabble. Election mandates in Sierra Leone won’t be the final word, but deliberation in Parliament in consultation with constituents will be, even as results may not line up, with the most emphatic enthusiasm.Prudence is the virtue most needed by the conservative populist statesmen who would turn back the rolling progressive campaign to strip the republic of its essential nature—its guarantee of ordered liberty for free and equal citizens. This is countered by the altogether rigorous discipline of progressives, who have made it quite clear that they stand for vast amounts of spending even with less accountability. Progressives articulate well the Sierra Leone they want, and they tirelessly work to bring it into being. But their commitment to unreal abstraction opens them to defeat.One issue that prudential populism must reopen is fiscal excess tied to the principle of limitless government spending. Fiscal policy is more than just a policy—it defines the very nature and extent of our government. Do we continue to give a wide berth to individual and associational liberty, or is everything compromised by the reach of government?Dealing with this crisis in government, one that has not been dealt with in quite some time requires a recognition of the circumstances and limitations of the situation. It would also demand rebuilding deliberation within Parliament over the contents of the national budget. This would bring not only the prospect of renewed fiscal probity but also the repair of an institution that has been underperforming in its constitutional role for decades.The wage bill mini-crisis could be an opportunity to begin a prudential process of spending retrenchment. Our annual national deficit is seemingly beyond the reach of political decisions to curtail it. It just grows, and who is the fool to say otherwise? Annual multi-trillion-leone deficits are the new order of business, a problem that will likely get worse as interest rates stay elevated in the presence of such extreme national crowding out of capital markets.One of many circumstantial constraints faced by any would-be fiscal hawk is that Sierra Leoneans prefer vast amounts of national spending. Political compensations are popular despite their escalating costs.A realistic trimming approach acknowledges these stringent conditions and forgoes rhetoric for drastic cuts that are practically unachievable and only turn voters against any spending reductions. There have been numerous attempts by the Sierra Leone People's Party to attenuate national spending since the Ahmad Tejan Kabbah administration. Most have failed or found limited success, being divorced from what voters will accept in cuts and from what legislators are willing to back. The current situation demands acknowledging these difficulties and planning accordingly.What’s possible? Could annual discretionary appropriations be frozen? Could you cut hundreds of billions over the next decade? Perhaps this is too limited. But the point is to lay down serious markers for spending reform while understanding that change will come incrementally through a commitment to no longer accept our unyielding deficits.Prudence demands that we acknowledge the situation we’re in, which spells eventual catastrophe, and devote ourselves to its reform over the long term. While there are limits on what can be achieved now with fiscal retrenchment, the failure to list, detail, and highlight the facts of our fiscal recklessness would be a failure of prudence.This fiscal struggle will go on for years, pursuing necessary ends while taking assaults from every side. This mix of principle and prudence will need to be conducted at a high and honourable level. To achieve it will mean achieving not only fiscal probity but one of the highest ends of constitutional government.
Why does Sierra Leone Need a Politics of the Person?By Mahmud Tim Kargbo.Political philosopher David Walsh highlights the givenness of the person in our hypercritical age.Despite the many and all-too-apparent divisions in our politics today in Sierra Leone, there is one thing that seems to unite us: our near-national tendency to critique. We seem, almost by second nature, to begin an assessment of an idea from a position of skepticism until we decide for ourselves whether an idea has merit. The habit is hard-wired into the way children are taught from an early age: be a "critical thinker," evaluate for yourself, and accept nothing for which you do not discern your own positive reason for assent. The ghost of late President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah is still very much with us: everything that can be doubted ought to be doubted. One must withhold assent until critical reflection has taken place.To be sure, this approach has many important advantages. We ought to be critically evaluating public policies, the possibilities (positive and negative) of new technologies, and the actions of our leaders. Much of our progress in material and social well-being seems, at least partly, to result from this tendency. Certainly, the practice is essential for philosophical analysis—if everyone agrees all the time, philosophy becomes unnecessary. As John Stuart Mill so eloquently argued, only through challenging an idea can its validity be truly established.What is open to question is the national application of the practice. The possibility of critical reflection on an ever-greater share of our lives has resulted in what might be termed an absolutisation of critique. Given the way things have developed technologically, morally, and politically in Sierra Leone society today, there is little left that seems to be an undisputed aspect of the reality within which all of our lives unfold, except the individual’s capacity to critique. This is one of the root causes of our fractured politics.What happens when, through our ever-advancing mastery of technology and the hyper-politicisation of so many aspects of our lives, critical reflection becomes inescapable? For example, it is not outside the realm of possibility that our children will have to choose whether their lives will end in death. The possibilities of the metaverse may pan out to be equally challenging. Witness the new trend in gender reassignment and "nonbinary" sexual identities. There seems to be a smaller and smaller share of our lives that can be counted on as a given. Reality itself is becoming an object of our own creation. In this sense, we have all become reactionaries: nearly every detail of our lives needs to be critically evaluated and, if found undesirable, modified based on our critique.Is there anything left that is simply given? In his most recent work, philosopher David Walsh has written extensively on the meaning of the person, laying the groundwork for a new vocabulary for addressing many of the philosophical, political, and ethical problems of our age. Most importantly, he urges us to reevaluate our politics using a revitalised language that reflects the reality of persons.At its core, the reality of the person means an exploration of the meaning of encounter. Walsh asserts that one can never ask "what is a person", but who is a person? This leads to the insight that prior to every political or ethical question lies a person with whom encounter is possible. Indeed, the person on the "other side" of the question is always the more fundamental reality. But encounters need not be concrete or face-to-face. Persons always transcend the encounter in some sense, never fully known to us. The person is not a problem but a mystery, a threshold to a deeper reality that we can never fully grasp.This approach has implications for Walsh’s approach to philosophy: his method is synthetic, both in how he approaches individual philosophers and in how he engages with the Western tradition in philosophy.Regarding individual philosophers, Walsh always considers the whole person behind the philosophical works with which he engages. Rather than simply casting aside difficult and problematic writers like Nietzsche, Derrida, or Rawls, he knits together a more holistic view, considering their contributions to our understanding of the person. Reading philosophy in this way means trying to penetrate through the sound-bite caricatures of these thinkers and get a sense of the person underneath. This adds up to the realisation that the issues that divide us as Sierra Leoneans can tell us something about ourselves: the deep alienation lying at the core of our modern society in Sierra Leone, our deep woundedness, and the sinfulness at the core of our being.Of course, this does not mean that we should pass over the honest differences we have with these thinkers. Walsh is not a wholly uncritical philosopher. Rather, it means that he strives for a deeper understanding prior to any critique. There is a responsibility to the person prior to any critical engagement. For example, Marx becomes more than the philosophical precursor to the vast human tragedy of Communism: he provides clues what motivated so many persons to commit such evils as were (and are) witnessed under Communist regimes. What deeper longing lies beneath the penchant to turn other persons into political means? Thus, reading philosophers like Marx, Nietzsche, or Rosseau becomes a meditation on the deep longings of persons, tinged by an awareness of the evil that can result from those longings. Walsh shows the responsibility we have to understand the persons behind these philosophies while simultaneously offering a fierce critique of their shortcomings.Walsh also applies this synthetic approach in his reading of Western philosophy, particularly in his reading of modern philosophy. Rather than assuming we took "wrong turn at Descartes Western philosophy as a whole, particularly in his reading of modern philosophy. Rather than assuming that we took a "wrong turn at Descartes" and that there is a deep pathology at the core of modern thinking, Walsh attempts to convey a sense of meaning over the long arc of the history of philosophy. As the title of one of his recent books suggests, modern philosophy ought to be understood as an unfolding of "the luminosity of existence." The very real pathologies of the moment do not merit wholesale rejections of the cultural and intellectual currents that have brought us here; rather, these currents contain within themselves the resources for renewal.All of this has deep implications for how we ought to approach politics in Sierra Leone. In the person's politics, the fundamental issues become encounters in which the givenness of the person behind each question is given pride of place. It means a politics of subsidiarity, where problems are not seen as zero-sum clashes between rival national views but as opportunities for persons to engage as given. Rather than a tribal or regional power struggle between rival identity groups, a politics of the person would be one in which persons rather than labels structure relations: who you are in this fuller sense is immeasurably more important than what you are. Of course, none of this means that we ought to abandon those aspects of ourselves that outwardly manifest the mystery that lies behind our uniqueness. It simply means that they conceptualise these qualities as secondary to the basic, given the reality of persons.A "critical" or "identity" politics in Sierra Leone can only complicate the possibility of encounter, reducing the person to a label that can never contain the underlying reality. Nearly every day, we see examples of how these alternatives turn our politics into ugly, zero-sum power struggles. But this need not be the case. David Walsh urges us to consider the possibility that no description matters more than "person." The person, as given, is beyond all critique.
Sierra Leone which direction? A lack of clarity means a lack of leadership.By Mahmud Tim Kargbo."Grasp the thing; the words will follow." Cato’s pithy advice has little traction in modern Sierra Leone, where politicians routinely deploy word screens to conceal either the bankruptcy of their understanding of the issues facing their people or their cynical manipulation of the truth. Speaking for hours without saying anything substantial has become an essential qualification for advancement in Sierra Leone politics, yet it is a shameless parody of the quality without which leadership is impossible: clarity.Great minds from Plato to Solzhenitsyn have warned of the dire threat posed to civilisation by the corruption of language, but George Orwell charted the dangers for a wider audience in his classic essay, Politics and the English Language, published in 1946. "The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age in Sierra Leone, there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics’. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia."Clarity-in-the-cloud-small would be that those words would reverberate in our chambers of political debate and our deeply dysfunctional workplaces. And as Orwell further pointed out, "But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." This, of course, has become an epidemic in Sierra Leone since independence.Clarity is the sine qua non of leadership; doubt and uncertainty are the tools of misleaders. However, in the 1980s and ‘millennium, another dog-eat-dog, win-at-all-costs mood swept the politics of Sierra Leone and business, with a new vocabulary to justify opportunistic policies that hurt both corporations and people. Words like "New All People's Congress", "Agenda for Attitudinal and Behavioural Change", "Agenda for Prosperity", "New Direction", "re-engineering", "progressive alliance," and "restructuring" tried to hide the fact that many charlatans were simply trying to make a fast buck.That’s when some politicians, business gurus, and pop psychologists decided to resurrect the old modernist literary device of "ambiguity". We were told that "ambiguity tolerance" was good and "ambiguity intolerance" was bad, and that leaders who could live with ambiguity were more creative and resilient. Of course, what they really meant was that it was okay to do whatever works for you at any given time. So, vision and strategy went out the window, and the cynical and deceptive rule of short-termism was upon us. Misleaders in Sierra Leone reveled in this new age of license while their ordinary people, their employees, confused and insecure, suffered terribly and still suffer.This was only one element among many in creating the brave new culture of deceit in Sierra Leone. Developments like the renewed attack on objective truth by people claiming their own arguments to be absolutely beyond question and the burgeoning tsunami of tribalism and regionalism, in which the majority in social positions of trust see others merely as means to their own selfish ends, all tend to promote a milieu of uncertainty, disillusionment, and cynicism.Consider just some of the evidence of the ongoing catastrophe of this age of uncertainty in Sierra Leone: More data and more communication channels than ever have left the general public utterly confused about pivotal issues like education, the essentials of life, globalisation, and national political tensions; the current Sierra Leone economic malaise is not a systemic but a moral failure with guilty parties on all sides and debt rising to inconceivable levels; the decline of Sierra Leone proceeds apace with massive corruption by both the ruling regime and the opposition as the tip of a monster iceberg, while ordinary folks have no idea of what is actually going on. Of course, the malaise is reflected in popular entertainment by a sense of humour that is at once detached and deeply ironic.A manager of a now-closed large multinational mining company complained to me about his inability to read his CEO’s inconsistent directions, and he ruefully acknowledged that the impact on his extensive team of direct reports was sabotaging their performance. When I suggested that his boss’s unpredictable behaviour was probably the result of similarly random instructions from his superiors overseas and the Sierra Leone government, he nodded helplessly and confided that he was deeply concerned about the CEO’s state of mind. How do you address a lack of understanding and, therefore, commitment that is eroding the unity of the company at every level?The loss of clarity has delivered a debilitating loss of trust, and that has undermined the entire social fabric of Sierra Leone. No wonder dysfunctional relationships of all types characterise our society today.People today, more than ever, want answers, and wanting answers means wanting clarity, which is just another way of saying that they want the truth. To pretend that our limited and fallible human reason puts truth beyond reach and that each individual has the right to make their own truth is simply duplicitous. And it plays right into the hands of the manipulators.Most of the people I speak to in the workforce, who represent a substantial and diverse cross-section, are uncertain, uninspired, and motivated only by an ever-hardening survival instinct. No wonder money has soared in the rankings of happiness factors in the workplace over the past few years. Just like in the past, people no longer have leaders in either their workplace or the nation who hold up a vision of a better future built on virtue and a clear pathway to get there. They know only misleaders and non-leaders who have abdicated their responsibilities to focus on their own self-aggrandisement.If this sounds depressing and defeatist, think again, because there has never been a greater opportunity for leaders to stand up and be counted. Of course, counting also demands clarity, but there are definite signs of a silent shift being driven in unexpected quarters. The number of bright and well-qualified young people now choosing to dedicate their lives to helping the less fortunate or to start their own enterprises rather than getting trapped, like so many of their friends, in the petty frustrations of the corporate companies in Sierra Leone is an expression of the desire for clarity.Likewise, the growing disillusionment with sham democratic politics is becoming a real threat, on many fronts, to the social cohesion we have taken for granted for so long. Tragically, state schooling has ensured that the discontent is severely uninformed and therefore more malleable and dangerous, but it is still a timely warning that more of the same will no longer do.Human beings are rational animals; clarity is essential for their well-being. That is why, in this age of misleadership in Sierra Leone, the opportunity for leaders has never been greater or more urgently crying out to be addressed.
"Loyalty To The State Shall Override Ethnic and Other Loyalties," Sierra Leone's 1991 Constitution.By Saikujohn Barrie.As Sierra Leoneans prepare to vote for their president on June 24, I think I should write this piece to remind the Sierra Leoneans who are level-headed of their duties as citizens as espoused in the 1991 Constitution.I am happy that I am capable and have the capacity to discuss both legal and journalistic issues anytime and anywhere.Firstly, I want to remind my compatriots that Section 13 of the 1991 Constitution states, "Every citizen shall—(b) cultivate a sense of nationalism and patriotism so that loyalty to the state shall override sectional, ethnic, tribal, or other loyalties."I am compelled to remind my fellow Sierra Leoneans about this section of our constitution because, for the past months, I have noticed a pattern of dishonesty and loyalty to political parties as opposed to loyalty to the state being demonstrated during political discussions.Additionally, I think if there is any time Sierra Leoneans should be reminded about loyalty, it is now. Sierra Leoneans need to be patriotic and genuinely advance the interests of the country instead of parochial political, tribal, regional, and other interests to the detriment of the state.In as much as the constitution espoused the fundamental human rights and freedom of the individual, wherein Section 15(b) guaranteed freedom of conscience, expression, assembly, and association, this should not mean that loyalties should be attached to political parties rather than the state.In my view, most of the political party supporters are more loyal to their political parties and their political leaders than to the state of Sierra Leone. The thirst for political influence, money, and other personal interests has blinded most Sierra Leoneans compatriots. People no longer recognise truth and reality as long as they are the beneficiaries of the state's loot.In addition, some people just want to be associated with the powers that be, even if they suffer the most.What I have noticed for the past ten or so years is that most times the opposition tends to speak on behalf of the suffering masses in the country, but as soon as they catapult to power, the way they perceive and deal with national issues changes.When they assume power, they completely change into non-listening human beings who are arrogant, aggressive, wicked, and careless about the plight of the poor Sierra Leoneans. This should not be the reality of our thinking and behaviour in Sierra Leone.Being a legally minded professional journalist, Section 11 of the 1991 Constitution states, "The press, radio and television and other agencies of the mass media shall at all times be free to uphold the fundamental objectives contained in this Constitution and highlight the responsibility and accountability of the Government to the people."In light of the above, I will always continue to exercise my constitutional responsibility by highlighting the responsibility and accountability of the government to the people of Sierra Leone.As I have been doing in the past, I will always focus on holding those in power to account, no matter the labeling and name-calling.To me, I will always strive to cultivate a sense of nationalism and patriotism so that my loyalty to the state will always override sectional, ethnic, tribal, or other loyalties.On this note, I remind Sierra Leoneans that loyalty to the state should override ethnic and other loyalties.
Who will do justice to leadership in Sierra Leone?By Mahmud Tim KargboThus, you can see it plain:Ill guidance is the cause of the ill-fame.The world has earned, this wicked world of pain.Bad leadership, not nature, has gone to rot in you.Dante in The Divine Comedy, Book II, Canto XVI (transl. Clive James)IN A COUNTRY GROWN CYNICAL about politics, it is easy to forget that the essential purpose of government is justice. And if the leadership of the nation entails that primary responsibility, so too does leadership in the workplace, community, and home. The coincidence of the demise of leadership at every level of society and the flagrant erosion of justice in Sierra Leone at large is a signal reminder of the ancient truth that without justice, there is no leadership.All the major issues of our day represent violations of justice: dysfunctional democracy, corporate malfeasance, financial crisis, people trafficking, violence, social dysfunction, and middle-class decline. In the workplace, excessive workloads, low wages, insecurity, intimidation, inadequate health and safety measures, disruption, disengagement, disloyalty, distrust, state-planned corruption, and more all reflect the erosion of justice and the failure of leadership.Inevitably, when honest dialogue is stifled by cynicism, sophistry, and state-protected bootlicking, many people will roll their eyes and ask, "Ah, but what is justice?" Most of them will be unaware that the question has muddled minds since the dawn of civilisation. Yet from the start, while people struggled to define the concept, they all instinctively knew injustice when they saw it, as we all do, in the realities of everyday life in Sierra Leone.Social-justice Of course, the old disputes over the meaning of justice remain. It’s ironic that hardly anyone today has heard of Thrasymachus, yet many in Sierra Leone will agree with his cynical definition of justice as "nothing but the advantage of the stronger." Celebrities get away with murder, corporations buy influence and bully employees, politicians are a law unto themselves, and money lets wealthy people do things that would get them into serious trouble if they were poor.So the ancient controversy endures between those who maintain "might is right", and those who insist that "right is right", between the advocates of cynical expediency and those who recognise a moral standard that binds both weak and strong, rich and poor, in Sierra Leone. Tragically, few people today know of Socrates’ defiance of the Sophist’s "might is right" argument or Plato’s classical definition of justice as "suum cuique", giving to each person what is due to him or her. This dictum explains why injustice involves depriving a person of what belongs to him or her by right. The very essence of justice is a debt that has to be paid.According to this common-sense understanding, justice amounts to the restoration of the proper order among people in a community or country. It is a dynamic process in which the debts constantly incurred in the undertow and upheavals of everyday life are paid and socio-economic equilibrium is restored. Augustine noted that without justice, the state becomes nothing more than robbery.Justice presupposes that human beings have certain natural rights that precede the authority of the state. If such rights do not exist, then there would be no justice apart from man-made laws, and there would be no way of judging the actions of governments. And man-made laws gave us Nazi death camps, apartheid, slavery, and other legal monstrosities.The suum cuique recognises that justice depends on natural law and that bad laws can be adjudged as the perversions that they are.The claims of classical Natural Law are controversial in the climate of moral relativism today, but they are limited and rational. Natural Law appeals to human reason and maintains that there is common ground on which people, even from different cultures, can develop rational arguments for the just settlement of disputes. Objective moral principles can be known by all people through rational arguments built on premises about human nature and Sierra Leone that do not depend on religious, tribal, or cultural standards.The first principle of natural law is: seek good and avoid evil; do good to others; injure no one; and give each person their due. Sound philosophy, common sense, and science clearly specify what is good for us and what is bad for us. As rational, relational animals, human beings need meaning, purpose, freedom, knowledge, respect, community, work, and material sufficiency in order to flourish and should not be deprived of them. By precise contrast, meaninglessness, futility, enslavement, ignorance, contempt, isolation, unemployment, and poverty diminish and destroy humanity.The concept of natural rights is primordial and was recognised as self-evident by classical philosophers and even some modern thinkers like Locke. A natural right is an inalienable possession that belongs to each of us as human beings, flowing from our recognition of the realities of personhood, human dignity, morality and law, and mutual obligations.However, the defective foundations of modern philosophy promoted the denial of human nature, initially in theory, but ultimately in practice. The 20th century heard Sartre intone, "There is no human nature", and witnessed totalitarian tyrants behave as if there were no human rights. Inevitably, when one rejects the rational conclusions of natural law, one is left with the cold utilitarian expedient: mold people any way you wish if you have the power. And Ivory tower professors, power-hungry politicians, and callous corporations have been doing precisely that ever since in Sierra Leone.Justice is the great challenge for leadership in every field in Sierra Leone because the purpose of leadership is human flourishing, which starts with a proper understanding of the meaning and purpose of human life. Beyond the more spectacular violations of justice, the proportions of the crisis are readily discernible in the many injustices perpetrated daily against ordinary people in the workplace and communities.The near extinction of courtesy and civility reflects the repudiation of basic social obligations by most people today in Sierra Leone. Backstabbing, so common in our country, was once condemned as a violation of justice because it used deceit to deprive another person of work, friends, support, and respect; derision too used to be regarded as an injustice as it shamed another person, undermining their dignity and social standing; Lying and cheating are other serious injustices sniffed at today in Sierra Leone, regardless of the damage they do; the undermining of free speech by political correctness is another insidious violation of justice in our everyday lives; by definition, the self-gratifying promiscuity causing such widespread psychological damage and social dysfunction is injustice in many guises; and the forgotten obligations of respect for parents, teachers, doctors, soldiers, and the police, once models of integrity and people whose selfless service created debts that could never really be paid in full reveals how far short of a truly just society we now fall.These seemingly minor injustices create the social milieu in which many much greater injustices are perpetrated in Sierra Leone and all too frequently go unchallenged. The failure of leadership at every level of society brought us to this juncture, and only leadership, standing firmly on the principle of justice, can restore the harmony and vibrancy of communal life in Sierra Leone.Justice is a principle on which all people should stand. Capitalism and socialism are not principles but socio-economic theories that give rise to specific policy commitments, and the same is true of conservatism, liberalism, and libertarianism in the political arena. Capitalists, socialists, and the rest should be flexible in their policies—and we know they are very adaptable when it suits them—but non-negotiable in principles, like justice.When they treat their theories and the policies that flow from them as principles, refusing to make concessions under the principle of justice, they expose themselves as ideological, automatically imposing restrictions on rational debate. And while they try to define justice in the confused categories of utilitarianism or contractarianism, they generate only the seemingly irreconcilable divisions currently tearing Sierra Leone apart.In the workplace, a manager who has no interest in the well-being of employees, caring not a whit about financial hardship, long hours that eat into family time, anxiety about job security, and other common workplace woes, plainly does not understand justice and therefore no meaningful commitment to leadership. He merely fuels poor performance in business and the social dysfunction that then swells the tax burden and the size of the government.Justice is a condition of human flourishing, and it is one of the Cardinal Virtues. The advancement of justice requires first the renewal of the life of virtue in Sierra Leone and, therefore, the reintroduction of the humanities in schools and universities. This remains the only way to inspire informed reflection on the human condition, as manifested in all times and all places in Sierra Leone: by helping the young to know what it means to be human and teaching them to rationally question authority and strive for justice.The 19th-century British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, observed,"National injustice is the surest road to national downfall."His warning applies equally to people in social positions of trust, community, and business, and at this critical moment in history, everyone should ask this simple question: In my roles as a politician, civil servant, parent, neighbour, business leader, and citizen, am I promoting justice in our society, or am I one misleader?
Strengthening the Financial Sector: Has the SLPP Delivered on Its Promises?By the Sierra Leone Live Team.As the June 24, 2023 elections approach, Sierra Leone Live investigates the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) government's progress in implementing its 2018 manifesto promises. In this article, we explore Part II, "Transforming The Economy - Developing the Private Sector," with a particular focus on strengthening the financial sector.The financial sector plays a critical role in promoting productivity and economic growth. The 2018 SLPP manifesto highlights the importance of a strong, sound, and effective banking system to increase access to both short-term and long-term capital for investment purposes. Several challenges faced the sector, such as weaknesses in the central bank, weak infrastructure, inadequate bank coordination, shortage of skilled professionals, and insufficient technological resources.The SLPP's "New Direction" aimed to address these issues by focusing on six key areas:1. Capacitating Bank of Sierra Leone: Strengthen regulation and supervisory roles, improve risk-based supervision, review the current Banking Act, rationalize remittances, develop ICT infrastructure, strengthen payment systems, develop a manpower development plan, and create policies for foreign currency lending. 2. Strengthening Commercial Banking: Review policies and laws, support government-owned commercial banks, strengthen the Association of Commercial Banks, and develop a Code of Ethics for the banking industry. 3. Expanding Micro-Finance Opportunities: Review policies and laws, strengthen Micro-Finance Institutions, and design and implement a credit guarantee scheme for SMEs and agriculture. 4. Re-establishing Development Bank and Strengthening Commercial Banking: Re-establish the National Development Bank, delink community banks from the central bank, and link them with the Development Bank. 5. Strengthening Non-Bank Financial Institutions: Review NASSIT, develop a framework for regulation and supervision of NASSIT's investment arm, review the Insurance Act 2000, strengthen SLICOM and SLIA, improve insurance supervision and regulations, strengthen the capital market, and develop policies for issuing long-term government debt. 6. Improving Training: Revise the curriculum for banking training, establish a national school of banking and finance, and organize an annual financial sector conference.
As Sierra Leone Live investigates the SLPP's progress in achieving these aims, we will examine the following:* Has the central bank's capacity been improved in terms of staff competency, systems, and technology? * Are there noticeable changes in the regulatory and supervisory framework for commercial banks, microfinance institutions, and non-bank financial institutions? * Has the re-establishment of the National Development Bank taken place, and are community banks effectively linked with it? * Are there new training initiatives and institutions for the financial sector, and has the sector's curriculum been revised in line with international standards?
The investigation will provide an unbiased assessment of the SLPP's achievements in strengthening the financial sector, enabling voters to make informed decisions in the upcoming elections. The financial sector's development is a critical component of economic growth, and it is essential to determine whether the SLPP has delivered on its promises in this area.In the coming weeks, Sierra Leone Live will provide an in-depth analysis of the SLPP's performance, shedding light on the progress made in developing a robust financial sector and offering an evidence-based evaluation of the party's efforts in achieving its manifesto objectives.
By Mahmud Tim KargboFirst published 24th November 2020.Almost everyone who talked to the Fambuleh family of Kerry Town, the town's head man (Misbao Kamara), the town's youth chairman (Saidu Kamara), and other residents of Kerry Town were appalled by the alleged display of organised police harassment and intimidation. While the Local Unit Commander and the Operations Officer at the Waterloo Post Office police station attempted to explain or defend the police actions, the evidence of grave abuse of power was so strong that defense to right-minded nationals was rendered implausible.The actions of Assistant Inspector General of Police, Patrick A.T. Johnson, at Gbade, Kerry Town, had the earmarks of classic police abuse: lethal weapons at Kerry Town, unlawful detentions, and other intimidating tactics used by members of the Sierra Leone Police against defenseless civilians in a matter in which AIG Patrick A.T. Johnson allegedly grabbed land from the Fambuleh family, an event infused with pain and oppression, and carried out with an attitude of impunity. For some, the event echoed many similar events in the past. Responding to the King incident, a senior police officer declared that "the problem of abuse of power in Sierra Leone policing is real." For many others living in Kerry Town, it was a first-time eye-opener, a window into a world of official violence that could not be squared with our cultural and political norms under a “New Direction” government.Allegations of police abuse in their quintessential form: several heavily armed police officers often broke into Kerry Town without a judicial warrant, ransacked houses, and terrorised Kerry Town occupants, making derogatory slurs as they proceeded in their intimidating tactics with an intention to ensure the Fambuleh family backed off from what they say is their private land. Villagers said that sometimes arrests are made until it pleases AIG Patrick A.T. Johnson before they release the detainees. Many believe these allegations by the people of Kerry Town against AIG Patrick A.T. Johnson state a cause of action under Sierra Leone's laws. We must legally counter such a blatant abuse of power without state approval or authorisation undertaken by a senior police officer in a private matter.Unfortunately, Kerry Town residents have not realised their expectations. Going two years and many legal battles, the abuses by AIG Patrick A.T. Johnson against the Fambuleh family and Kerry Town residents continue unabated. Arrests and detentions of Kerry Town youth and the daily controversial presence of police in the land from Waterloo Post Office Police Station focused attention once again on the problem of police abuse and showed the continuing existence of the practices and policies that cause it. AIG Patrick A.T. Johnson claimed he was the rightful owner of the land and that he inherited it from his father. However, Kerry Town stakeholders said they’ve never seen AIG Patrick Johnson or any of his claimed relatives at Kerry Town. They continued, "One Abu Sillah Bangura brought Johnson into this whole land issue in 2019 to make money at the expense of ethics."An essential question that emerges from this abuse of power action by AIG Patrick A. T. Johnson is whether the institution, program, and principles we have developed to empower the police in Sierra Leone are also adequate for controlling the police. We must also ask whether, in our society, which relies substantially on the courts to regulate and control governmental behaviour, the legal response to police abuse is sufficiently sensitive to the institutional nature of the problem.Enforcing proper restraints on police power is an essential thing for our society under President Bio’s government. Our society cannot harbour both a fear of governmental abuse and a tolerance of repressive measures, the latter reflecting a belief that police excesses are necessary to combat crime. The pervasiveness of violence, the lack of social cohesiveness, and sharp disparities in privilege, wealth, and power supply fertile ground for crime and social unrest. Frustration with disorder and crime leads to a public acceptance of extra-constitutional police practices. Because police abuse is most often directed against those without political power or social status, they dismiss and ignore their complaints.Acceptance of a certain level of police abuse is a predictable majoritarian response to crime, upheaval, and threats to the status quo. The true test of our society's commitment to constitutional constraints is how the government and the courts respond to these systemic deviations from constitutional norms. If we examine current police conduct in light of this test, the response of the government and the courts has been insufficient. We have manifested an indifference to documented abuses, and we have fostered official violence through social, political, and legal structures. reinforce patterns of unlawfulness. We know much about the principles of no accountability and organisational control, yet we often cannot apply these basic precepts to law enforcement officials.
First Published on November 28, 2020.By Mahmud Tim Kargbo.Kerry Town Headman (Misbao Kamara) said dozens of Sierra Leone Police officers from the Waterloo Post Office, Police Station, charged into a group of youth standing near an intersection in Gbadi, Kerry Town, and arrested several of them, in a chaotic scene that stunned other onlookers. Saidu Kamara, Kerry Town Youth Chairman, said they were protesting to resist AIG Patrick A. T. Johnson from surveying the land they alleged he grabbed from the Fahnbulleh Family. As the group was protesting, officers confronted them. Pictures of the police action circulated widely, prompting sharp criticism from elected officials, activists, and on social media that the officers had used unnecessary force in a purely civil matter. Residents at Kerry Town said several youths that appeared to be filming the officers were arrested or chased into the bush.Speaking to me on condition of anonymity, a source at Waterloo Post Office, Police Station, said that officers were responding to a “large disorderly group obstructing AIG Patrick A. T. Johnson from surveying the land in question.” The source added that people were often taken into custody, but they’ve never taken statements from them or charged them in court. The source confirmed that officers at the said police station often responded to the Kerry Town land issue after receiving noisy complaints from their boss. However, the source refused to say who this boss is. Other stakeholders said the police did not appear to be provoked before they rushed into the protesting youth. They said protesters did not appear to be lawless, and they did see people tripping and falling as they scrambled to get away from the area. "ln addition to the disproportionate response, it was totally unprovoked,” they said. They concluded, “The bottom line is that bystanders and peaceful protesters at Gbandi, Kerry Town, protesting against AIG Patrick A.T. Johnson from surveying their personal land which he now grabbed, were charged at by police and thrown to the ground in a really disturbing escalation of force by law enforcement.”As a matter of public policy and constitutional law, one would expect that the conduct of AIG Patrick A.T. Johnson would be subject to strong condemnation. Indeed, a pictorial portrayal of the event at Gbadi, Kerry Town, would probably inspire reactions similar to those generated in other democratic dispensations when police are abusing the rights of their nationals. Yet, in Sierra Leone’s real world of civil rights litigation and police administration, are we still expecting to find just the opposite under the “New Direction” government of President Bio? A good deal of the misconduct may not be remediable in the courts and, as an internal administrative matter, little if any evaluative or disciplinary action would be taken against AIG Patrick A. T. Johnson and other officers in the Kerry Town abuse of power. In fact, as we will see, their actions were a predictable result of police policies and legal doctrine that subordinate individual rights to police power.It is unlikely that the Sierra Leone Police command officials would critically look into the Kerry Town abuse by one of their senior officers. It is also unlikely that the "Force for Good” would take remedial action against one of their senior officers. The failure of the Sierra Leone Police Force to evaluate practices such as the "use of intimidation and harassment" by one of their very senior officers against civilians undermines individual officer accountability by providing implicit departmental approval of these questionable practices.The department's failure to investigate allegations of abuse, or to impose appropriate punishment, would lead the reasonable police officer to assume that even repeated violations of citizens' rights would be condoned within the department. The failure to hold AIG Patrick A. T. Johnson and other officers at the Kerry Town abuse accountable for their prior misconduct is a direct link to the abuse of the Fahnbulleh family. The deleterious consequences of the department's failure to monitor and discipline these officers run far wider than the encouragement it might give them to continue to abuse civilians. The message that violence and abusive conduct will be ignored is also sent to every other officer on the force.
SLPP 2018 Manifesto: A Promise to Transform the Agricultural Sector in Sierra LeoneBy the Sierra Leone Live TeamThe agricultural sector, which makes up most of the country's employment and accounts for about half of its GDP, is the foundation of Sierra Leone's economy. The SLPP laid out its strategy to transform it in its 2018 manifesto. Sierra Leone Live will look into whether the SLPP has kept its promises and accomplished the objectives outlined in its manifesto as the June 24, 2023 elections draw near.With its vast lands, varied agro-ecologies, high agro-biodiversity, plentiful rainfall, and many rivers, Sierra Leone has an ideal agricultural climate that may support the production of food for both domestic use and export. Small-scale subsistence farming and other biophysical and socioeconomic limitations that restrict food production and self-sufficiency are the sector's prominent features.According to the World Food Programme (WFP) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 49.8% of households in Sierra Leone did not have enough food to sustain a healthy and active lifestyle. With 38.5 percent of the population underweight, the nation is third in the world for hunger.A strong food security strategy, easy access to financing, poor land management, insufficient value addition, poor roads, a lack of market information, limited human capacity, and low investment in agriculture were among the major issues the SLPP manifesto cited as facing the agricultural industry. The National Sustainable Agricultural Development Plan (NSADP) of the APC administration could not adequately address these problems.The SLPP sought to transform the agricultural industry as part of the New Direction set forth in the manifesto by producing food in a sustainable and diverse manner, creating gainful jobs, and preserving the natural resource base. Increasing agricultural investment, raising food and cash crop production, enhancing livestock production, and improving irrigation, water management, land management, governance, and research were among the top priorities.The SLPP had plans to boost domestic finance initiatives, work with mining companies, encourage local banks to lend to the private sector for agricultural objectives, review land tenure rules, and raise budgetary allocation to agriculture to 10% in accordance with the Maputo Accord.The manifesto provided several recommendations for enhancing food and cash crop production, including the establishment of a seed bank system, the adoption of commercial farming that is mechanized, the diversification of crop production, a review of the input and output market systems, and the rehabilitation of feeder roads.The SLPP recommended revitalizing research stations, reopening veterinary clinics, assisting hatcheries, encouraging maize production for feed, and constructing pilot areas for intensive cattle production in order to increase livestock production.The manifesto also included recommendations for better governance, agriculture sector research, and management of water and land. The creation of fertile Inland Valley Swamps (IVS) and waterways, the expansion of agro-climatological activities and water resources, the creation of a national soil conservation program, and the strengthening of agricultural stakeholders' capacities were among the key projects.It will be critical to evaluate whether the SLPP has been successful in putting these policies into practice and whether they have improved the agricultural sector as Sierra Leone Live looks into the party's performance. Has Sierra Leone's food security, self-sufficiency, and the number of malnourished people decreased because of the SLPP's efforts? Has the government improved infrastructure, like roads and veterinary facilities, boosted investment in the field, and extended research? Have new laws and rules been passed to safeguard landowners and promote international investment in agriculture?Sierra Leone Live will examine the SLPP's achievements in the agriculture sector in further detail during the following weeks. Our aim is to offer an unbiased assessment of the party's performance so that Sierra Leoneans can vote on June 24, 2023, having made an informed decision.Stay tuned for our upcoming analysis.
Assessing SLPP's Progress in Strengthening Democratic InstitutionsBy the Sierra Leone Live TeamIn the 2018 SLPP Manifesto, Part IV focuses on "Improving Governance - Strengthening Democratic Institutions." As we approach the June 24, 2023 elections, Sierra Leone Live will investigate whether the SLPP has achieved its aims as set forth in its manifesto.The manifesto acknowledges that at the end of the Civil War, the SLPP established several democratic institutions, including the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR), the Political Party Registration Commission (PPRC), the National Electoral Commission (NEC), the Independent Media Commission (IMC), and the National Commission for Democracy (NCD). However, it notes that these institutions have been weakened due to government interference and patronage.The challenges faced by these institutions include a lack of competent human capital, politicization that undermines their operational focus and independence, and the failure to create new vital national institutions to support the deepening of Sierra Leone's democratic culture. For instance, the Independent Media Commission and the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) have been criticized for failing to fulfil their mandates as neutral and objective entities, resulting in a loss of public trust and confidence.To address these issues, the SLPP outlined a "New Direction" in its manifesto, which includes the following specific actions:1. Review laws and policies guiding the functioning of democratic institutions to restore their autonomy and independence. 2. Increase the role of non-state actors in the management of democratic institutions. 3. Enhance the transparency of the operations of democratic institutions. 4. Develop the capacities of democratic institutions through adequate funding, qualified and competent human resources, and efficient and effective systems and procedures. 5. Support the budgetary needs of democratic institutions without seeking to control their operations.
In the coming weeks, Sierra Leone Live will investigate the SLPP's progress in implementing these measures, providing a comprehensive assessment of the party's achievements and shortcomings in strengthening democratic institutions. This evaluation will cover:* Reforms and policy changes implemented to restore the autonomy and independence of democratic institutions. * The extent of non-state actor involvement in managing democratic institutions and the impact of this involvement. * Transparency improvements in the operations of democratic institutions, and the resulting increase in public trust and confidence. * Capacity building efforts, including funding, human resources, and procedural enhancements in democratic institutions. * Changes in the financial support provided to democratic institutions without compromising their autonomy.
By examining these areas, Sierra Leone Live aims to offer an unbiased and in-depth analysis of the SLPP's performance in improving governance and strengthening democratic institutions. This investigation will provide valuable insights for the electorate, enabling them to make informed decisions at the ballot box on June 24, 2023.As Sierra Leone continues to navigate the complexities of democracy, the success of the SLPP in reinforcing these institutions will play a critical role in shaping the nation's political landscape and fostering a more inclusive, transparent, and accountable governance system.
SLPP's Progress on Water and Sanitation Infrastructure Development in Sierra LeoneBy the Sierra Leone Live Team.Sierra Leone Live is dedicated to investigating the SLPP's performance in fulfilling its manifesto promises as the June 24, 2023 elections approach. This article focuses on Part V of the 2018 SLPP Manifesto, "Developing Infrastructure: Increasing Access to Water Supply and Improved Sanitation." We will examine the SLPP's goals and objectives in this area and report on whether they have delivered on their promises.
According to UNICEF and WHO, having access to clean drinking water and improved sanitation is a fundamental human right. These organizations have determined that improving water and sanitation access promotes good health, reduces mortality rates, and lowers teenage pregnancy and school dropout rates. Despite being endowed with substantial rainfall and numerous rivers, Sierra Leone's population faces challenges accessing clean water and sanitation facilities.
According to the manifesto, only 43% of the population has access to safe drinking water (86% in urban areas and 26% in rural areas), while only 13% have access to improved sanitation (24% in urban areas and 6% in rural areas). Pipe-borne water supply is largely limited to Freetown, with rural areas relying on contaminated surface water.
The SLPP's manifesto highlights several challenges to water supply and sanitation infrastructure, including inadequate water in dams, poor distribution networks, institutional arrangements, deforestation, maintenance issues, and poor coordination between various MDAs. To address these issues, the manifesto outlines specific policy actions for urban and rural water supply and sanitation.
For urban water supply, the SLPP aims to construct a new water reservoir for Freetown, rehabilitate the water distribution network, introduce flow meters, speed up institutional and regulatory reforms, and strengthen the maintenance culture and capacity of the Guma Valley Water Company. For rural water supply, the SLPP plans to construct boreholes, gravity water systems, and solar water pumping schemes; develop local councils' capacity, and improve coordination between international agencies and NGOs.
In terms of urban sanitation, the SLPP proposes carrying out a study to develop a central sewage system, enforcing the change from pit latrines to pour flush or full flush in cities, reintroducing special cleaning days, expanding public-private partnerships in garbage collection, introducing recycling and incinerator facilities, and implementing a rainwater drainage system. For rural sanitation, the manifesto suggests establishing a rural sanitary inspectorate, implementing a National Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) program, and developing communities' capacities to construct latrines in rural areas.
Sierra Leone Live will investigate the extent to which the SLPP has achieved these goals and objectives in water and sanitation infrastructure development. We will conduct an unbiased SLPP's Progress on Water and Sanitation Infrastructure Development and assessment of its performance, examining the progress made, challenges faced, and future prospects for improving access to clean water and sanitation for the people of Sierra Leone. As the June 24, 2023, elections draw closer, we will report on whether the SLPP has delivered on its manifesto promises and provided the necessary infrastructure improvements to ensure a better quality of life for Sierra Leoneans. Follow this link to visit the Ministry of Water Resources website.
Investigating the SLPP's Fight Against Corruption and Quest for Accountability in Sierra LeoneBy the Sierra Leone Live Team.As Sierra Leone approaches its June 24, 2023 elections, Sierra Leone Live takes a critical look at the Sierra Leone People's Party's (SLPP) 2018 Manifesto and investigates whether the party has achieved its goals, particularly in fighting corruption and improving accountability. In this analysis, we delve into Part IV of the manifesto, which deals with improving governance by fighting corruption and enhancing accountability.Corruption has long plagued Sierra Leone, posing a significant challenge to national progress, development, stability, and security. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) identified corruption as one of the main causes of the civil war. Despite the establishment of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) in 2000 by the SLPP government and its empowerment with independent prosecutorial powers in 2008, and further amendment in 2019, national development remains perennially constrained by corruption at various levels of administration.The manifesto highlights the absence of political will in addressing corruption, exemplified by Parliament's failure to scrutinize public accounts audits submitted by the Audit Service Sierra Leone (ASSL). As a result, a culture of impunity for corrupt practices has been entrenched. The ACC has been stymied in acting on audit reports tabled before Parliament, for fear of incurring its displeasure.The SLPP's manifesto acknowledges the pervasiveness of corruption in Sierra Leone, including bribery, embezzlement, mismanagement, procurement irregularities, and conferring unlawful or wrongful advantages. These corrupt practices manifest in various forms, such as inflation of government contracts in return for kickbacks, bid rigging, collusive tenders for public contracts, examination malpractices, corporate fraud, falsification of accounts and certificates, stealing of public funds, and perversion of justice.According to the manifesto, Sierra Leone faces several challenges in combating corruption. These include limited integrated approaches in public funds and services management, lack of progress in the structure of incentives, methods of evaluation, recruitment procedures, and human resource management. Corruption remains rife despite amendments to the anti-corruption law. Government ministers who were found guilty of corruption charges and fined have returned to active public service, often perceived as "sacred cows" of the President and his party.The SLPP's "New Direction" strategy aims to treat corruption not only as a governance issue but as a national security threat. It outlines several measures to combat corruption, such as reviewing the ACC Act, strengthening the ACC's investigative and prosecutorial mandate, developing value systems, implementing a robust merit and reward system, categorizing corruption based on its economic costs, ensuring the full implementation of ASSL's annual audit recommendations, committing to the Access to Information Act, and enhancing inter-agency cooperation.Sierra Leone Live is currently investigating the SLPP's Fight Against Corruption and whether the SLPP has been successful in implementing these measures and if they have had a significant impact on reducing corruption and improving accountability in the country. This investigation will examine the actions taken by the SLPP government since 2018, assess the effectiveness of these actions, and determine if the SLPP has achieved its goals as outlined in its manifesto.As part of this investigation, Sierra Leone Live will consult with various stakeholders, including civil society organizations, development partners, and government officials, to gain a comprehensive understanding of the progress made in the fight against corruption and the improvement of accountability. This unbiased report will provide the public with an in-depth analysis of the SLPP's performance on this critical issue and help inform voters as they prepare for the June 24, 2023 elections.
SLPP's Pledge to Improve Governance: Has the Party Delivered?By the Sierra Leone Live Team.Part IV of the 2018 SLPP Manifesto emphasizes the party's commitment to advancing the rule of law and promoting justice and human rights in order to enhance governance. Sierra Leone Live will look into whether the SLPP has accomplished the goals outlined in its manifesto as the country approaches the elections on June 24, 2023.The judiciary in Sierra Leone received harsh criticism from the previous APC administration because of claims of executive branch constitutional violations and a sharp decline in public trust in the legal system. In order to restore public confidence and assure independence and impartiality, the SLPP's New Direction sought to completely restructure the judicial system and the way justice was delivered.Poor service delivery, limited access to justice, insufficient resource allocation, staffing shortages, and capacity restrictions are some of the major issues mentioned in the manifesto.The SLPP's proposed actions to address these challenges include:1. A new justice and rule of law system for Sierra Leone in the twenty-first century is one solution put out by the SLPP, along with increased budgetary support for the judicial sector. 2. Introducing legislation that will strengthen the justice system's independence and increase access to justice. 3. Educating paralegals to support the industry in rural areas where access to attorneys is scarce. 4. Enhancing and expanding the Legal Aid Program's capacity to better serve persons in need of legal help. 5. Encouraging social interaction with the Sierra Leone Bar Association to improve the provision of justice. 6. Enhancing the Judicial Service Commission to operate an impartial judicial system effectively and bring it up to international standards. 7. Establishing a productive collaboration between the justice system and civil society. 8. The Law Reform Commission should be strengthened and given adequate funding. 9. Creating specialized human rights courts inside the legal system and enforcing a bail and sentencing policy based on human rights. 10. Asking the Commonwealth for technological support to improve the justice system. 11. Reviewing legal education and advocating for actions to create a reliable, impartial, and efficient system for regulating legal education and practice in Sierra Leone. 12. Separating the positions of Attorney-General from Minister of Justice.
Sierra Leone Live will look at how the SLPP is doing with these programs and projects as the elections get closer. The investigation will determine how effectively the party has improved governance, advanced the rule of law, pushed for justice, and protected human rights.It is crucial to remember that assessing the SLPP's success in this area requires considering all facets of the justice system, including institutions, legislation, and service delivery. The study must also consider the party's working environment in terms of politics, society, and the economy.The public will receive the facts they require to cast an informed vote in the coming weeks from Sierra Leone Live's balanced report on the SLPP's advancements in enhancing justice and governance.The research will show if the SLPP has fulfilled its manifesto commitment to advance the rule of law, advance justice, and protect human rights in Sierra Leone by looking at the party's accomplishments and faults.Visit Enhancing Justice Delivery in Sierra Leone for more insights into Sierra Leone's Justice Sector
SLPP's Environmental Management Promises: Success or Failure?By the Sierra Leone Live TeamThe Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) unveiled an expansive manifesto in 2018 that outlined their goals for enhancing the nation's environmental management. Sierra Leone Live will look into whether the SLPP has succeeded in this respect as the June 24, 2023 elections draw near.We now summarize the 2018 SLPP Manifesto's section on environmental management.Deforestation, biodiversity loss, climate change, poor sanitation and waste management, land degradation, soil nutrient depletion, and pollution from mining activities are just a few of the environmental problems Sierra Leone is dealing with.Sustainable development, poverty reduction, health and education systems, and food security of the nation are all impacted by these problems. The Sustainable Development Goals are particularly at risk of climate change, which has a disproportionately negative impact on vulnerable groups like women and those living in fishing and farming communities.The "New Direction" for environmental management outlined in the SLPP Manifesto focuses on four key areas:1. Ecosystem Protection, 2. Environmental Governance, 3. Sustainably managing forest resources, and 4. Environmental Education.
Ecosystem Protection: The manifesto outlined plans to safeguard vulnerable ecosystems and biodiversity hotspots, as well as to ratify and uphold the terms of various environmental and climate change conventions. It also called for the completion of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) and Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs) by major mining companies and industrial facilities. It also stressed the promotion of energy use and conservation and the importance of environmental issues in land allocation decision-making procedures.Environmental Governance: The SLPP committed to reviewing the 2010 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Act, amending many policies to include measures to mitigate land degradation, observing industrial compliance with environmental laws, and establishing independent agencies for meteorology and disaster management. A flood risk management strategy, a strategy and policy for combating climate change, and ensuring environmental sustainability across sectors were also among its objectives. The party also proposed A National Environment Fund and an environmental court.Developing a National Program for Regenerating and Shared Management of Forest Cover and Related Products, Providing Alternatives to Wood and Biomass Products for Energy Sources, Operationalizing a Sustainable Financing Mechanism for Carbon Trade, and Strengthening Public-Private Partnerships for Forest Conservation are some commitments made by the SLPP to sustainably manage forest resources. They sought to strengthen the Forestry Division's capabilities and update the 2015 Forestry and Wildlife Acts.Environmental Education: The SLPP committed to stepping up its information and education efforts to discourage actions that hurt the environment and to support the inclusion of environmental education in curricula at schools, colleges, and universities.As the elections get closer, Sierra Leone Live is committed to looking into how the SLPP is doing regarding keeping its environmental management promises. Our unbiased assessment will offer perceptions of the advancements accomplished as well as areas needing more focus.Stay tuned for a thorough analysis of the SLPP's performance in achieving the lofty objectives outlined in its 2018 manifesto.Climate Change and Sierra Leone: Also Check Un.org
Evaluation of the SLPP's ICT Infrastructure Development Progress as the Elections ApproachBy the Sierra Leone Live Team.The 2018 SLPP Manifesto acknowledged the significance of ICT (Information, Communications, and Technology) infrastructure development in Sierra Leone. The manifesto emphasized the critical role that ICT plays in enhancing human life, fostering economic growth, and boosting a nation's competitiveness. As the elections on June 24, 2023 approach, Sierra Leone Live is committed to investigating whether the SLPP has accomplished its stated goals.Despite having a monopoly in the sector, Sierratel, the state-owned telecommunications company, had performed poorly over the years, according to the manifesto's analysis of the situation. The manifesto highlighted the rapid decline of landline telecommunications technology and the ascendance of mobile networks. With fiber optic cables in the country in 2013, the manifesto expected a substantial decrease in communication costs and continued expansion of the sector.The manifesto identified several obstacles, such as political interference, ineffective regulation, and a lack of transparency in the telecommunications industry. The increasing demand of the younger generation for data bandwidth and real-time communication with their global peers was also identified as a challenge.To address these challenges, the SLPP's New Direction proposed several measures, including depoliticizing the National Telecommunications Commission (NATCOM), liberalizing the sector, providing good regulation and an enabling business environment, establishing an Electronic Governance system, and expanding public access to ICT, especially for the rural poor. In addition, the manifesto emphasized the significance of science education, community radio stations, and ICT equipment availability incentives.Sierra Leone Live will examine the following aspects as part of our investigation into the SLPP's progress in developing ICT infrastructure:1. NATCOM's efficiency and independence: Has the SLPP successfully depoliticized NATCOM, allowing it to carry out its duties effectively and efficiently? 2. Sector liberalization and regulation: What steps have been taken to liberalize the telecommunications sector, and has the regulatory environment been improved to stimulate the growth of the sector? 3. Electronic Governance System: Has the SLPP implemented an Electronic Governance system to electronically manage government operations? 4. Public access to ICT: Have measures been taken to increase public access to ICT, especially in rural areas, and to provide computer training and facilities in public libraries, schools, and other educational institutions? 5. Community radio stations and ICT equipment availability: Has the SLPP encouraged the establishment of community radio stations and provided incentives for ICT equipment availability? 6. Science education and technical workforce development: What targeted policies have been implemented to promote science education in schools and colleges, and have they resulted in a growing pool of technical and scientific labour? 7. Broadband access and rural telecommunications: Has the SLPP enhanced broadband access throughout the nation and enhanced rural telecommunications, customer choice, and affordability?
In the coming weeks, Sierra Leone Live will publish a comprehensive and unbiased report on the SLPP's performance in developing ICT infrastructure, shedding light on the party's success in addressing the challenges outlined in its 2018 manifesto.
In order to uphold justice, law, and order, Sierra Leonean society has long given its police the power to enforce the law while maintaining public safety. They often praised this power in books, on the radio, and on TV, where we see police respond to violent criminals with violent actions of their own.But the allegations of Assistant Inspector General Patrick AT Johnson, a senior police officer, using his influence within the police force to deploy armed police officers, irate youth, one Mrs. Bah and her family, and allegedly ordering frequent armed police patrols in a private land dispute against the Fahnbulleh family after a court interlocutory injunction order are much less dramatic, and the boundaries of legitimate police use of force are much more constrained than defined in popular culture.The police have the right to enforce the law when it is required. But the fact that this power can and does get abused is still a big problem for police departments and a big public policy issue.Extreme examples of police abuse often spark major public debate. Videotapes of the late Alpha Kargbo allegedly fired by a member of the Sierra Leone police at the Hastings community in another land dispute, as well as alleged reports of Patrick AT Johnson, a senior police officer in the Gbaday Town, Kerry Town, land dispute, using armed police officers to harass, intimidate, unlawfully arrest, and detain civilians after he allegedly grabbed their land and was taken to court for trespassing on their property, capture public attention and raise troubling questions about police abuse of force in our democratic society.Are these things one-off problems in the way the police in Sierra Leone do their jobs, or are they extreme examples of a bigger problem that plagues the police in Sierra Leone? Does the fact that these things tend to happen to poor and weak people show that the law is not being applied fairly to a certain group of Sierra Leoneans? What measures can be taken to constrain police abuse by a senior police officer, and which are likely to be most effective?Such questions have been brought up by the media, our politicians, police scholars, and administrators, and they have been discussed. However, the voices of rank-and-file police officers and supervisors have not been heard. This silence is particularly important, given the vast changes in organisation, tactics, and philosophy that have occurred in Sierra Leone policing over the past three decades. At the center of these changes has been the shift from undemocratic ways of policing, which allow a senior police officer to use his power in the police force to abuse his position and push his own personal interests, to democratic professional ways of policing, which frown on such actions, and to new ways of policing in the community.Alleged police brutality and power abuse in Gabday Town and Kerry Town over a private land dispute between the Fahnbulleh family and Assistant Inspector General of Police, Patrick AT Johnson, after a court interlocutory injunction order, is one of the most disturbing and violent problems a country can have. It shows that the system isn't able to deal with such horrible things and inadvertently does the same thing by not taking the right steps against them.A country must not deprive its citizens of their rights, even those being tried or found guilty. It should be a well-established fact that no one stands above the law, not even those who carry out the process of delivering justice. Torture, even for criminals, is never justified because some laws protect everyone's human rights!The police are the law enforcers who ensure that the laws are implemented at the ground level. They ensure the safety of the people and are essentially the centerpiece of public order. They are the first people who are contacted when someone does something wrong.The police are the government's official representatives in charge of maintaining peace and stability. They work for the good of society, so they try to make people trust them and help keep people safe and improve their lives as on-the-ground officials. Most of all, they are responsible for safeguarding the rights of the citizens.The police are the most important law enforcement agency in a country. Their job is to keep the public safe and orderly, enforce the law, and stop, find, and bring criminals to justice. So, the police do the things that are important for the safety of a country's citizens.Misuse of Power:The law says that the police have to protect the rights of the people and keep them safe. But, as is alleged in Gbaday Town, Kerry Town, the powers at their disposal are being used against the people they are supposed to protect because one of their senior officers allegedly grabbed land for personal gain and is now using them to harass and intimidate the other party who brought him to court? What if the saviours themselves become the perpetrators and misuse the powers vested in them to torture the people of Kerry Town and strip away their rights for impunity because they want to please an alleged land grabber that is one of them?This is in stark contrast with the nature of the work they are sworn to carry out, but this act of misuse of power has been prevalent for a very long time. People have often used the powers they had to avoid legal consequences or moral and legal accountability after doing something wrong.Several reports from Kerry Town say that Assistant Inspector General Patrick AT Johnson ordered police to be rough with people. People in the community and the Fahnbulleh family are said to have been mentally tortured with inhumane methods, even though the Sierra Leone constitution forbids this kind of treatment.Maybe these kinds of cases don't get much attention because the Waterloo police tried to hide them by making false accusations and claims. It appears the Waterloo police station, in order to please Assistant Inspector General Patrick AT Johnson, has institutionalised crime in their own profession while trying to control or eradicate the same from society.Even fewer of these horrible crimes are reported because Kerry Town residents are afraid to speak out against the Waterloo police. I was told the police use their muscle power to silence the citizens living in Kerry Town who raise their voices against them. When I asked police officers at the Waterloo Police Station about this claim, they said it wasn't true.But if you want to file a complaint against the police, you have to go to the police. This shows the dilemma and fears that a regular person faces when reporting these kinds of crimes. This clearly shows how hard it is for a common man in Kerry Town to get justice against their own ‘protectors.’What is Torture?Amnesty International says that someone is "tortured" when a person in a position of power causes someone else severe mental or physical pain or suffering for a specific reason. The police will sometimes use torture to get someone to confess or give them information. Sometimes torture is simply used as a punishment that spreads fear in society.According to the United Nations Convention Against Torture,Torture can be defined as an act by which severe pain or suffering is inflicted upon a person physically or mentally for information or a confession.It also includes punishing a person who may be a suspect in a crime. Torture also happens when a public official or someone working in an official capacity agrees to or does nothing to stop someone from being scared or forced during an investigation.Is torture legally a crime under the Sierra Leone Constitution?According to Section 20 subsection 1 of the Sierra Leone constitution,No person shall be subject to any form of torture or any punishment or other treatment which is inhuman or degrading.So, it's clear that the Sierra Leone constitution has laws against what the police are said to have done at Kerry Town, but the problem is how easy it is to get around these laws by giving different reasons for what they did or by hiding what happened.Since the interlocutory injunction order from the High Court of Sierra Leone was slammed, there have been increasing allegations of incidents of misuse of the powers vested in them in the Gbaday Town, Kerry Town private land disputes between the Fahnbulleh family and Assistant Inspector General Patrick AT Johnson. Since Assistant Inspector General Patrick AT Johnson is said to have taken the land of the Fahnbulleh family, there have been more claims that the Waterloo police have abused their power.All efforts to reach Assistant Inspector General Patrick AT Johnson to get his side of the story proved futile.Subscribe to our Newsletter for weekly news summaries in you email:
By Mahmud Tim KargboMining continue to be an important driver of economic growth in many developing countries. There is growing consensus, however, that society must manage mining to catalyse broad-based economic development whilst simultaneously achieving maximum social and economic benefits. Yet in Sierra Leone, concerns remain on whether the liquidated Kingho iron ore company now called Leone Rock which is the operator of the railing port at Pepel and uses the infrastructure for only one million two hundred and fifty thousand United States dollars per year, is actually declaring the true volume of it exports to the government of Sierra Leone.With these concerns, the government of Sierra Leone determine to ensure a win-win situation for investors and Sierra Leoneans in the mining sector, processed and assessed the iron ore exports developmental impacts, both positive and negative, from which indicators were developed for an independent rail and port company. This idea of an independent rail and port company stressed the need to focused on issues of equity, how government will enhance actual revenue in the exportation of iron ore in a transparent and accountable manner, poverty alleviation and the potential opportunity for Sierra Leone to have home grown industries that will produce steel bars for export.The government of President Bio realised that as a country, it is not always that Sierra Leone gets the opportunity to have a grand breaking chance to effectively use it resource and liberate its people from poverty. To avoid a repetition of the 1972 odd experience in our mining sector, when the Sierra Leone Selection Trust company (SLST) handed over the diamond mines to Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone took 51% free carry interest without any capital investment in to the mines. Whereas the private sector company that operated the National Diamond Mining Company (NDMC) held 49% with 100% capitalisation of the NDMC investment. This arrangement, coupled with the massive corruption of Jamil Sahid Mohamed Khalil, late President Siaka Stevens economic predator, the National Diamond Mining Company couldn't be true in to any ambitious diamond mining. Sierra Leone was forced to only focused on surface alluvial mining because the National Diamond Mining Company lacked the required capital to engaged in large scale mining. This inaccurate decision from the previous government of late Siaka Probyn Stevens, destroyed the economy of Sierra Leone and made alluvial diamonds catalyst of the eleven years civil war.Today in 2023, a similar opportunity has arisen. Sierra Leone has an important mining Infrastructure ( Pepel port and Tonkolili rail ) which can open the mining sector, increase revenues and enhance transparency and accountability in the export of solid minerals from Sierra Leone. The government of President Bio has taken the bold step to release the pulse of monopolist from this important infrastructure to enable it development expansion for multi users purposes. Over the years, companies have reported subjectively export volumes to government from which meager royalties are paid to the state. With an independent rail and port company, all solid minerals leaving in Sierra Leone can now be tracked, and properly quantified to enable accurate and fair taxation.Tonkolili mine has 12.8 billion metric tons of iron ore which is divided in to north and south concessions. South concessions is presently operated by Kingho or Leone Rock mining company. Where as the north which holds the largest deposit is remote and unexploited because it lacks 25 kilometers of rail connection to the existing Tonkolili rail. What this means is that Kingho or Leone Rock controls the entire 12.8 billion metric tons preventing other players from accessing the remaining 7 to 8 billion metric tons in the Tonkolili north concession. Having an independent rail and port company that will provide haulage services for all the mining companies in the northern province will ensure that government properly taxes all minerals, create more opportunities for Sierra Leoneans and increase revenues by breaking the present Kingho monopoly chain.
The failure of a very senior police officer to respect the order of an interlocutory injunction granted in the High Court of Sierra Leone has caused us to react with dismay and make additional demands. The police abuse of authority in the land dispute between Mohamed Fahnbulleh ( Plaintiff/Applicant) and Assistant Inspector General of Police Patrick Johnson (Defendant/Respondent) at Gbaday Town, Kerry Town has persisted since the beginning of the case and has even worsened after the High Court of Sierra Leone, under Hon. Justice Manuela A.J. Harding issued an order on 27th July 2022 instructing both parties to stay away from the land.Despite the court order issued in the land dispute between Mohamed Fahnbulleh and Assistant Inspector General of Police Patrick Johnson in Gbaday Town, Kerry Town, incidents of police abuse of authority against Mohamed Fahnbulleh have continued. There have been frequent, well-armed police patrols and the deployment of armed officers on the land without the approval or knowledge of the judge handling the case. Anonymous sources from the Waterloo Police Station have stated that these patrols often occur after receiving a phone call from A.I.G Patrick Johnson. It has also been reported that A.I.G Patrick Johnson made an official report at the Waterloo Police Station claiming that he is facing trespass on his land.However, it is unclear who A.I.G Patrick Johnson made the report against or if he provided any documents to support his claims. It is also unknown if the Waterloo Police Station head is aware that A.I.G Patrick Johnson is currently facing legal action on the land by Mohamed Fahnbulleh. Why did A.I.G Patrick Johnson allegedly report the land case to the Waterloo Police Station when it is already being addressed by a competent court of law? Why are there constant armed police patrols and the deployment of armed officers and irate youth on the land, despite the interlocutory injunction order from the Sierra Leone High Court? Why do police at the Waterloo Police Station continue to patrol the land without the knowledge of the court, even after Mohamed Fahnbulleh provided evidence of the interlocutory injunction order from the High Court of Sierra Leone?The alleged actions of a senior police officer, such as the continued abuse of authority and disregard for a court order, have led to concerns about the public trust being compromised. Police departments in Sierra Leone have policies in place that outline appropriate conduct for officers and regulate the use of police power. These policies should not be disregarded by police departments or their leaders, as they are in place to uphold both department policies and constitutional standards. While there is generally accountability for acts of abuse of office and other forms of wrongdoing within police departments, it appears that there is little to no accountability for those who allow such an environment to persist. It is unclear how a few policemen were able to disobey a court order without the knowledge of their supervisors or other department officials within the Sierra Leone Police Force. Even individuals with good intentions can make poor decisions when placed in the wrong circumstances. Poor supervision, intense peer pressure, and an organisational culture that sends conflicting messages can lead honourable men and women to behave in dishonourable ways.Police departments, like corporations, universities, labor unions, and government agencies, face the challenge of creating a culture that promotes the balance between achieving organisational goals and upholding fundamental principles of decency and fairness. Values within the Sierra Leone Police Force are not only outlined in documents but also derived from traditional police culture. However, there is often a disconnect between policies and practices, and a lack of proper monitoring and response from police management. If current police leadership does not actively work to establish a culture of integrity and accountability, officers may continue to develop their own, potentially harmful, culture.The alleged actions of A.I.G Patrick Johnson highlight the importance of strong commitment from police leadership to uphold democratic values and prevent abuse of office practices. Police administrators should implement and enforce policies that regulate conduct, as well as systems for collecting and analyzing data on police-citizen interactions such as complaints of abuse of power and use of force incidents. This information can inform policy, guide recruitment, and training, and promote accountability to restore and maintain public trust in the police. It is often a lack of internal controls rather than individual officers that allows for problems of misconduct and abuse of power to persist within police departments. While it is important to recognize that most police officers in Sierra Leone are honest and dedicated public servants, it is also important to acknowledge that they, along with the public they serve, can be victims of misconduct by their colleagues. The police have a significant amount of power and influence in the lives of Sierra Leonean citizens, and it is crucial that they use this power responsibly.The way in which police officers respond to and interact with citizens, including their respect for the law and the methods they use to enforce it, has significant consequences for democracy and the quality of life for citizens. As Jerome Skolnick states in his essay On Democratic Policing, "Order achieved through democratic policing is concerned not only with the ends of crime control but also with the means used to achieve those ends." It is important to consider whether police abuses are inevitable in the pursuit of crime control and to examine the views of police officers on issues such as the code of silence, whistle-blowing, and the influence of class on police behavior. Additionally, it is important to explore effective ways to prevent abuse of authority by the police.This case will offer insight into the views of Sierra Leone's police officers on issues of abuse of authority and other important questions.Download the pdf version of the court order belowIN THE HIGH COURT OF SIERRA LEONEAttempts to obtain AIG Patrick Johnson's perspective on the matter were unsuccessful.
The late Philip Neville consistently exposed many wrongdoers in Sierra Leone using his trailblazing investigative journalistic skills for many years. However, there is an increasing amount of anger going around immediately after it was reported that the late journalist passed away after a mysterious hit by a motorcycle rider.It came into the minds of some and one of them wrote:"So, this journalist named Philip Neville gets hit by a motorcycle rider in a masquerade at his Kosso village and later passed away and we’re supposed to care? Don’t get me wrong, such mysterious death is and always will be wrong and warrants investigation by the Sierra Leone Police force, if it's reckless conduct, it is illegal and a violation of God’s laws, which means I wouldn’t do it and most decent Sierra Leoneans wouldn’t either. But ask yourself this question: Are you really sorry a ‘journalist’ is dead? Who allegedly called Philip Neville's phone before he moved away from the masquerade crowd to answer the call and was later hit by a motorcycle rider?I don’t care about this dead journalist because journalists in Sierra Leone don’t care about the truth, so what good are they alive?” The writer goes on to detail a story that ran in The Standard Times about a corrupt government official who used abusive language in responding to a commentary.“And you know what?” he wrote as I squeezed him further to expose his bitterness about a man who wasn't perfect, but spent a good number of his years on earth busy executing his profession professionally for the good of his country and people.“If this guy completely imploded and recklessly killed all of Media One’s executive staff, I wouldn’t approve of what he did but I also wouldn’t shed a tear, either. The truth is that most recklessly killed or murdered victims have it coming. It is a fact that most recklessly killed victims know the person who recklessly killed or murdered them and they usually did or didn’t do something that just about assured their reckless killer or murder … That is what has changed in Sierra Leone; today if a journalist is recklessly killed or murdered, nobody outside the radical left and the politically corrupt media is really going to care. Frankly, the media has lost its usefulness to our society, so why would we ever miss them?” But do right-minded nationals really expect the past and current corrupt people in social positions of trust in Sierra Leone and beyond to care about the mysterious death of a journalist that exposed their rots for decades? Maybe some will, but others see it as an opportunity to vent their years of deep-seated anger against his dead body. Yet they can express their deepest sympathy to the family members of rogue politicians and corporate rogues when they passed away, but not when a journalist who spent his time on earth fighting to ensure the oddities that are holding our nation backward are corrected for the general good.There are generally accepted moral principles that discourage speaking ill of the dead. These principles often stem from the belief that it is not respectful or compassionate to speak negatively about someone who is no longer alive to defend themselves or to offer their perspective on the matter. In general, it is considered more compassionate and respectful to speak kindly of the dead and to focus on the positive aspects of their life and character. It may be in your interest and outright beneficial to you to speak of the wrongs of Philip Neville at this time. But is this of any help to the national discourse?A few weeks back was the Presidential press cocktail hosted by President Bio and it was in my every intention to write a piece for this page espousing the benefits of local news and praising a country that would weave such a right into its founding documents.But my workload got a little heavy and the day I usually set aside for extra writing projects — was booked with something else: The Society of Professional Journalists webinar. I know that Philip Neville and many quality journalists get it wrong sometimes. But I honestly have never met a group of professionals so fiercely dedicated to their jobs that they’d sacrifice their lives to write and talk about how to get it right in Sierra Leone.I know the political landscape has inexplicably tangled itself into questions about the independent media’s existence. It’s raised even the most fundamental questions of what our job means, when we’re allowed to do it, how well we do it, and if we should be allowed to do it at all. It doesn’t extract from that discussion the complicated differences between what we have always understood as the press, and what we’re currently defining as the media.Our personal and political division has somehow leached into our understanding of what commentators are and how they differ from what journalists are. It is within that confusion that local journalists like Philip Neville and others are paying the price for the media machine of the politically corrupt-held news driven by metrics and ratings.Branded “news” personalities engage in hateful rantings far removed from the tenants of journalism, then cast local journalists in the role of villains for their audiences.And so, here we are.The stakes are high, and our sense of community and our trust in democracy at all levels suffer when independent journalism is lost or diminished. In an age of fake news and divisive politics, the fate of communities across the country — and of grassroots democracy itself — is linked to the vitality of local journalism a course the late Philip Neville championed till his last day.That premise, illustrated by the anger of someone that once held a social position of trust in Sierra Leone that landed in a WhatsApp forum this week, is no longer readily believed.And that’s our fault.As journalists, we’ve failed to understand that we’ve been allowed to educate the electorate because the electorate has allowed us to. We grew too far away from the duty gifted to us in the Constitution in the quest to brand ourselves and increase our personal worth in an industry that was crumbling around us.We threw around terms like “media literacy” when we really just meant we had failed so hard at explaining to our communities how we do our jobs that our communities no longer understood what we were doing — or how.We started buying into the concept of “engagement” as if it wasn’t something we were supposed to be doing all along. And when we got it wrong, we stopped apologising.Because, sometimes, we do get it wrong; everybody does. The plumber installs the wrong fixture; the mail carrier delivers packages to the wrong house and waiters bring the wrong food.Journalism, like all of these professions, is a profession of service and our intentions, like theirs, are good. And just as a wrong fixture or mail mix-up wouldn’t warrant the reckless display of anger against a dead plumber and a mail carrier, neither should an error in a news story carry the penalty of character assassination for a dead journalist.So, while my intention had been to write a sunny story about the benefits of local news, I’ll instead say this:In Sierra Leone, I always get out of my car, one arm raised in an open-handed wave, the other clearly holding my notebook when I stop at the end of a long, dirt driveway and am greeted by someone who may not know why I'm there — a gun tucked at their hip.Once, a rifle in their hand.I've made appointments with farmers in the middle of nowhere; have taken tours of towns in the passenger seat of a car owned by people I've just met; followed demonstrators into crowds, follow masquerades behind the curtains and craftsmen into the back of welding and "ataya base" shops — all to better tell their story.It's become too easy and too common for some to harass journalists under the guise of sticking it to the nebulous concept of “the mainstream media.” But for every story we read, there’s a journalist on the other side of it who followed someone into a demonstration, to a masquerade, to the back of the shop, around town, or onto a corrupt government transaction with international neocolonial rogue institutions.Or into a corporate rogue deal with the support of our political figureheads. Some of them, like Philip Neville and others, never come home.Admittedly, in Sierra Leone, I've gotten it wrong. But the only way this continues to work — the only way local news doesn’t fall into the darkness of things that once were is; if should we get it wrong, we’re given the opportunity to make it right when we are alive and not wait to throw deep-seated anger against us when we pass away. And that those mistakes come with understanding:An understanding on the part of readers that we’re not acting out of malice and we’re not going to be perfect;And an understanding on the part of journalists that we must be willing to sacrifice some of our busy schedules to learn how to do it better. Because our communities deserve it.Intimidating journalists is a serious problem that can have a chilling effect on the freedom of the press and the ability of journalists to do their job. When journalists are intimidated, they may be less likely to report on sensitive or controversial topics, which can result in a less informed public and less accountability for those in power. Intimidation can take many forms, including physical violence, threats, legal action, and other forms of harassment. It is important for governments, media organizations, and civil society groups to work together to ensure that journalists can carry out their work without fear of intimidation. This requires strong legal protections for journalists, as well as efforts to promote a culture of press freedom and respect for freedom of expression.May You Rest in Perfect Peace, Philip Neville.
The importance of Adam Smith for the development of economic thought can hardly be exaggerated. As the economist Kenneth Boulding once put it, the great Scot can be rightly understood as “being both the Adam and the Smith of systematic economics.” When we recognise that Smith stands at the beginning of what would only later become the modern discipline of economics, the picture becomes somewhat more complicated. Smith was not himself an economist, at least in anything resembling the contemporary sense. He could not have been, because the discipline itself was embryonic in his own time.Smith’s own discipline was moral philosophy, and it is only by forgetting this broader intellectual context within which Smith’s work on political economy was situated that Smith could be understood narrowly as an economist in anything like a contemporary sense. A recent work by political theorist Paul Sagar reminds us that in Smith’s time, and in significant part because of Smith’s own contributions, economics was more closely wedded to politics. Adam Smith Reconsidered reminds us of the true foundations of the discipline of political economy.It is in this sense that I desire for Smith to be “reconsidered” as an important theorist and thinker of modern politics. This reconsidered Smith has a number of merits, not least of which is that his analysis and concerns about the emerging modern society still resonate today. My study begins with some foundational correctives to received wisdom in the scholarship concerning Smith, and on the basis of these technical arguments proceeds to outline some significant implications for a Smithian understanding of the liberal order and its rise, flourishing, and decline.I proceed by building on some nuanced engagements of previous scholarship and reading of Smith’s texts, arguing, for example, for a much more technical understanding of the phrase “commercial society” than is typically offered and a revision of the so-called “stadial theory” of human development. In many ways, these detailed arguments are foundational for one of my most significant claims, which is that Smith has much to teach us today about the relationship between economics and politics.Here, I explore the role of institutions, and how they influence each other and, in turn, the choices of individuals in our society. Economic motivation, profit, and acquisition of wealth turn out to be far less morally suspect and culturally problematic than the undue influence of economic institutions, firms, and businesses on the political process—and vice versa.Defining the Commercial SocietyI offer a close reading of Smith’s texts, giving attention to the nuance and details of his thought. A key feature of my analysis has to do with the idea of a “commercial society,” a staple of scholarship about Smith.I argue that many use the terminology of “commercial society” in anachronistic, imprecise, or potentially misleading ways. It can be used to refer to “the large eighteenth-century trading states of Smith’s day”, “as a rough synonym for a consumption-driven economy,” or even as “a generic term for what is now known as liberal capitalism.” Each of these three phenomena is significant for understanding Smith’s thought, and not necessarily illegitimate even if they all take later terms (such as “capitalism”) and apply them backward to Smith’s own thought.But Smith’s own terminology is precise, and his distinctions between different kinds of societies, and concerning the distinctive features of commercial society, in particular, are much more careful and nuanced than such loose approximations. As I write, there are two places in Smith’s body of work where he explicitly refers to “commercial society.” And “in both cases, the term ‘commercial society’ is restricted by Smith to the analysis of the internal relations of members of a community, with regard to how those members attain their ‘wants’, in the context of increasingly widespread and advanced realisation of the division of labour.” A society in this way has to do with the internal relations of a particular polity, and a commercial society is just such a community whose internal relations are characterised by commerce. That is, in a commercial society, the primary way in which we relate to others is through commerce.There’s a sense in this attention to technical detail that opens up an understanding of Smith as a careful and systematic thinker. “Society” for Smith has a precise meaning and significance, as does the idea of a “nation” or “state.” And while there is certainly some conceptual overlap, these terms are not synonyms and their particular meanings should be attended to when used by Smith in precise ways. Thus, I argue, Smith “used the term ‘commercial society’ with great theoretical precision,” and politicians in charge of state affairs in Sierra Leone risk misunderstanding Smith’s larger project if they do not appreciate that precision.Conceptualising Civilisational DevelopmentMy larger case depends on my arguments concerning Smith’s technical terminological usage, as well as some other elements of Smith’s thought such as the so-called “four stages” model of civilisational development. On the standard version of this model, a commercial society stands as the fourth and final stage of human historical development. It is the most advanced stage and is preceded by the ages of hunter-gatherers, shepherds, and farmers.For me, this “four stage” model is best understood as an ideal theory of how European civilisation would have developed apart from various concrete historical circumstances and political realities. This model is, in this sense, a kind of “pure economic theory,” and is not intended by Smith to be an account of actual historical development. As an ideal theory, it helps identify other causal factors in actual history. Whenever a particular society or nation moves through history in ways that diverge from this theoretical account, it is a signal that something beyond the straightforward economic logic of development is at play.We need to be sensitive to the complex nature of Smith’s thought if we are to do justice to the interplay between economic and political phenomena, both in his own day and ours.In this way, I argue, “What the ‘four stages’ theory seeks to show is how human societies would have developed, according to the ‘natural’ progress of pure economic relations, had they not been subjected to the shock of ‘human institutions.’ But what actually happens, in reality, is that there are causes beyond the economic, which have important effects that must be considered when developing a program of political economy informed by moral philosophy.When the precise conceptualisation of “commercial society” is combined with this distinction between theoretical historical modeling and actual historical development, we arrive at some interesting discoveries. For instance, there is the possibility of a commercial society that is not a commercial nation or country. That is, a national polity might be characterised internally by predominately commercial relations but not relating externally to other nations in that same manner.Thus, I argue, “To understand Smith’s political thought, therefore, we need to understand his assessment of the precise politics of modern Europe, which means leaving behind the economic modeling device of the four stages theory, and engaging with Smith’s account of the real history of how post-feudal European politics emerged, what is distinctive about it, and hence where its true strengths and weaknesses lie.”Corruption and CommerceSmith is particularly attentive to the ways in which institutions—particularly political institutions—corrupt the course of human historical development. He is not concerned with answering the cultural critiques of markets raised by Rousseau, which were not sophisticated enough to figure heavily in Smith’s arguments. Markets or commercial society, on this account, are not significant sources of moral corruption.Smith did understand, of course, that economic power and wealth could corrupt moral sentiments. This is, as I put it, a generically human phenomenon. It isn’t the case, however, that modern European states were (or are) uniquely prone to this universal human temptation. “For Smith,” I write, “moral corruption was not unique to, nor especially problematic in, ‘commercial society’ (that of modern Europe, or anywhere else).”A particularly noteworthy aspect of my larger argument is his evaluation of the source of motivation in economic activity, particularly in advanced societies. For me, it isn’t a straightforward case that approbation or vanity drives economic activity on Smith’s account. To the extent that these are factors in moving people to commercial activity, they rely on something more fundamental and basic in the human person.It is here that I provide a reinterpretation of the morality tale of the rich man’s son, for instance. Rather than simply being driven by the desire to be seen and approved of, and mistaking the means of achieving such recognition, the poor man’s son is a victim of the “quirk of human rationality” that, as I put it, “over-values the means of utility rather than the utility itself.” The ambition of the poor man’s son ends up being an ambition of consumption, the “deception” to think that “by acquiring more means of utility, we will eventually become satisfied.” This is mistaken, and thus there is a deep error, the result of the “quirk of human rationality,” at the heart of market economies.My point here is that the poor man’s son is an extreme example intended to illustrate a truth about everyone operating within the context of a market economy. There is a human tendency to focus, even to the point of obsession, on the acquisition of the means of pursuing happiness, rather than more coolly and rationally assessing the actual contribution of those “trinkets” to happiness. This is what I call a “quirk,” but is really a thoroughgoing feature of human psychology that explains why the increased acquisition of the means of happiness does not necessarily result in increased happiness. At a certain point and in many concrete cases, there are not only diminishing returns on having more useful things, but in fact, these can actually create negative returns. If we take money as representative of such a useful means, then we might simply observe more money and more problems.My novel interpretation of Smith’s account of human motivation in advanced commercial societies may or may not be accurate. It at least has the merit, though, of explaining important features of Smith’s ideas that are not always accounted for cogently. Smith discusses at length and at various points in Theory of Moral Sentiments something like my “quirk,” as he addresses the question, “How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets of frivolous utility?”Ultimately, on my account, it isn’t the inherent immorality of market systems that presents the greatest danger to modern societies. “Not only is it false to claim that Smith thinks that something called ‘commercial society’ tends especially to corrupt the individuals who live within it,” I write, “it is also false to hold that he thinks that societies characterised by a high degree of economic consumption are themselves morally compromised due to a foundation in the pursuit of vanity. Smith does not endorse either claim.”The great corrupting threat is, instead, the concentrated economic power that uses political means to further enrich its own possessors and entrench its elite status. On my account, the dangers of so-called “crony capitalism” rank much higher and are much more salient for Smith than any of the moralising criticisms of capitalism’s cultured despisers. In this way, Smith is concerned with “the political dangers arising out of the systemic corruption propagated by the merchant and manufacturing classes.” And it is in this conclusion that I emphasise on putting the political back into the study of the Smithian political economy bears significant fruit.As much as Smith was concerned with economic theory, he wasn’t a reductivist with respect to commercial and material phenomena. Smith’s work is the result of a genius that is attentive to a wide diversity of historical contexts, the nuance and complexity of human psychology and rationality, and the temptations of political corruption. Just as the law can be a force for good–as in Smith’s account of the rise of the common law as a check on arbitrary power–the law can also be corrupted and perverted to favour the rich and powerful as we continue to experience in Sierra Leone.In this volume I give a Smith worth reconsidering, and, indeed, one worth encountering again for insights into the virtues, vices, strengths, and weaknesses of the modern world.
The idea of the All People's Congress' rogue establishment democracy in Sierra Leone has become so closely identified with elections that we are in danger of forgetting their modern history of representative elections is a tale of authoritarian manipulations as much as it is a saga of democratic triumphs. Generally, in other words, elections for the APC rogue establishment have been an instrument of rogue APC establishment authoritarian control as well as a means of democratic governance.Since the early days of the All People's Congress' rogue establishment wave of national democratisation, it has been clear that their desperation to sustain their authoritarian rule to disenfranchise the suffering majority can lead anywhere. Over the past decade and a half, many have led to the establishment of some form of fake democracy. They have given birth to new forms of authoritarianism that do not fit into our classic categories of one-party, military, or personal dictatorship. They have produced a rogue establishment that holds elections and endures some pluralism and interparty competition, but at the same time violate standard democratic norms so severely and systematically that it makes no sense to classify them as democratic in nature, however, qualified.The current APC rogue establishment does not represent little, defective, or distorted forms of democracy. It is an instance of authoritarian rule. The time has come to abandon the misleading labels of the APC rogue establishment and to take their non-democratic nature seriously even as they again revisit their manipulation menu in the coming lower-level APC elections.The truth is the APC's rogue establishment as an authoritarian regime, neither practices democracy nor resorts regularly to naked repression. By organising periodic elections they try to obtain at least a semblance of democratic legitimacy, hoping to satisfy external as well as internal actors. At the same time, by placing those elections under tight authoritarian controls they try to cement their continued hold on power at the expense of those that saw the need to reform the APC to meet to the test of times. The dream of the rogue APC establishment is to reap the fruits of electoral legitimacy without running the risks of democratic uncertainty. Balancing between electoral control and electoral credibility, they situate themselves in a nebulous zone of structural ambivalence.Delimiting the blurry frontiers of electoral authoritarianism even in lower-level elections cannot help, but be a complex and controversial task. Perhaps the best way to get a handle on the problem is to take a fresh look at the normative presuppositions that underlie the idea of democratic elections within the APC establishment rogues.But what does "democracy" mean in this context? How sharp is the distinction between "democratic" and "authoritarian" rogues? Political party democracy, many argue, is not a matter of "either/or" but of more or less: The APC rogue establishment must understand that democracy is not simply present or absent, but admits of degrees. They must learn how to understand that a qualitative difference separates democracy from authoritarianism. The APC rogue establishment is not less democratic than democracies, but plainly undemocratic.The Cloudy AreaThe hard but uncomfortable truth is the APC rogue establishment is clearly an authoritarian cabal meant to exploit the suffering majority. They settle in the wide and cloudy area between liberal democracy and closed authoritarianism. To order this cartel of very dangerous nationals masquerading as a political party establishment, others have been working with broad intermediate categories like "democratising political party" or "semi-democracy." Some have been developing lists of more specific "diminished subtypes" such as "illiberal" or "delegative" democracy. Personally, I propose to fill the conceptual space between the opposite poles of liberal democracy and closed authoritarianism with two symmetrical categories: electoral democracy and electoral authoritarianism. The resulting fourfold typology captures significant variation in the broad area between the poles without abandoning the idea that a meaningful distinction may be drawn between democratic and APC rogue authoritarian establishment.This is so because the distinction between liberal and electoral democracies derives from the common idea that elections are a necessary but not a sufficient condition for modern democracy. Such a rogue APC establishment cannot exist without elections, but elections alone are not enough. While liberal democracies go beyond the electoral minimum, electoral democracies do not. They manage to "get elections wrong from the outset" and go on failing to institutionalise other vital dimensions of democratic constitutionalism, such as the rule of law, political accountability, bureaucratic integrity, and public deliberation.The distinction between electoral democracy and rogue APC establishment authoritarianism builds upon the common affirmation that democracy requires elections, not just any kind of elections.They need to be fully democratic by nature.
Diversity has become the euphemism for social justice of the “Paopa” elite on the national scale. Real diversity, and thus real variety, would dissolve the very existence of the meaning of elitism. It would be defined by the inclusiveness of the abnormal, and other underrepresented and uncounted minorities into the general population of our contraption. It would be not just the intelligent (however that is defined), but also the unintelligent. Not just the functional, but also the dysfunctional. Not just the abled, but the disabled. Not just the tolerant, but the intolerant. Not just the intellectual, but the anti-intellectual. And it would not be these opposites, but everything in between. As it stands today, diversity is about social justice for “equals” within their respective classes. Thus, my activism for sincere diversity has been for maintaining the traditional social stratification and disparity of power by consolidating interactive systems of people and balancing the counterparts of each system.The problem with this is that real diversity only connotes variety. Diversity in today’s terms is about achieving a regional and ethnic balance within each stratum of social class. To illustrate this point, it is akin to the infinite mirror effect. The goal of diversity is to stabilise a percentage that corresponds to the general population within all levels of social stratification (wealthy, upper middle class, middle class, working class, poor) so that tribe or region has no bearing on socioeconomic status. But real “Paopa” diversity is seen more like chaos and randomness than the consistent pattern that the infinite recursion would show in the macro viewing.Since this is the prevailing situation, then the “Paopa” activists for diversity are neither fighting for real diversity nor are they fighting for true social justice. What they are really fighting for is a seat for themselves – and thus their respective group – at the table of the elites. This entails maintaining and “improving” the traditional hierarchy and boundaries of the “Paopa” meritocratic classes to make outcomes “fairer” for deserving equals. But “Paopa” meritocracy – considered to be a legitimate method behind the selection process of the elites – has flaws of its own.If “Paopa” meritocracy is ruled by those with merit, and that merit comes from superior intellect, then intelligence has to come from some objective value so that the system is fair. Unfortunately, “Paopa” intelligence lacks this quality as sensing and sensitivity are purely subjective matters until it is communicated and understood. But what about those who can’t understand and those who can’t be understood? How are we to decide who is intelligent when understanding is necessary on both parts? It is only when intelligence is monopolised through sensitisation that an objective shared reality is created, and this is the main “Paopa” flaw. A uniformity of intelligence won’t take into account all other forms and expressions of intelligence.The “Paopa” flaws of this endeavour of “social justice” infiltrate not only the meritocratic process but also the end product, the establishment of social classes with commensurate influence. As people become filtered into their respective classes, the few at the top with their “superhuman” and “supernatural” abilities become the charismatic rulers for the many. These people display their God-given talents in a theatrical showing of magic and the rest become entrapped in their own powerlessness. The patronising ways of the “Paopa” elite inevitably convince people to support initiatives that are against their own interests.The greatest injustice of all is when others tell you what to value (certain concepts of equality) and what to believe even if it may not be “true” and consistent with some external, credible, and established framework. What is really going on is an attack on individual autonomy and the freedom to decide.Current “Paopa” activists for diversity are no young Turks, but rather false prophets. It’s the vision of the uniformity of diversity where the “best of the best” leaves no room for real diversity or social justice.
If the governing Sierra Leone People’s Party learns anything from the history of economic development, it is that culture makes almost all the difference.In 1993 the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Robert Fogel and Douglass North for their work in economic history. North won primarily because he drew attention to the need to understand the history of the development of market economies in terms of institutions—the patterns through which we undertake economic activity. His main point was that high transaction costs choke off economic activity, low transaction costs stoke it, and institutions are therefore important because they help keep transaction costs low.This was a powerful and transformative position. It changed how economic historians and development economists looked at the world forever. The story of economic development was no longer driven by the evolution of policy. It was now coming from something deeper, from foundational institutions like property rights and third-party contract enforcement. It answered the question, “Why are some countries rich but most are poor?” in a very simple but powerful way. There was abundant evidence to back it up, but it was so logically compelling it almost had to be true.Now suppose an individual from a poor country moves to a rich country and quickly starts to prosper. Most economists, especially after North, Acemoglu, and Robinson, would argue that this happens because the rich country has better institutions.But what if suddenly, thriving is just what happens when honest, hardworking people from poor countries are dropped into high-trust societies? In this case, it’s trust, not institutions, that makes the difference because a high-trust society reduces transaction costs as nothing else can.This is not to say that institutions aren’t important. Institutions keep transaction costs low and therefore economic activity high. But if institutions were at the beginning and end of the story, then any poor country like Sierra Leone could become a rich country by simply adopting the institutions that have already proven their worth in rich societies. The templates are ready and genuine experts from rich countries are eager to assist with implementation.This has been tried repeatedly in Sierra Leone and it almost never works. Why? There are many answers, most correct to some extent, but let’s focus on just one. Many of the social, political, and economic institutions that those in rich societies take for granted—things like democratic voting, central banking that produces sound money, and courts that protect and promote the rule of law—are either absent or highly corrupted in Sierra Leone and other low-trust societies. This is because they are themselves highly trust dependent. In short, high-trust societies provide a foundation for the institutional landscape. But high-trust societies rest, in turn, on a cultural foundation. So, trust dependent institutions in the absence of a culture that can sustain a high-trust society are like a hammer without a carpenter.I am not arguing that culture matters in Sierra Leone because institutions don’t. Quite the opposite. It is because institutions are so important that culture matters so much. When certain kinds of moral beliefs—an obvious part of any society’s culture—are culturally transmitted from one generation to the next, a high-trust society exists, which is the pillar of thriving free market democracy. Saying that culture matters greatly, perhaps even most of all does not imply that you believe institutions don’t matter anymore than saying that a car without an engine cannot work implies that you believe that tyres don’t matter.How Does Culture Make High-Trust Societies?Near the end of his career, North began to incorporate culture into his work by considering how belief systems affect the institutional environment. Path-breaking economists like Deirdre McCloskey and Joel Mokyr have also drawn a great deal of attention to culture. They argued that the ideas, beliefs, and values of pre-industrial Europe set the stage for a second scientific revolution that ultimately unleashed the Industrial Revolution. This means that culture was in some ways primary to the institutions that get most of the attention. I agree.But in my latest argument, I explain why these ideas, beliefs, and values would not have worked so well were it not for their being culturally transmitted. Moreover, without a trust-producing culture, a high-trust society would not have emerged. And from a high-trust society, institutions like the free market and democracy, come into existence.We don’t ponder whether to blink when dust blows into our eyes. We don’t also ponder whether to express sympathy to a friend upon hearing his mother died. Both of these examples involve behaviour that is rather automatic, almost as if it was encoded as an “if-then” statement in a computer program. But there is an important difference between these two examples.The first is baked in our genetic cake and is thereby a product of hardwired neural architecture. The second is learned early in life and is therefore better described as a cultural practice that is a product of constructed neural architecture. At its core, culture is a uniquely effective mechanism for cultivating a consistent, constructed neural architecture in society to solve problems that are not well solved either by genetic encoding or by unfettered rational decision-making.Cultural anthropologists have documented that a surprising amount of behaviour conforms to encoding through constructed neural architecture. Indeed, the variation in cultural practices we observe across groups would be impossible if all neural architecture associated with social behaviour were hardwired as it is with social insects like bees.But if all behaviour was consciously rational in the sense of Daniel Kahneman’s System; 2 mode of thinking, then our universal capacity for rationality would drive all groups to the uniformity of best practice. Just as perfect competition drives the price all firms charge to the same level, competition between groups would leave no choice but to choose the most rational course of action in response to any given circumstance.Adam Smith didn’t think of the world in this quintessentially neoclassical way. In his Theory of Moral Sentiments, he explained how our sensitivity to approval and disapproval provided a mechanism for responses to be consistent within the group yet able to be different across groups and therefore able to adapt to local conditions. These responses were not irrational—there is happiness and sadness to be derived from approval and disapproval—but they were also not fully consciously rational either because Kahneman’s System 1 thinking connects the approved response to any given circumstance so quickly that the executive function of the brain is circumvented. This is better described as pre-rational than irrational, and it is easy to imagine how it contributes to group harmony. It is why you automatically offer words of sympathy to your friend upon hearing from him that his mother just died.Another important part of culture is a group’s shared beliefs about right and wrong and how the world works. Although our ability to create, teach, and learn such moral and scientific beliefs is hardwired, the beliefs themselves are not, so they must be retaught each generation. This explains why moral and scientific beliefs vary so much across groups while blinking in response to dust does not.If high-trust societies were products of our hardwired neural architecture, like honeycombs are for bees, then all human societies would already be high-trust societies. But they aren’t for one very simple reason: nearly all of our evolution took place in very small groups so there has been too little time for sufficient reinforcement of genes that would support large group trust. In short, the mechanisms that make small group trust possible, do not scale up. So high trust societies must be built on something beyond genes.Some cultures convey particular moral beliefs—a particularly important form of cultural content—that construct the neural architecture that makes the rejection of untrustworthy actions virtually automatic. The earlier they are taught, the stronger they are reinforced, and the more they take precedence over other beliefs, the more likely that behaving in an untrustworthy way isn’t even considered in adulthood in all but the most exceptional of circumstances.The Need to Rediscover TrustOver the last few days at least a dozen or so opportunities have come along to benefit yourself by behaving in an untrustworthy way, some with no chance of being caught (Robert Frank dubbed these “golden opportunities”). But you didn’t act on any of them. And this was not because over and over you rationally chose not to. You didn’t behave in an untrustworthy way mostly because it simply did not cross your mind.When individuals in social positions of trust under the Bio-led government abide in moral beliefs that lead them to believe that untrustworthy behaviour is always wrong, they know it will always result in experiencing feelings of guilt. This pain is real. When a critical mass of individuals abides by such beliefs, it becomes rational to presume most others can be trusted in most circumstances, producing a high-trust society. This reduces transaction costs to make cooperation on a grand scale possible. This unleashed human flourishing as never before.But this is not a story where institutions create the trust upon which they depend in some kind of causal dog spin as we continue to experience in Sierra Leone. This is a story whereby cultural content that is culturally transmitted creates conditions necessary for trust and therefore trust dependent institutions are able to emerge and persist. If all there was to having a high trust society was choosing trust-producing institutions, societies would just choose them. But they can’t without the right kind of cultural foundation.One reason why culture is often overlooked in Sierra Leone is that trust is simply not in most people working in social positions of trust radar screen. Those who live in high-trust societies are largely oblivious to how much they benefit from trust. This is because the high trust society produces benefits mostly through non-events that can’t possibly be observed, things like not being robbed and not being cheated. High-trust societies are like seas and those who live in them are like fish. As the saying goes, fish are always the last to discover water. But without appreciating the awesome power of trust, it is hard to recognise the importance of culture that makes it, and the institutions we cherish, possible.
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo.Nelson Mandela led a singular life of sacrifice, dignity, and political genius that brought about the peaceful end of one of the great evils of the African continent's liberation struggles. The most important lesson he left us with, however, is not about the promise of visionary leadership. Rather, I believe, it is about the potential within each of us individually – men, women, citizens everywhere – to help build just and cohesive societies.On a continent cursed by the blight of the “big man” leader, Mandela – our one leader deserving of that status – rejected the rule of strongman in favour of a commitment to establishing lasting democratic institutions. At every juncture – when he could have made the struggle, and the ultimate victory, over apartheid about himself – he invested his authority in building a Party, a State, and a Rule of Law that was greater than any individual. By stepping down after one term in office, the former South African president set an example that too few of his peers in the continent had the courage to follow.Coming from the most unequal of societies, he understood the corrosive nature of great divisions of wealth and power. And he knew that, for future generations of South Africans, political rights were incomplete without economic rights and access to equal opportunities. Something Sierra Leone lacks, since gaining independence until today. So, what legacy can we follow from our elders in past and current social positions of trust in Sierra Leone who continue to train and feed the potential human resources of Sierra Leone (the youth) their unproductive politics and narcotics in order to make them permanent political tools and further widen the inequality gap in the country?For my generation of Africans, Mandela performed exceptional service. During the independence struggle of Sierra Leone, more than half - a century ago, those who were fortunate then witnessed the exhilarating possibility of positive peaceful change, only to later see Sierra Leone's youthful hopes for self-determination and economic development betrayed by more than half a century of misrule from civilian governments and military coups. By ending Sierra Leone's eleven years deadly war peacefully through a relentless commitment to dialogue, reconciliation, and power-sharing, as well as an extraordinary partnership with the late Revolutionary United Front's Corporal Foday Sankoh (the brutal rebel figurehead, whose status became similar to that of the then Vice President in the late President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah's government). That restored Sierra Leoneans' faith as nationals in the possibility that we might, with our own hands, shape a future worthy of the immense sacrifice of our youth in the eleven years of deadly war caused by the actions of our very self-centered politicians.However, 20 years since the end of one of the most brutal wars fought in modern history, our political figureheads and others in social positions of trust remain the same. As all the factors that were responsible for the eleven years of civil war continue to manifest themselves vividly in all works of life.Sierra Leone continues to be governed by elected rulers falsely committed to building sustainable pillars of legitimate government to serve all nationals irrespective of their tribes, political party affiliations, geographical locations, religion, and status as stated in our constitution. This would have been a reflection of how Mandela's example continues to inspire Sierra Leone if these commitments had been lived up to. A mischievous sense of humour and an irreverent attitude to power were powerful weapons in a formidable personal armoury. Mandela may have been the world’s best known and most revered political figure, but he was the most gentle, good-humoured, and mischievous of icons.These were the words of the late UN Secretary General, Mr. Kofie Anan, when I asked him about his thoughts on Mandela's legacy whilst addressing us at the Young African Leaders Summit hosted by his Kofi Anan Institute in Accra: "As UN secretary general, I grew used to being greeted by him, with a big smile, as “Boss.” I made a point of speaking to him regularly on the telephone and he remained an indispensable source of wisdom and guidance beyond my day-to-day crisis management.When it came to facing the reality of HIV/Aids in Africa, Mandela was an inspiration to all of us who came together to create the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. In the run-up to the catastrophic invasion of Iraq in 2003 – as I sought to secure through peaceful means Iraq’s compliance with the resolutions of the UN Security Council – Mandela’s reassuring voice would steady my resolve to seek unity over division.In brokering a power-sharing agreement between Burundi’s squabbling parties, his admonition to them – “The way you are behaving makes me feel ashamed to be an African” – carried a force that no militia, however misguided, could ignore. His unique global authority – moral, political, and personal – set a very high bar for those who would persist with the folly of conflict."Though I was too young by then, for all that I believe Mandela’s example has become a common heritage of humanity, he was at his core, an African. Completing his long walk to freedom is not, however, about finding “another Mandela” in many African states including my tiny Sierra Leone with its huge mineral deposits that continue to benefit the selected few and neocolonial corporate rogues at the expense of the suffering majority. Irrespective of our country's small population, our political figureheads are still struggling to combine sound governance and the legitimate exercise of power. This is not the answer where true patriotism is practiced, nor is it Mandela’s legacy.From my always sound discussions with the former UN Secretary General whom I last spoke with as he was preparing for the Climate Change Summit in Paris before his demise; what Mandela taught all of us is that it is for individual African men and women – empowered and educated citizens of their countries and their continent – to take responsibility for their societies and establish accountable institutions that serve all the people and not just the elites, be they economic or political. And that is why it is so exciting to witness the development of robust journalism and civil society organisations across Sierra Leone and the African continent, determined to hold leaders and governments to account.Almost 10 years ago today, from a book I am privileged to get from the former UN Secretary General, Mandela said South Africa had come as far as it had on the path to peace and democracy only because the world had set his country. This is a moral example that we had dared to follow after late President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah set the stage during his presidency and Sierra Leone was on the verge of genuine economic transformation.As we mourn his passing and honour his memory, the task for youth, leaders and citizens alike is to dare to follow his example – in every corner of Sierra Leone and Africa and across the world.Rest In Peace Madiba!
It's Time To Reform Sierra Leone Agricultural System
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
For many decades, Sierra Leone's agriculture has been a symbol of the country's poverty. In fact, though agriculture is one of the best ways to trigger social and economic development across the country, our authorities continue to play tricks with a key sector of our economy. So far, we continue to see millions of United States dollars projects, but nothing to concretely write home about.
Agriculture is part of a vast food system that touches almost every aspect of life in society. The Sustainable Development Goals recently ratified by the United Nations paint a picture of the future the world is committed to building. Agriculture plays a part in reaching almost every single one of the 17 goals.
A resilient Sierra Leone food system will fight poverty, disease, hunger, youth unemployment, and malnutrition by providing a better living to the unemployed, poorest, and sickest people in the country. It will employ the rapidly growing youth population by creating a new class of businesses. It will shore up our deplorable national economy and restore a reasonable balance of trade by allowing Sierra Leone to feed not just itself, but also countries on other continents.
How does such a system get built? It is not easy, since food systems tend to evolve over time, and money dedicated to this sector of our economy over the years isn't wisely spent. But today’s Sierra Leone politicians have a powerful tool to deploy—digital technology—to make the process easier.
This list of five key principles conveys the main idea: Once you conceive of the goal of agriculture as more than simply producing enough calories to keep our population alive, our political stakeholders can harness its power to change our society.
First, the smallholder farmer is at the centre: More than 80 percent of the agricultural production in the country comes from smallholders. But these farmers are not nearly as productive as they should be, and they cannot sell their surpluses because the infrastructure to link them to markets and storage facilities is virtually non-existent.
Second, women are empowered: Women provide the majority of labour in Sierra Leone farms, but for a variety of reasons, they are less productive, on average, than men. Women in Sierra Leone invest as much as 10 times more of what they earn in priorities like education, nutrition, and health, so when they have money and the power to decide how to spend it, everybody benefits.
Third, when it comes to food, quality matters as much as quantity: We are only now beginning to understand the impact of malnutrition on poor countries including Sierra Leone. It's an underlying cause of almost half of all the deaths of children under 5. It also leaves hundreds of Sierra Leone children cognitively or physically impaired for the rest of their lives.
Fourth, there is a thriving rural economy around the smallholder farmers: Farmers need financial services, seeds, and fertiliser before they begin planting; after the harvest, they need storage, transport, processing, and marketing. Every single step in this process should be a business opportunity for an entrepreneur.
Fifth, the environment is preserved for future generations: It is easy to boost yields with short-sighted investments and policies that deplete natural resources. Especially as the effects of climate change begin to be felt, it is critical that Sierra Leone encourage sustainable agriculture.
Digital technology can help Sierra Leone farmers achieve all these goals, by clearing away one of the biggest obstacles to progress: the isolation of the smallholder farmer. To take just one example, Ethiopia's Agricultural Transformation Authority (ATA) launched an agricultural hotline last year where I happened to be invited by the East African Youth Leader; a very good friend of mine. The system has already logged more than 4 million calls and sends text messages to 500,000 users with up-to-date agronomic information, I am told. ATA is also creating EthioSIS, a digital soil map analysing the country's soils down to a 10 x10 km resolution. Eventually, these two systems are merging, pushing cutting-edge, highly tailored information to millions of farmers in that country.
The digital infrastructure for interacting with smallholders is being put in place as I write. What happens in the next 10 years will determine what is possible through digital agriculture over the next 50 years. Getting it right means making sure that all farmers, especially the poorest and most remote, are included from the start.
It used to be that in most African countries including Sierra Leone, even if we had big ideas about how to support smallholder farmers, we didn’t know how to reach them. Now, we can do this with the spread of mobile companies in Sierra Leone.
So, it is time to change the way we think. Farmers are not the cause of Sierra Leone's poverty; our political stakeholders are the cause, and farmers are a potential solution to our politically man-made poverty if the atmosphere is made conducive for them to thrive successfully. They are key to creating the future envisioned by the SDGs.
Eventually, the work of building a Sierra Leone food system will be for experts: seed and soil scientists, computer programmers, policymakers in government Ministries, and entrepreneurs with new business ideas. But right now, not enough people understand how much a new food system can do for the country. What we need most is a generation of Sierra Leone leaders committed to advocating for this vision of Sierra Leone transformed.
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
What will you do next to help repair Sierra Leone?
For many, this has been gut-wrenching weeks. People are struggling with how to make sense of the current price hike on essential commodities in Sierra Leone. The main opposition party, the All People's Congress is grappling in the Supreme Court of Sierra Leone with its internal challenges to take their political party to their national delegates conference in preparation for the 2023 general elections (though this is a huge sea change), but also for us in Sierra Leone escalating, senseless violence hearsay across the country, threats to voices of reasoning, the spread of fake news, massive sycophancy and bootlicking to further deepening divide between the political class and the ordinary people, and a creeping sense of dread as events begin to seem out of our control.
There’s a lot for people to digest. Sierra Leone can seem a cruel and barbaric place. Political – love of humankind — can seem elusive.
Yet it’s right here. In each of us.
As my visiting friend Tara Sophia Mohr wrote:
“… remember that every cell in your body knows how to love and weave good deeds, to meet injustice with acts of service and everyday rebellion, right there with the people in front of you. Let’s stay connected to love and to each other.”
This is a time when we truly must stay connected. Through making a choice — to pay attention to, rather than ignore. Through listening. Through empathy. Through putting ourselves in each other’s shoes.
This week, celebrate tolerance. All this week, we celebrate the United Nations International Day for Tolerance. While it may seem we haven’t much to celebrate right now, the reverse is true.
We have each other. Because for every tribal bigot, politically supported neocolonial oppression, or deceptive politician who rises up, 100 more will rise up against them. And soon it will be 1,000 more. Then 10,000 more.
Humanity has the will to survive — through caring.
Not just the will to survive, but in fact, the need. For throughout history the civilizations that have survived have been those which banded together to care for their brethren.
Sure, we’ve all heard about “survival of the fittest, especially in present-day Sierra Leone.” But did you know that was not Darwin’s idea? He never meant to imply that civilization would survive by the strongest killing the weakest. Though the concept is attributed to him, it really comes from the philosopher Herbert Spencer. And it is widely misunderstood.
In one-to-one battles, the fittest may survive. But in the end, it’s not about individuals. It’s about groups, tribes, communities, regions, and countries. Darwin actually posited “survival of the most empathic.”
Empathy, per Anita Nowak of McGill University, is the only human emotion that expresses equality between humans. She notes:
Society needs to undergo an empathic revolution if we are to survive as a species… we must engage with empathy; not as spectators, but as fully involved participants. [The state of society today in Sierra Leone makes] the moral imperative to act explicit. We are facing a set of social and environmental crises that are unprecedented… we are beset by wicked man-made problems in Sierra Leone.
The nonprofit sector is also called “civil society.” And they have an important role to play in times like these. We must remind each other what survival really is about and how to avoid violence to save further suffering and loss of human lives and property.
Civilizations that survive are the most empathic, cooperative, and compassionate.
This week, let's commit to cooperation and standing together. Even in the wild, it’s not every animal for itself. Cooperation turns out to be the most successful survival strategy. Complex cells evolved from cooperating simple cells. Multicellular organisms are made up of cooperating complex cells. Superorganisms such as bee or ant colonies consist of cooperating individuals, in a condition biologists call eusociality.
In Sierra Leone, we know the Individual selection of the majority in our social positions of trust tends to favour selfish behaviour. In the eusocial group, however, members perform altruistic acts, sometimes against their own personal interests, to benefit their group.
When cooperation breaks down, the results can be disastrous.
For example, when cells in our bodies turn rogue the result is cancer. A single cell can break free from the pack and create something monstrous. In my neighbour's teenage daughter’s lingo, letting the demons loose makes the world totally cray-cray.
This is what makes the civil sector so important.
Nonprofit staff, volunteers, and donors make a critically important choice. To act altruistically. To stand united against cruelty, intolerance, and injustice.
As individuals, families, and communities we choose to act with compassion and honour. To stand up to horror, hatred, inhumanity, and senseless destruction.
This message from the U.N. Secretary-General is timely:
“Let us not be provoked or play into the hands of those who thrive on hatred and instill fear in our societies. Today’s global challenges should compel us to reject the failed mindset of “us” versus “them”. Let us see the world and all its possibilities through the prism of “we the people”.
There can be no time like the present to begin to say “No More.”
This week, politicians need to truly commit to taking a step towards repairing Sierra Leone and prevent the people from further suffering before the numbers of untimely death dominate our statistical data in Sierra Leone.
POLITICIANS AND LEADERSHIP IN SIERRA LEONE: The Strength Within
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
Current Sierra Leone political change agents assume way too easily, too lazily, that our ideological precepts are, if not always practised, nationally admired. In the trite truism, we declare all nationals are the same everywhere. It's comforting, and brashly erroneous, to believe Sierra Leone values about individual freedom, inalienable human rights, capitalism, privacy marketplace solutions, consumer choice, Puritan work ethic, and cultural norms about life and death form a bedrock of national agreement on which to erect a unicorn peace nationally.
For starters, at a human level, it is silly to go on pretending that under the skin we are all brothers. The truth is more likely that under the skin we are all cannibals, assassins, traitors, liars, hypocrites, bootlickers, and poltroons. In truth, all of us are stewing admixture of goodness and badness. That said, if you are a practitioner of intolerance, mean-spiritedness, cruelty, hate, and stupidity, screw you. In my social change heart, I am confessing that I am not magnanimous enough to call you my father, mother, brother, sister, or leader. Instead, I am calling you an oppressor and a destroyer.
I keep having this recurring thing that happens in most of my dreams. At some point, good or bad, I realise I'm dreaming. Once I realise it, I immediately start flying. Either a few feet off the ground or high in the air I am suddenly engaging a superpower inside that was seemingly dormant.
So what does that really mean?
When we look at Sierra Leone's alleged leaders who are impressive, with seemingly superhuman intelligence and abilities to operate at levels beyond what we think is normal, we elevate them to positions where we think flaws do not exist. While some of these stakeholders operate as if they do not have weaknesses, the smart ones know and embrace what and who they are at their core. The finished product is what receives the glory and attention, good and bad, while one of the most vital portions of what our rulers are and become gets widely overlooked. The perception of success is thought to be achieved through accelerated and title inflation. The reality is this only creates exposure for those who do not belong where they pretend to operate. The most realistic success you will experience can easily be garnered in one of the latest Under Armour Commercials.
The commercial reminded me of one of my favourite characters from an animated show (yes, a cartoon) I watched when I was at college called Dragonball Z. If you haven't seen it, or aren't into that kind of stuff - I get it. However, if you saw it, you would realise that this stuff is more than just animated fighting. Oddly enough, when I started watching it, I loved Vegeta for some reason. He was initially a villain but eventually became friends with the main character (Goku). Both of them loved fighting, growing stronger, and training. Whenever they weren't fighting, they were training.
Oh...... And they can fly too.
Even with his passion, purpose, and determination, Vegeta would never be as strong as the main character, and often times his rivalry would cloud his judgment as he would seek to be THE greatest ( but never be better than Goku). However, Vegeta became instrumental in several conflicts as an ally that was key to success that benefited the greater good of everyone. Even more so, as you watch the series, you can see the character come to that realisation, more than once.
It's amazing what comes from the inside of us when the chips are down. It's sometimes even scary. Would you invest yourself in something when you know that your ultimate sacrifice would either be unknown, forgotten, or used by someone else to support their spotlight? How much would you endure? What has greater value, seeing someone use you to elevate themselves or them pushing you into the coming consequences of something you had nothing to do with? For most right-minded nationals, they both have immediate value. Sierra Leoneans learned more from how a political leader like late President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah who truly cared about them treated them when he was governing our country, versus what current self-centred political rulers say. And once you remove emotions from the equation, guess what rises to the surface? The sum of whom these current self-centred political rulers really are.
What weighs you down? Regret? Disappointment? Unfulfilled desires and expectations? More meaningless dribbles that cloud your mind and fuel displaced emotions that only cause you to make poor decisions when a moment of truth arrives? Great leaders stand calmly when others are panicking. True leaders like late President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah spend less time explaining why and more time being and holding others accountable. While others are looking around for answers, they fly.
APC STILL WITHOUT STRUCTURES FOR THE 2023 GENERAL ELECTIONS
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. —Albert Einstein
Within the next few months, Presidential flagship aspirants within the All People's Congress will genuinely establish a new opportunity to move their party in what's supposed to be the right direction to give the incumbent Sierra Leone People's Party a run for their money. What if they do a thorough election event to improve the Preventive Maintenance (PM) Programme? What if they apply Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques to this biting element of the All People's Congress presidential flagship business? The reasoning is forcible. The current Programme is not efficient or effective as President Koroma and his establishment cabal deliberately refused to truly train his successor in his ten years two weeks as president of the contraption. It took too long, confused "more time operations," caused unplanned delays, and was not user-friendly.
Today, billions of leones in logistics and parts, as well as efforts of APC aspirants, service, party members, and supporters are at risk. Now, former President Koroma as the court deposed Chairman and Leader for Life of the skilled maintenance mechanic, his establishment team is spending countless hours searching for parts, some of which are not in stock. The list of reasons WHY the Ernest Bai Koroma establishment is pursuing this project is clearly plausible. The Preventive Maintenance Programme is needed.
The list of reasons WHY NOT initially pursued this project was also evaluated and easily overcome. There are very few risks to taking on this challenge—or so it seemed. A cross-functional team of experts and self-centred people will gather to participate in the effort and the skilled maintenance leader champion the project behind the scenes. They lined up the WHO with careful thought. His role is to coach his establishment team and help successfully facilitate the project, which would soon morph into multiple APC events to regain governance.
The question they now face is HOW? This is a monolithic project panoptic serious APC interest at home and abroad with multiple consultations requiring monthly, semi-annual, and annual Preventive Maintenance. The Preventive Maintenance process differs from one APC cabal to another and, in some cases, will take several days or months to complete.
Presidential flagship aspirants range in scores and are supposed to be tracked by a sophisticated software Programme owned and managed by another APC department under a court-instituted Interim Executive that gave the simple majority to the financially strong Ernest Bai Koroma's establishment cabal instead of the reformers. For many aspirants, the qualities needed aren't available to stand the test of time and lead times to refill qualities may take more months. Initially, high-paid maintenance personnel are spending a noticeable amount of time searching for and chasing down quality aspirants among the lot, often while the equipment is down and people are waiting. How are they supposed to solve something this motley and breathtaking in the few months towards the general elections? How are they supposed to eat this elephant?
W. Edwards Deming, once said that hard work and best efforts without the guidance of profound knowledge might well be the root of our ruination. There is no substitute for knowledge. The ability of APC membership to genuinely rally behind the objective minds to execute the mission in mind is fundamental to the success of our democracy because in a sober democratic dispensation the role of the opposition is important to checkmate the excesses of the Executive Arm of the government.
APC members and supporters hope the reformers, President Koroma and his establishment understand that the HOW is where the action is. Knowing what to do is often the easy part. Knowing how to do it is what makes the difference. Assuming the activity is necessary and value-added, the HOW is where the APC stakeholders concentrate their improvement efforts. How can they do what they do better, faster, at a lower cost, and in a more user-friendly way? How can they improve their overall performance? How do they turn good ideas into great results? How do they get out of the way and lead well? How do they create a culture of justice, innovation, and fearlessness? How?
If everyone within the APC has good ideas, including some that might change Sierra Leone, why is it that more people do not act on their ideas? Why is it that many affiliated organisations do not tap into these ideas quickly and effectively to improve performance and gain an advantage? And why is it that among those who do, the results often come up short? It is no secret that most leaders fall short in their initial attempts at getting a disorganised political party business started. Is it that the idea is not valid, or is it something else?
My research and experience suggest that there are significant gaps in knowing how to transform a political party, government, and culture, eliminate fear, and turn good ideas into great results. Many people are simply not trained on how to plan the idea and execute the plan. There are scoping gaps, credibility gaps, marketing gaps, sales gaps, operations gaps, management gaps, and measurement gaps—to name a few. It is in closing these gaps that everything comes together.
SIERRA LEONE GOVERNMENT MET IMF/WORLD BANK BENCHMARKS TO FIX THE ECONOMY, BUT SOME SEE MOTIVES OTHER THAN POVERTY ERADICATION
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
The government of President Bio has made the usual pile of promises, none more capable of being foretold than their pledge to make the Sierra Leone economy regain its shape to grow faster. The economy is on IMF and World Bank oppressive life-supporting machines and most of our people are subjected to abject poverty due to years of political misrule. Even when the bulk of our exports is mainly raw materials, they would have us believe that economic growth is within reach. It’s now very clear that our current economic planners, politicians, and central bankers are unable to improve our economy to share the wealth as per natural resources and population by addressing the necessities of life for the suffering majority and closing the inequality gap.
But of all the promises made by our current political rulers over the course of these very harsh economic realities, none will be easier to keep for a fluctuating economy like ours with huge international debt that exports only raw materials. The truth is whether President Bio sustains governance or whosoever succeeds him as President of Sierra Leone will swiftly find that the key to faster economic growth isn’t something a president can decree. It might be wiser to accept the truth: The Sierra Leone economy is currently behaving badly. It is just being extraordinary considering the way this government has failed to effect established fiscal policies which are now affecting their ability in minimising poverty and close the inequality gap.
Unfortunately, these rulers’ policies—deregulation, privatisation or selling government properties or buildings, cutting taxes on fuel, or increasing electricity tariffs, increase tax rates that disadvantaged the contraption from investors and promote smuggling of our natural resources, cutting down budgets of basic amenities and rigid rules for monetary policy—proved no more successful at boosting productivity now and before. The current neocolonial financial institutions policies pushed in the throat of the Bio-led government have now prevented this government from improving the health conditions of its nationals, creating employment facilities by attracting genuine foreign investors, provide bread and butter for the poor majority than the statist policies that had preceded them.
Despite the fact that the language used by the Washington Caucus became more “development-friendly,” the conditionalities, interventions and self-serving restrictions introduced by Structural Adjustment Programme continue to frame the way that development operates only for the United States at our own detriment as we’ve been in this demonic partnership with the irresponsible policies of the IMF and World Bank for more than half a century with all the huge natural resources we are still poor. This necessitates the question if at all the so-called policies are good for development do you think the Washington Caucus would have introduced them to us? Why are they still reluctant to show us technology?
The conditions that came with the IMF COVID-19 pandemic loans hurt the poor. New loans under the current Structural Adjustment Programme keep essential human services, like primary health and education and access to safe water, out of the reach of the impoverished majority. These COVID-19 pandemic new loans are conditioned on requirements that countries limit government spending, inflate prices of essential commodities and changed trade and investment rules. Much of the debt our government own these architects of the hidden genocide (IMF/World Bank) against our people is a result of "bad faith" lending including
The practice of pushing loans on developing nations because the IMF and World Bank have too much money and had to knowingly lend it to corrupt governments for political or self-purposes. Lending with conditions ensuring profits returns to the creditors. Some debt also resulted from stolen wealth or loans that served the purposes of the elite and not for the general good. Other debt resulted from irresponsible projects that failed to serve a greater purpose or caused harm to our people or the environment.
Today, that is no longer good enough. Sierra Leone politicians expect the economy to be buoyant soon, not boring. Yet this expectation is shaped not by prosaic economic realities but by a most unusual period in history: In 2010, before President Bio took over governance, the country was struggling with an international debt of $1.4 billion that began whilst the economy was said to be booming and was projected as one of the fastest growing economies in the world when the world economy performed poorly than at any time before in our modern-day democracy. The victory of our economic boom was later followed by economic collapse hidden genocide against the people orchestrated and monitored by IMF and World Bank officials.
It was well effected with impunity by our own very politicians we elect with a sense of massive disregard for the plight of the majority and the rules of the land with respect to maintaining accurate checks and balances in all government financial transactions. To make matters worse, even the Auditor General Report recommendations meant to check corruption or financial misappropriation within state officials were deliberately not allowed to see the sun by our politicians under the supervision of the World Bank and IMF policies. This authenticates the fact that the IMF and World Bank policies and officials are aiding and abetting corruption in Sierra Leone.
The IMF and World Bank continue to give the same wrong economic medication to our present government. As I argue against the wilful wrong economic policies, the IMF and World Bank and our politicians continue to use in our country since we gained very weak independence till date, Sierra Leone, based on our natural wealth, we need a more comprehensive policy approach, involving pro-growth structural reforms, more balanced demand management (including higher fiscal spending on technology, education, health, agriculture and legal reforms to efficiently sustain checks and balances with punitive measures for defaulters and infrastructure) and better cross-border policy coordination and architecture. There is also a need, highlighted by the protracted Greek crisis, to address pockets of severe over-indebtedness, which can have a crushing impact extending well beyond the directly affected.
The emergence of a new consensus on these points by our politicians will be good news. But, in the current political environment, forming such a consensus and translating that consensus into action is likely to happen with sincerity, at best. The risk is that, as bad politics crowd out good economics, popular anger and frustration will rise from within, especially from those in social positions of trust who continue to benefit from corrupt activities at the expense of the suffering majority with impunity, making politics even more toxic. One hopes that enlightened political leadership takes the reins in time to make the needed mid-course corrections voluntarily, before unambiguous signs of the economic and financial crisis continue to force our policymakers to scramble to minimise the damage.
It is tempting to think that we know how to do better, that there is some secret sauce that the current Sierra Leone government can ladle out to make our economy grow faster than the norm. But despite glib talk about “pro-growth” economic policies, productivity growth is something over which fluctuating economies that are constantly under the radar of Washington caucus neocolonial financial institutions that partner with corrupt political governments around the globe have very little control. Rapid productivity growth has occurred in countries with low tax rates but also in nations where tax rates were sky-high. Slashing government regulations to satisfy so-called modern-day slavery Structural Adjustment Programme can’t in any sense lead to an efficiently independent economic nation.
As a matter of very important fact, this can be easily justified by the length of time, we’ve been together with the IMF and World Bank demonic Poverty Eradication Policies under its well-defunct Structural Adjustment Programme. With all the huge mineral deposits we own, the IMF and World Bank have refused so far to invest in genuine technology that will give us the required strength and advantage to process our minerals here in Sierra Leone and add value to them in order to export these minerals as finished products and improve on our economy.
At this point, it is lost on right-minded nationals that people think the current Executive Arm of government collectively owns the capacity to react in a rational way and push Sierra Leone’s economy forward for the right reasons and be rewarded by the voters that they did the right thing for voting them in governance; this is the year when any such claim has been proved to be inane beyond a reasonable doubt, and let us count the ways…
The key issue with the IMF Structural Adjustment Programme or adjustments of this kind, however, is whether they build the capacity to recover and whether they promote short- and long-term development. The adjustments currently dictated by the International Monetary Fund did neither. In a very impoverished nation like Sierra Leone, the majority of our population does not have access to clean water, adequate housing, quality education or basic health care. We are now paying debt service to wealthy neocolonial institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank at the expense of providing these basic services to the suffering majority of our nationals.
Debt service payments take resources that an impoverished country like Sierra Leone could use to cure preventable diseases. The Executive Arm of government has an audited report in its table that has to do with the misappropriation or corruption of taxpayers’ monies, and IMF COVID-19 pandemic loans as captured by the Development Finance International report, but nothing is done about it to effect its recommendations. Parliament is completely weak to protect taxpayers’ money.
Civil servants with serious political connections are said to be corrupt in several odd ways. The police often operate with anonymous orders from above to victimise nationals. Independent institutions that are meant to uphold democracy by operating in the Interest of the country and the people aren’t independent at all. Those in social positions of trust mismanaged or embezzled state funds and the very innocent suffering majority are now asked by this very government of ours to pay for their embezzled or mismanaged funds by irresponsible austerity measures that are economically meant to pay International Monetary Fund and World Bank debt misused by our government officials.
Taking the above into consideration plus many more, the effect of enhancing checks and balances for the general good of all which can lead to the sharing of national wealth and close the inequality gap for the good of the suffering majority, the corruption aftermath exposes the simple truth that our democracy is failing: the appalling spectacle is anything but a continuation of poor leadership, and our society is currently incapable of producing a transformational leader or a substantive election because far too many voters abhor substance and seriousness. Something’s rotten in the system, and it’s the large portion of those we charged with the responsibility of the State, among other things.
As I am forcing myself to write this, my mind, body, and what’s left of my soul are reeling from this hidden genocide orchestrated by a neocolonial institution which is being pushed into our throats by those we elected to lead us and create changes in our lives, in particular, the ruling SLPP regime of President Bio; and since they came to governance, the suffering majority are yet to truly benefit from their governance system. Now, with the current inflation rate, the suffering majority continue to experience more hardship in their lives immediately after they returned home from the UN General Assembly where they used a huge amount of taxpayers’ cash with no benefit to the ordinary people.
There is so much that is deplorable in this government cycle that we could start from the very beginning, with most government officials living flamboyant lifestyles that are beyond their official earning powers and no one cares about them. Most government officials are flouting procurement rules and getting away with them. Government contracts are inflated to deliberately siphoned taxpayers’ money. People use political positions to victimise fellow nationals by embezzling statute funds that are meant to address the social challenges of the majority. Education is under-financed and is still poor despite the well-organised propaganda, health facilities are deplorable and many homes cannot afford healthy meals.
Most of our people can’t feed themselves with healthy food. On top of these issues, Goods and Service Tax was sustained, electricity tariffs increased, unfavourable taxes that disadvantaged the contraption from private investment and encourage the smuggling of our natural resources was imposed, the unemployment rate increased, transparency and accountability on the part of elected officials declined and all government contracts are shrouded in secrecy. Government hospitals, education and other essentials of life that are meant to alleviate the suffering of ordinary people who were forced to scale down their budgets. Unfortunately, the politicians and others in social positions of trust aren’t checking themselves to legally reduce the unexplained wealth they’re parading around with at the expense of the ordinary people. Where is the love, the leadership and the promise to close the inequality gap to be found in our government officials for the suffering majority? Where are the opposition leaders, where are the real politicians that can stand for the truth and defend the defenceless people?
Our politicians are quite capable of talking at length about a number of substantive issues which they often use as hoaxes. However, they’re now shooting themselves in their heads as it is very evident here in the coming election majority of voters seem to respond to such talk with revulsion, boredom, and by not voting for whoever emits such talk. Add both the media’s and the public’s focus on scandals and, of course, the present-day politicians to the mix, and it’s almost impossible to have any kind of a substantive discussion about anything political enough to meet the needs of the deprived majority; even if you replace the current government, it won’t be easy.
That, dear readers, is what should terrify all of us: this is no way to conduct a campaign. Because without a doubt, the function of a political organisation whether in governance or opposition must be to give leaders who can demonstrate expertise and realistic plans on substantive issues of concern to Sierra Leone citizens the chance to do so while simultaneously exposing those in social positions of trusts who cannot do so as being clearly unable to do so with punitive measures. And yet, so much about the current setup makes either action close to impossible to any meaningful extent with the exception to some degree of the very few among the rest. But even worse is that in 2023, it seems most of the Presidential and Parliamentary aspirants would not base their campaign on a substance and reason if the economy and the suffering functioned the way it’s going currently.
Yes, the media is certainly part of the problem, but as part of market-driven forces, news outlets are forced to a large extent to give consumers what they want. Newspapers that try to be substantive and in-depth are losing readers and money to less objective and less accurate bloggers and extremist cocooning outlets. The real problem is the Sierra Leone people: an increasing number are turning away from the substance of their politicians or their news stories. Many of the same dynamics explain the rise of odds in our society.
In other words, even when it comes to the most important issues thus far in the most important election in modern Sierra Leone history, our system and our society—most of our people are not capable of having a substantive discussion and an informed weighing of issues and candidates. Thus, we get a discussion that is hardly a discussion at all but becomes more about fake performance art and driving headlines to win those in social positions of trust and news cycles within the governance system with deceit. No matter who wins the potential elections, what has gone down in our economic cycle is a serious wound in our body politics that has it in critical condition, and the ruling SLPP government is a significant symptom but is not the disease itself, which is the mentality of a huge number of Sierra Leone voters who voted for this current regime, but never got what they voted for. The opposition must always be there to play its own role in checks and balances of taxpayers’ monies which they, unfortunately, compromised for self-gains.
As this nightmarish and nightmarishly long potential election cycle winds down, the most awful phase, leaders of both parties in Sierra Leone need to figure out how to come together to promote people of reason, stature, seriousness, and depth, and to find ways to actually be leaders, to lead the Sierra Leone people in spite of Sierra leones’ baser desires, to push the public to value substance over style, to do more than simply what an angry mob craves and wants by finding ways to elevate enough of our nationals to save us and our country from ourselves, rather than simply be tools of self-destruction who are chosen democratically, but are tools of self-destruction nonetheless.
As of now, I wouldn’t bet on this happening anytime soon, and if any political party hold on to the State House, there is a chance that we can lead the country into a new, better era, one in which results will be achieved and in which results will trump the noise and propaganda and create a new, strong, and progressive majority that will pick up even some skeptics when it delivers these substantive results. If this doesn’t happen, I am not sure how long or how well our system can survive continuing to be like it has these past few years, especially this coming election year. That hope—that opportunity—is worth fighting for, with a true leader this time around at the State House, especially as the majority of our politicians continue to deceive us since independence to date.
In a recent television interview, the governor of Thampèreh’s central bank came out of the closet. He confessed that he could not impregnate the needed economic baby in the village. Not that it came as a surprise considering the many mishaps the grandpa professor has made since taking up the central bank’s affairs, but the bold admission opened up the debate on why he was there in the first place.
The bank governor’s confession, followed by an apology to the people of Thampèreh, would have, under normal circumstances, paved the way for his immediate replacement. In his words, he said, “I also want to tell the people of this village that I am gravely sorry that I am in a situation where I know we are all hurting, but I don’t have the capacity to get rid of that hurt.”
His words sounded like a person who claims to be a certified surgeon. Then he takes up the post of the chief surgeon in the village’s most prominent hospitals. After cutting up several patients open without even applying anaesthetics, he stands up, holding his tools, and tells them he knows they are hurting. Still, he just doesn’t have the capacity to perform surgeries and get rid of their pains. Worse, instead of resigning and allowing a competent doctor to take over to save lives, he stands comfortably with his tools and continues cutting the bodies of his patients. And the CEO of the hospital does nothing. He remains proud of this incompetent and imposter doctor.
But the incapacity of the bank governor is a reflection of the Painter’s impotence.
Since taking office, the Painter projected several imaginary colours of development and hope. To his credit, his administration is transforming sections of the village’s education, invested in some parts of the health system, and developed favourable policies in the mining sector that would allow villagers to begin to benefit from its verse mineral resources finally.
And while these are significant steps, his other aspects of human capital development are nothing but projects written for the shelves. His agriculture and food security remain a dream enveloped in nightmares. Shortly after taking office, he launched a progressive initiative inviting all villagers to engage in agriculture, starting with himself and his ministers. He posed in large farms with machines and took photos accompanied by colourful videos and enticing soundtracks, saying if he could do it, then everyone else should. But beyond the images and videos during the planting season, no one saw his harvests or knew what became of the farms. Even the gimmicks of farming were a one-time thing. He abandoned the calls for a national food security drive even before getting started.
On infrastructure, his much-lauded Office of Painter Infrastructural Initiative, the OPII, can hardly boast of major infrastructural projects since its establishment. The OPII echoed sounds of building the Lungi bridge, extending the current airport, constructing a new financial city in Lungi, a rail network system for Thampèreh, a coastal highway, the Bonthe Seaport, the Bonthe Special Economic Zone, and the Bonthe Industrial Zone. Apart from photos of the designs, the only major project underway is the airport extension project, whose terms are shrouded in secrecy.
Even though many doubted his ability to transform Thampèreh right before being elected, the Painter’s coming to power came with renewed hope among ordinary villagers. They badly yearned for a saviour to take them from the decades of hardship, human right abuse, indiscipline, corruption, and the like.
Instead, the Painter spent his first moon circles in office, blaming the opposition for the mess they left behind. Then he shifted his blame to the Covid-19 outbreak in the second and third moon circles. The fault is now on Russia for Putin a conflict in Ukraine. The excuses and lack of taking responsibility persist as poverty and the cost of living continue to fly over the roofs of villagers.
Now, as he walks around, most villagers can already see an impotent Painter incapable of impregnating development and transformation in the belly of Thampèreh. The New Direction he promised only reflects on him and his cronies. That is why his bank governor’s statement saying he knows “we are all hurting” is even more hurtful to the people than the pain he caused to the village’s economy. For a man who collects a hefty salary every moon and goes on state-sponsored holidays wherever he wishes, including laying his incapacitated hands on the backs of lions, “hurting” should be the last of his vocabularies in the village of Thampèreh.
There are also rumours that since the governor laid his hands on those innocent lions, their lives have been crumbling like Thampèreh’s economy. But those are just rumours.
The Painter is seeking a second term to do better while maintaining and recycling the same people and doing the same thing. Many villagers are now asking if the bank governor could still hold such a vital position in the village despite his bold admission of not being capable of proffering solutions; will the Painter be better in his second term after a terrible first term? Will the Painter eventually take responsibility and confess his impotence? Or will he spend his second term casting blames as he did during his first term?
Susan George, A Fate Worse Than Debt: "Debt is an efficient tool. It ensures access to other peoples' raw materials and infrastructures on the cheapest possible terms".
Is it right for our present rulers to surrender the daily activities of running the government to a neocolonial financial institution like the International Monetary Fund we never voted for to govern us? The International Monetary Fund does not represent anybody other than their country. What this means in practice is that the United States runs our country. So don't be surprised if you're walking around a white man's land and you're referred to as one of their neat modern slaves.
Interestingly, looking at Sierra Leone today and you would find that the figures are swinging down. Education standards are going down, chances of getting a daily bread are going down, health standards are going down and checks and balances are literally breaking up.
Hypocritically, whilst the International Monetary Fund is telling us to cut down expenditures in social amenities through their so-called "Structural Adjustment Programme", back in the United States, their government is pushing ahead concretely with the need to improve spending in the area of social amenities for their nationals. This cast serious doubts about the leadership qualities of our government officials. To many, it shows a lack of vision and a sense of unpatriotic act from those we elect to govern us. To date, one can reliably say with all sense of objectivity that our politicians keep on failing us by not putting their personal interests aside and doing what is right for the general good.
International Monetary Fund representatives inside Sierra Leone and other developing countries are living in subsidised housing, complete with free furniture and an extended assignment, a mobility premium to defeat the cost of child education. Their salaries are tax-free and averaged $86,000 back in 1995, according to a General Accounting Office report to Congress. And NO structural adjustments programme for this privileged coterie of bankers and policy analysts.
Meanwhile, here in Sierra Leone, despite the fact that the International Monetary claimed to be here fighting genuinely to eradicate poverty in partnership with our government, with all our huge mineral resources, a small population coupled with a high percentage of youth which the International Monetary Fund should have capitalised on with concrete technological skills, industrialised electricity and other means of education to process our resources internally and create employment facilities to efficiently boost our economy, a hidden genocide lays waste the country via their so-called Structural Adjustments Programme which our government was well prepared to endorsed immediately the International Monetary Fund knocked their door with a paper in their hands to sign any part of it.
The International Monetary Fund is supposed to seek consultations with civil society organisations and other pressure groups to allow the people to have their say in running their country before concluding any salient decision that has to do with the lives of the people. Here in Sierra Leone, we didn't see this at all and this continue to cast doubts in the minds of objective nationals whether the International Monetary Fund and the current government are really genuinely representing the interests of the people or whether the International Monetary is in Sierra Leone to partner with corrupt state officials to make money at the expense of the country and its people.
It will be recalled that the International Monetary Fund has been accused in many quarters around the globe of partnering with corrupt governments in third-world countries to exploit countries and their citizens. For instance, the International Monetary Fund's defunct "structural adjustment programme" states that they should lend enough to prevent default on international loans that are about to come due and otherwise would be unpayable". This Is nonsensical, to say the least.
There are supposed to be careful country-by-country investigations to ensure that money loaned is spent wisely or at least in the interest of the people or country. And there are punitive measures when a country failed to meet the laid down standards. Why are they brushing the laid down rules and regulations aside and keep on lending governments that failed to meet their set standards? Sound highly suspicious, isn't it? Common sense needs to break out in this whole International Monetary Fund's frequent excuses in our country.
This further created doubt as to whether Structural Adjustment Programme is the correct economic reform our country needs to grow in the first place. Because it's now evident that the key issue with this Structural Adjustment Programme kind, however, is whether they build the capacity to recover and whether they promote long-term development. So far, the adjustments the International Monetary Fund and the Sierra Leone Government are bluffing with have nothing to write home about with respect to real development that has to do with the genuine good of the country and its people.
From what we are experiencing here in Sierra Leone, the so-called Structural Adjustment Programme is currently undermining democracy and democratic accountability, of the International Monetary Fund, which of cause has no one to be accountable to, but also the Sierra Leone government as corrupt governments officials can use Structural Adjustment Programme as an excuse not to cater for the majority despite the fact that their cabal members are living in flamboyant lifestyles beyond their normal earning powers.
They must be ghosts.
The truth is, in some cases, we are made to understand that corrupt governments borrowed money from the International Monetary Fund directly from various donor nations and ended up using that money to pursue personal interests or to divert resources away from their people. So we have every reason to be concerned about the level at which the International Monetary Fund's name is playing in the current deplorable economic situation in our country.
We are told by Joseph Stieglitz, a one-time Economics Noble Price Winner, economic adviser to the Clinton administration in the United States, currently a Professor at Columbia University and former top worker of the International Monetary Fund that " in most cases, the International Monetary Fund corruption is done knowingly with the support of various rogue rulers and top officials of the International Monetary Fund due to their own personal interests".
Quoting Oxfam," it would be wrong to hold civilians to ransom by placing stringent conditions on basic necessities of life because of the way their government spends its money".
Furthermore, it has been argued and established that Structural Adjustment Programme encourages corruption and undermines democracy. As Ann Petitfor and Joseph Hanlon note, top-down " conditionality has undermined democracy by making elected governments accountable to Washington-based institutions instead of to their own people". The potential for unaccountability and corruption, therefore, increase as we are currently experiencing with our current government officials.
Where are the leadership qualities in our present government in signing a document that asked them to drastically cut down on essential investments in health, education and other essentials of life and put the already suffering majority in more miserable conditions than before? Why did our government fail to understand that we need these investments before we can compete internationally? Why are they dancing to the International Monetary Fund's intention in pushing a weak Sierra Leone economy into the market by agreeing with the International Monetary Fund to reduce state support and protection for social and economic sectors?
By Jaime Yaya Barry
It was in a bright hotel room in the Disunited Kingdom. Thampèreh’s Painter was awakened by the screams of the Nomoli pacing around his room. The object had the numbers “9” and “6” written on its forehead. It flew over his head and took a last scream on his face before disappearing.
The Painter was scheduled to attend a special fund-raising dinner organized by the Palm Tree’s Women’s Wing in the faraway Kingdom. It was part of plans to raise funds for the Painter’s re-election campaign.
Back home in Thampèreh, food and commodities prices have gone over the roof. Villagers can barely afford food to eat. Many have abandoned their construction projects due to the unaffordable cost of cement, iron rods, and other construction materials. The mighty dollar of the Not-so-United States of Amerikkka continues to render the Thampi gold coins useless.
Exhausted from his numerous travels across kingdoms and villages, the Painter summoned his beloved wife, Yidador-Ka, and told her about the Nomoli’s “9-6” message.
“I think some people want to take my PhD from me,” he told her.
“No man born of a woman will take it from you,” she replied.
On the tenth day of the eighth moon in his fourth circle since becoming Thampèreh’s Painter, riots broke in several parts of the village. There were calls from the crowd for the Painter to “go.” The riot led to confrontations between civilians and the N. A. Gbadass, Thampèreh’s version of the police, resulting in the death of six N.A. Gbadas and dozens of civilians. It was the bloodiest riot in the village’s recent history.
Hours into the riot, the Painter thought of the Nomoli’s “9-6” message. Could it be Nineteen Ninety-Six, the same period he obtained his PhD in coup d’Etat, according to Yidador-Ka?
As images of Thampèreh’s warriors marching with rioters emerged, the Painter felt the message was clear. That the Nomoli’s “9-6” was a sign from the gods and some people were, indeed, ready to oust him and take his PhD from him.
Since the beginning of the PhD crusade, many villagers felt the need to defend their PhDs at all costs. And in an effort to protect the Painter’s PhD, the end of the riot became the beginning of tales of extra-judicial killings, public executions, unlawful arrests and detentions, rape, and the sudden disappearance of hundreds of villagers.
The message from the Painter and his cohorts was that what happened in the village was a failed insurrection, and they will, by all means necessary, hunt those responsible and hold them accountable for the bloodshed. This led to panic and fear across the village. Even the 8th moon’s usual heavy rains and flooding couldn’t wash away the fear left behind from the Tenth Day.
The Nomoli’s “9-6” remains the biggest misery from the Tenth Day incursion. The gods are known for sending unclear messages, leaving villagers to interpret the numbers differently, each from where they stood. While some villagers on one side saw a “6-9” representing a bloody protest due to the high cost of living and unbearable hardship, others on the other side of the numbers saw a “9-6” representing similar events from Nineteen Ninety-Six when the Painter first took power in a coup. In the middle of the number is the Special Committee that was set up to investigate the real cause of the riot.
As the committee is busy looking into this issue, one division in the security sector issued another “generic operational orders for policing and monitoring (on a) planned nationwide riot” for the 10th moon. Acting upon intelligence received, the sector instituted an “Operation Vigilance” to quench any planned “massive attacks nationwide.”
Ever since he democratically took over power, the village’s Painter has accused many of trying to overthrow him. It is unclear if he’s hunted by ghosts from his past coups or based on thoroughly vetted intelligence. The events that followed the various coup accusations resulted in the loss of many lives and the destruction of properties.
For a man who handed over power from military to civilian rule, and believed to have paved the way for the start of Thampèreh’s would-be democracy, his heavy-handedness in responding to many issues has left stains on several of the village’s efforts in building and strengthening its democratic principles and institutions.
And with the recent memo from the security sector, it seems there are more stains ahead even as the village is moving towards its elections for either a continuation of the current Painter or elect a new one.
POISONING THE WELL OF SLPP NATIONAL YOUTH CAMPAIGN MESSAGE
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
Failing to value and respect the types of data that minoritised scholars are collecting and the ways we are collecting them—is a form of silencing us, writes Jackson Wright Shultz.
I write my truth.
In fact, my entire goal as a writer and author is to open a bit of my world to others. Many written works about my country and political parties have been distorted or fictionalised, even by sources claiming to provide honest exposés. So when I write about the SLPP 2018 general elections national youth campaign message's inability to efficiently and effectively address the welfare of our youth at the national level at a crucial time like this, I write exclusively nonfiction.
As a nonfiction writer, I attempt to balance the risk of being overly tedious in my writing with the rewards of painting accurate depictions of our potential human resources. True, the rewards are subtle and often come in the form of quiet head nods from the country that I try to represent. But in a country of sensationalised stories rooted in misconceptions of what it means to be an objective writer in a country like ours, even the slightest appreciation from other patriotic, partisan and none partisan individuals is the highest praise.
I write the truth apparent to my country with special attention to the potential human resources of our country.
The national policy meant to address the welfare of the youth is deliberately shifted away from direct political processes to administrative processes which in turn pose a potential threat to the stability of any nation. Division of labour with sound minds in handling youth welfare in a poor country like ours helps create a solution to standard political-economic models which suggest that having vibrant policies to ‘sell and effect’ the potential human resources of any political party in governance is valuable to politicians that are keen to protect their political party in governance.
However, bad politicians within the governing SLPP with the thirst to hang on to positions at all cost and cause division within their party and the country at large often appear to avoid taking sensitive stands, they duck such responsibility and hide behind others to cause problems for their party and country. Such politicians also actively design mechanisms to deflect political pressure by faking their political achievements to the detriment of their political party and country.
We can understand such a level of desperation from greedy and desperate politicians that are in the majority of President Bio's government who fail to catch up with the test of time. However, when those involved in these deceitful tricks and naked sense of aggression against our national youth to satisfy their selfish desires are individuals that benefited from President Bio's empowerment scheme to help spread wealth nationally, then it becomes worrying for a country like ours and concern to all that President Bio's national youth empowerment has been destroyed by very few people that believe they're supposed to be the only beneficiaries of his national empowerment project. It's extremely painful when such odd actions directed toward our potential human resources with the intention to make a mockery of their future are orchestrated and effected by a specific set of individuals that are empowered by President Bio's national empowerment policy and later charged with the responsibility to unearth the facts and make salient recommendations that will be equally and concretely effected to address the welfare of our youth within their party and across the country.
This is what the majority of President Bio's government officials have reduced themselves since they were charged with social positions of trust. They've failed to put the interest of their party's youth and the national youth ahead of their interests.
Unfortunately, even after they've exploited the youth at the party and national levels after President Bio appointed them in 2018, they're now desperately chasing the youth right down the rabbit hole to sustain their greediness in governance. This means the majority of the people President Bio appointed in his government are yet to scale their performance to tell the youth and other people of this nation their achievements in empowering the potential human resources of our country since the time they were appointed. Right-minded nationals consider it imperative to seize this opportunity and make it known to these greedy people in our social positions of trust that the Bio-led SLPP is a nonprofit organisation which should measure its progress in fulfilling its mission to its party's youth and youth across the country, its success in mobilising resources that genuinely address the inherited challenges of our youth nationally, and the effectiveness of those charged with social positions of trust to genuinely tackle the huge challenges of our country's potential human resources, especially as most of these greedy people in our social positions of trust want to sustain governance and their positions to further exploit the already suffering majority.
We continue to hear from the very greedy President Bio's appointees that formed the bulk of his government officials about their leadership skills and how efficient they claimed they are in addressing the welfare of their party youth and youth across the country and that they continue to win the SLPP more youth votes. Fair enough, provided they're up to the mentioned task. However, this begs the question of why the greater majority of our youth are jobless, frustrated, helpless and without someone to complain to. This shows there's a clean and clear sense of disconnect between the majority President Bio appointed in our social positions of trust and the majority of our oppressed youth. The majority appointed by President Bio in our social positions of trust often arrogantly sit on top of the pyramid enjoying our national youth suffering miserably.
And to make matters worse, these very greedy SLPP politicians that dominated President Bio's government and their campaign teams are now mocking the youth that they failed to benefit because the SLPP doesn't recognise them since they aren't registered members of the Party. May I remind these very greedy politicians and their team that the majority that voted SLPP in governance in the 2018 general elections weren't registered members of the Sierra Leone Peoples Party? To grasp the effectiveness of the majority of President Bio's government appointees' leadership towards the challenges of our national youth and how efficient they're in delivering their tasks to our national youth, one would be tempted to further ask what metric system President Bio and the very few right-minded nationals within his government used that told a tale of genuine success in his government leadership solutions towards the challenges of our country's youth?
Do President Bio and the very few right-minded nationals within his government understand that the Sierra Leone People's Party as a nonprofit organisation rationally minded individuals would expect it to track the performance of the organisation by metrics such as cash raised to empower our national youth, youth membership growth within its party, number of concrete projects meant to empower youth nationally, number of youth that is concretely serving in entrepreneurship programmes and overhead cost, are monies spent in youth projects commensurate to performance outcomes? These metrics are certainly important and they do measure the real success of the Sierra Leone People's Party in achieving its national youth mission as per its campaign manifesto.
Taking the above into consideration, it soon becomes clear that Bio's government leadership qualities towards our national youth are ineffective as they were geared towards raising money for projects that appealed to donors to satisfy the personal interests of the greedy people that dominated his government, but didn’t necessarily advance the SLPP 2018 national manifesto campaigned promised—also left much to be desired. It further sends out negative signals to praise singers that take the option of praise-singing people in society out of sentiment that they must avoid the trap of oversimplifying it and treating the symptoms rather than the cause of a particular social problem. President Bio's greedy appointees have so far failed to show clearly what the several pragmatic approaches used in quantifying the success of the SLPP national youth campaigned message as stated in their 2018 general-election manifesto.
Given the diversity and the significance of our national youth and to enhance effective and efficient practices in the government of President Bio, it's imperative to avoid vague or baseless methods in measuring the success of the government. The greedy politicians that dominated the government of President Bio must understand the relevance of this and stop the stereotyping method of measuring success to be in a much better position to sustain trust from donors in order to efficiently tackle the challenges of our youth for the general good. Years of experience and research indicate that as a political organisation, the SLPP indeed, must measure their performance and track its progress towards achieving its mission. The party owed its clients, members, donors, and society at large nothing less than this in pitching its campaign programmes especially when it is aspiring as an incumbent to sustain governance.
When you lean over in a canoe on a river, the boat tilts but then rights itself. But if there is too much pressure on one side, the canoe tips past a certain point and becomes a capsized canoe. It has flotation pads at both ends, so it doesn’t sink, but the situation of the canoe has changed from a floating maneuverable craft to a new stable, but sad, state.
The tipping point from one condition to another can occur unexpectedly to those who have never experienced a capsizing. People in undemocratic countries are not surprised when their government turns over, but those of modern democracies like Sierra Leone grew complacent, even though we know that democracies that appear stable can capsize. Sierra Leone turned into a tyrannical state between 2007 and 2022. Within these years, there has been a massive increase in the number of people living under tyranny, with the majority of Sierra Leone’s population living in a country that Freedom House classifies as not having “free” government systems.
It is tempting to think, “It can’t happen here.” But Sierra Leoneans are more concerned about that now than they have been in decades. From the 2007 to 2018 general elections, many nationals think it is “likely” or “somewhat likely” that state actors will successfully overturn the results of a Sierra Leone election because their party did not win.
We, the present authors, are worried that putatively upright Sierra Leone after the presidency of the late Ahmad Tejan Kabbah is today in danger of descending into tyranny. A tyranny—once capacities for control and despotism are constructed, in some cases including expansive government employment, dependency, and largesse—can be nearly impossible to reform. The key to the descent into tyranny, and the stability of tyranny once it is achieved, is this: Tyrants use tyranny to fortify their keep and to protect themselves against the sanctions due to them for their crimes.
Calling tyranny “stable” may seem paradoxical. Tyrannies suffer from chaotic upheavals and violent paroxysms. But the state of tyranny itself is stable, like a capsized canoe. Ordered liberty is better for everyone—aside, perhaps, from the despotic faction and their affiliates. It is difficult to restore the rule of law once it is debased. Rectification would call for changes in personnel, operations, and attitudes. The relative power and privilege of the despots would disappear with rectifications. Tyrants use the tools of tyranny to protect themselves against the sanctions due them.
How can that faction be so base and corrupt? It’s hard to understand the psychology of depravity and delusion; some say Satan is at work. And if we are feeling hopeful about God’s goodness deep inside the despot, consider yet another difficulty: Even if more virtuous reformers persuade the despots of the errors of their ways, there may be no way for them to credibly guarantee that the despots will escape sanctions, such as forfeiture of ill-begotten wealth, prison sentences, or execution for their crimes. The inability to commit to clemency may make it impossible to admit to wrongdoing and “cut a deal.” Also, there is, in any case, the disgrace that comes with the restoration of liberal norms and condemnation of the fallen.
What prevents systems from capsizing are the virtues of liberality and liberalism. So long as enough people disapprove of illiberality, as systematized, for example, at Twitter, Facebook, and Google-YouTube, and of anti-liberalism, the system can right itself and avoid capsizing. Election integrity is vital, of course.
In Sierra Leone, we are accustomed to thinking that modern democracies are always like a pendulum—a swing far in one direction is balanced by a swing back in the other direction. But the descent into tyranny can mess with the whole pendulum mechanism, preventing the counter-swing. We are concerned that the mechanisms that, thankfully, have thus far prevented us from reaching the tipping point and capsizing after the eleven years of brutal civil war are being dismantled. The dismantling is being done to some extent intentionally, by despots and wannabe despots, who act variously from greed, depravity, delusion—God knows what! 2023
Politics is always a matter of lesser evil, but our point is not directed at only the greater evil. In the Sierra Leone context, we observe illiberality and anti-liberalism among some who vote for the Sierra Leone People's Party and some who vote for the All People's Congress. The people who advocate the seizing of control of the government often do it for (what they see as) the best reasons: achieving a good society. One function of liberalism is to call out and oppose, the influence of the government on social affairs, even when it is done with the hope of putting the “right” people in charge.
Some of the founding fathers of liberalism can help us understand how to oppose tyranny. The thinkers, David Hume, Adam Smith, and Edmund Burke represent the original liberalism that now is aptly called not only “classical” but “conservative.” Hume, Smith, and Burke opposed radical alteration in the institutions of government. The original liberalism is conservative when it comes to altering the polity drastically.
However, the conservative element of conservative liberalism depends in part on how liberal status quo institutions are. Events that led to the eleven years of brutal civil war in Sierra Leone are a sharp illustration of why a liberal does not always oppose fundamental reform. And they illuminate our main theme: the hazard of descending into tyranny.
The act of oppressing the suffering majority by the selected few, but very powerful within Sierra Leone is simply inconsistent with liberal values. Tensions grew when the government of Ernest Bai Koroma tried it, with many intellectual voices in and out of the country pointing out that “all men are created equal” and asserted clear precepts about personhood and citizenship. The system descended to further evils which led to the election of the Bio led Sierra Leone People's Party to power. What precipitated the change were movements and growing recriminations against the oppressors, for being unjust. The then oppressive government of Ernest Bai Koroma responded with more injustice. They could not control the suffering majority. Oppressors and the oppressed resorted to “cancel culture” and heightened oppression, to protect the profoundly illiberal and anti-liberal institution of the legal oppression of fellow nationals. The system passed a tipping point into a more fully institutionalized system of repression, with the outlawing of voices advocating a change of tactics and a code of conduct that made any questioning of oppression socially unacceptable.
Liberalism involves a self-correcting system of propriety that calls out violations of liberal norms in defense of liberal institutions. In the face of illiberal institutions, the liberal must sometimes be a challenging voice; in the context of liberal institutions, the liberal looks like a conservative, calling out initiatives corrosive of norms and a presumption in favour of liberty. Sierra Leone is unique, or was until recently, in having a framework that allowed a “fusion” of conservatives and libertarians: the status quo to be “conserved” was a liberal coalition built around “Unity, Freedom and Justice” and “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
What we saw in the eleven years of brutal civil war and among despotic actors in governments today is the use of despotism to perpetuate their position and to shield themselves from the just correction of their injustice. As long as they hold the whip, the injustice may not only persist but grow worse and worse. The fate of the oppressed in the eleven years of the brutal civil war was horrible indeed. The shackles grew tighter. Meanwhile, the Internal Revenue Service is hiring. If we do not figure out a way to defuse despotism in Sierra Leone, our own future may be permanent slavery for the suffering majority.
The horrors of August 2022 and fascism led some to believe that liberal civilization was soon to perish. However, some people, in some parts of the country, waged a war against totalitarianism, in a movement mobilized under the banner of “freedom” or “liberal democracy.” After the brutal civil war, positive criticism is not just against the selected few oppressors, but against the spread of authoritarian ideology. In our future, will there be Winston Churchill and Václav Havels to resist the despots? Or will the governments of all the two major political parties belong to a network of tyrannical governments?
It is not just dystopian fiction—that has furnished us with the image of a once-liberal civilization under the presidency of the late Ahmad Tejan Kabbah now capsized. Some of the great liberal writers have warned us against the very real march toward a capsized civilization. May we heed their warnings. They told us that the governmentalisation of social affairs is a tool of would-be despots and that it hatches despotism even if not by design. We must bravely speak out against the governmentalisation of social affairs and against the unjust sentiments and beliefs that forward it.
Liberalism involves a self-correcting system of propriety that calls out violations of liberal norms in defense of liberal institutions. In the face of illiberal institutions, the liberal must sometimes be a challenging voice; in the context of liberal institutions, the liberal looks like a conservative, calling out initiatives corrosive of norms and a presumption in favour of liberty. Sierra Leone is unique, or was until recently, in having a framework that allowed a “fusion” of conservatives and libertarians: the status quo to be “conserved” was a liberal coalition built around “Unity, Freedom and Justice” and “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
What we saw in the eleven years of brutal civil war and among despotic actors in governments today is the use of despotism to perpetuate their position and to shield themselves from the just correction of their injustice. As long as they hold the whip, the injustice may not only persist but grow worse and worse. The fate of the oppressed in the eleven years of the brutal civil war was horrible indeed. The shackles grew tighter. Meanwhile, the Internal Revenue Service is hiring. If we do not figure out a way to defuse despotism in Sierra Leone, our own future may be permanent slavery for the suffering majority.
The horrors of August 2022 and fascism led some to believe that liberal civilisation was soon to perish entirely. However, some people, in some parts of the country, waged a war against totalitarianism, in a movement mobilised under the banner of “freedom” or “liberal democracy.” After the brutal civil war, positive criticism is not just against the selected few oppressors, but against the spread of authoritarian ideology. In our future, will there be Winston Churchill and Václav Havels to resist the despots? Or will the governments of all the two major political parties belong to a network of tyrannical governments?
It is not just dystopian fiction—that has furnished us with the image of a once-liberal civilisation under the presidency of late Ahmad Tejan Kabbah now capsized. Some of the great liberal writers have warned us against the very real march toward a capsized civilisation. May we heed their warnings. They told us that the governmentalisation of social affairs is a tool of would-be despots and that it hatches despotism even if not by design. We must bravely speak out against the governmentalisation of social affairs and against the unjust sentiments and beliefs that forward it.
As the huge challenges within our country in tackling the issues of our youth keep on inciting new dangers; I ask whether there’s a way that leads forward. The “youth trap” as I call it, has profound potential implications for the SLPP government of Julius Maada Bio to sustain governance and this was well exhibited in the recent 10 August 2022 chaos.
When it comes to contempt for political party democracy, the rule of law and simple fidelity to the truth in the lives of our youth, examples have crowded in from around the country. It’s as though a generation's worth of latent symptoms. The hard truth is the deplorable conditions of our youth expose a current and potential far greater source of national regret and frustrations on their part.
The rule of law when addressing the challenges of our national youth implies more than official adherence to status or national treaty obligations. It requires that those who exercise power on behalf of our youth maintain a moral commitment to the disinterested search for the truth and to good faith in policy making in all matters that have to do with our potential human resources of the country. The consequences for even a robust democratic political party in power when it shirks the spirit of its constitutional mandate in addressing the concerns of its national youth are enormous.
“Setbacks in trying to realize the ideal do not prove that the ideal is at fault,” observed the eminent peacemaker and U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld.
New ideas in addressing the vulnerable plights of our youth must not be seen as a threat or incitement, but rather as sincere solutions to help address the vulnerable plights of our country’s youth especially as we face the very CRUCIAL 2023 general elections. Youth in Sierra Leone want the government of President Bio to treat them as they treat their best friends: accepting the youth as they are but expecting the best from them after creating the necessary environment for them to thrive successfully. Even with aggravating—sometimes heartbreaking—setbacks, youth in Sierra Leone like living under a government where the arc of history is irreversibly dispersing power. Community solidarity in the form of addressing the welfare of all youth, expanded education in the form of scholarships to keep on empowering our youth to sustain the Bio-led SLPP in governance, use of our national youth in collaboration with government stakeholders to champion issues nationally, partner with our country’s youth Minister to give our youth-free public libraries as milestones on the unshakable trend line towards an inclusive, and fairer society.
For good, for social entrepreneurs, the national youth concept of a just Sierra Leone we export to communities around the country will generally attract youth to believe in President Bio’s government. We are our own role models.
Therefore, for any incumbent political party that wants to sustain governance, learning how to respond to the spoken or unspoken feedback, it receives from its youth is a science and an art. And, how well you receive feedback impacts how well you give it.
Feedback is at the heart of good leadership, effective teamwork, efficient problem solving, developing talent, and the ability to understand and serve the needs of the greater percentage of our constituents (youth). Yet, most politicians within the ruling SLPP feel they have it “right” despite when our youth keep on sending negative signals.
The results we are producing now from the deplorable standard of living from the majority of our own very youth across the country are feedback. Our results are evidence of how well our youth are being served by the beliefs of our current president and the actions of his government. His beliefs and actions up until this point have produced the exact results that we are experiencing right now. If his government is not producing the results our youth want right now, then he needs to take note of the feedback he’s receiving; his government surely needs to change its beliefs and behaviour towards the youth across the country.
No matter what feedback President Bio’s government is receiving now if his government's relationship with the youth across the country is not what he wants it to be, there is feedback available to him. Unhealthy beliefs would have him believe the reason his government's relationship with youth in the country isn’t what he wishes is “their fault.” He might also be able to confess the other party’s sins, keeping a careful score of all the ways his government has been wronged. His government can keep these beliefs and take the same actions it has been taking, but if his government's results haven’t changed before, why would it now?
If his government isn’t producing the national leadership results, he wants, then his beliefs and actions with youth are informing him that changes are necessary. Some people’s beliefs about power are terribly unhealthy. They believe that power is scarce, that there isn’t enough, and that someone would have to give them more for them to be better off power-wise. These beliefs and the accompanying behaviour literarily repel power away from them. Poor results provide feedback. And when one fails to treat the feedback seriously, he risks creating a situation where others will suffer as a result of his greediness by creating the scenario where all will lose it.
This is the hard but uncomfortable truth,’ isn’t it? We are compelled to speak about the true vulnerable leadership results of our youth generally under the government of President Bio, are we not? Very poor youth welfare now in the country is simply feedback. When you don’t put up the numbers, there is something amiss. Your beliefs about sales and selling are not serving you. Since your actions precisely follow your beliefs, your actions—or lack thereof—are responsible for bad numbers within the majority of our youth.
A lot of people will tell you they believe things that are in complete opposition to what you see them do. They will tell you that they believe prospecting is necessary to generate new opportunities for our youth. But they don’t prospect. They will tell you we need to put up fake survey propaganda to deceive your opponents. But the suffering youth who are the majority aren’t interested in fake things any longer, but authentic ones. They’ll tell you that they want to make more money to address the issues of our national youth, and then they’ll hit the snooze button three times and find ways to avoid responsibility for greater outcomes.
Here’s the thing: to believe something and not act on it is the same as not believing it. To know the right thing to do and not to do it is the same as not knowing it. The result is the same for you as it is the person who doesn’t know any better.
If the Bio-led government changes, its beliefs, and actions and listen to voices of reasoning that will assist the government in addressing the challenges of our national youth, that may help the government produce the results it wants. But if it fails to, it’s simply because it isn’t taking its feedback seriously and that it needs to change again and then try something else for the good of the potential human resource of our country.
The national struggle against corruption in Sierra Leone today goes far beyond civil society organisations' compliance with the Anti-corruption Commission. More elusive is the deep and worsening trust deficit that exists between institutions and individuals. The far-flung belief that public and private institutions are not acting in the interests of the people they are supposed to serve diffused through the thinking of communities across the contraption. Civil Society and news organisations, which have historically served as the watchdog for Ministries, Departments, Agencies and business people, are less trusted by the public than ever before.
Public confidence has been corroded by a concentration on near-term priorities and payoffs, propelled by election-cycle politics or quarterly results targets that too often leave children worse off than their parents. Instead of looking toward a sustainable future that works for everyone, many have been left with a sense of desperation about the ideals of progress in addressing social service protection for the good of all nationals in Sierra Leone.
We must make integrity the norm, driven by public-private cooperation, innovative leadership, and effective technological tools. As is often quoted, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Transparency is more important than ever. We must remember that the business community, too, is a victim of corruption.
THE POWER OF MESHWORK:
Partnering against the corruption Initiative is one of the cross-industry collaborations the Anti-corruption Commission should conduct. In years to come, the Anti-corruption Commission must seek to rebuild trust in both the supply and demand side—working with Ministries, Departments, Agencies, journalists, business leaders and civil society to promote transparency.
The Commission needs to build networks across sectors and supply chains to encourage best practices and share products that improve transparency. For example, one promising new advance is “speak-up systems,” which will encourage individuals to report questionable or corrupt behaviour from peers or supervisors. Harnessing new technology is also important, creating opportunities for us to engineer corruption out of the system. New systems like distributed ledger technology—a formation of replicated, shared, and synchronised digital data nationally spread across multiple sites or institutions across the contraption —can contribute to creating a more secure environment for real-time data sharing.
KEY OUT THE CHOKE POINTS: The Anti-corruption Commission must up its game to identify and announce new measures in its latest step toward restoring trust: A Strategic Dialogue Series will be useful here. By convening government and business leaders from diverse regions and sectors in the contraption, the Commission will create opportunities to develop knowledge and share practical solutions.
First, they will invite business executives and public officials around the contraption to participate in an anonymous survey. The Commission and other leading experts will analyse the results to identify opportunities and challenges for effective public-private cooperation on the issue of battling corruption.
Next, they will convene government Ministers, heads of Departments, Agencies and business executives to discuss issues and bottlenecks and then identify and prioritise solutions. The Commission will encourage them to propose and advocate actionable solutions.
Finally, the Commission will provide an interactive platform to distribute key findings. To foster transparency, the Commission will publish all findings to inform and stimulate further collective action.
WHAT BUSINESS CAN AND SHOULD DO: Advancing the Anti-corruption agenda is more than a business imperative: it is our duty, and it is in everyone’s interest. We must preserve and nurture the niche in which we do business. We must uphold our business integrity, enhance transparency, and maintain robust checks and balances on inappropriate behaviour.
Promoting an ethical culture is a necessary element of good management. The best way to protect this culture is to actively promote it from the top—with the clear commitment of leadership to a culture of integrity and to the fundamentals of effective corporate governance: fairness, accountability, transparency, and responsibility. And the commitment must be ongoing and continual.
The business community is uniquely situated to help unite all elements of society to identify and share innovative ways to develop collective action, deepen our shared understanding of the issues, and prompt change. Now is the time to develop working solutions that combine strong corporate governance and effective Anti-corruption initiatives to restore trust in our governments and corporations.
Fidelity in rebuilding trust is essential to the success of businesses, governments, and societies around Sierra Leone. The system simply doesn’t work without it.
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
In all our elections in Sierra Leone, preponderantly from 1996, when our nation returned to multi-party constitutional rule, political parties released what they call their Manifesto, incorporating their vision and action plan for the nation. This has become what I refer to as a “quadrilingual political illicit affair”, whereby the political parties use semantics and charming words to woo voters. As susceptible to attack as the typical Sierra Leonean voter is, party slogans are enough to slake their five–year thirst, hunger, poverty, etc.
Deplorably, these manifestos, which are escorted by pomp and pageantry when they are being launched, are hidden in a hole and covered with a huge and bleak lid until the next election approaches. The ordinary voter hardly sees the colour of these manifestos, let alone glances through them. Parties fail to carry out these manifestos when they come into power and are left off the hook. This has reduced manifestos to mere rhetoric of political parties to hoodwink unsuspecting and vulnerable voters.
All the above happen and are repeated every five years because there are no legal backings to political party manifestos. Parties are not obliged to fulfil promises contained in their manifestos since there are no legal authorities, at least not that I know of, to compel them to do so. Interestingly, there are always nicely packaged lies to tell the electorates during elections.
For instance, both the current SLPP and previous APC governments of Ernest Bai Koroma and Julius Maada Bio promised to improve the suffering majority's standard of living by upholding the constitution's values. This has never seen the light of day.
The hard but uncomfortable truth is that after 61 years of independence with all the minerals we own as a nation, most of our nationals still live in abject poverty. This means our political party rulers simply cannot lead but can only rule. So do we really need a political party manifesto or Citizens Manifesto?
Not long ago, civil society organisations and journalists released a development plan for Sierra Leone, which they named the "Citizens Manifesto". Members of various civil society and journalist organisations trekked the length and breadth of the country to solicit ideas from the citizenry before finalising the document to which all political parties committed themselves. The billion-dollar question is, how are the SLPP and APC party manifestos launched four years back, propelling the Citizens Manifesto into action? How were the other political parties' manifestos launched fashioned along this grand Citizens Manifesto development plan?
With the current system, one party takes the nation to the right, and the other comes to power and takes us to left. Why can’t we as a nation get a national manifesto but always have to depend on the manifesto from parties which go to protect the parochial interest of the particular party?
Years of experience continue to teach us that we need to have a Citizens Manifesto to collectively tackle key national developmental issues such as education, health, economic management, and agriculture, to mention but a few. No party manifesto should supersede the Citizens Manifesto to the point that programmes, policies and projects initiated by previous governments are abandoned and discontinued by successive governments. Why should one government introduce a three-year Senior High School programme for another party to come to power soon afterwards to increase it to four years and again revert to the same party that introduced the initial three years? Did we go or did we come?
Many would not be surprised that the various political parties are oblivious of the content of the Citizens Manifesto, either than that APC and SLPP would not be fighting over who is stealing whose ideas.
With the current Citizens Manifesto, there is still a way forward. In order for us to share, politicians try to distance themselves from it. The current system has been trial and error, where our rulers are toying with our lives. There should be a common plan for almost all aspects of our nation. This plan should be part of our curriculum to imbibe in our students right from the onset.
Again, political party manifestos should be fashioned along the line of the Citizens Manifesto or Development Plan. With this, parties cannot force any policy or programme down our throats simply because it was captured in their manifesto.
We have advanced far in the wrong direction. The solution, however, does not lie in us pressing hard on the accelerator but rather turning backwards; better late than never.
What does Executive power protect?
Executive power is the constitutional principle that permits the president and high-level executive branch officers to withhold information from Parliament, the courts, and ultimately the public. This presidential power is controversial because it is nowhere mentioned in the Sierra Leone Constitution. That fact has led some scholars to suggest that executive power does not exist and that the Parliamentary power of inquiry is absolute. There is no doubt that presidents and their staffs have secrecy needs and that these decision-makers must be able to deliberate in private without fear that every utterance may be made public. But many observers question whether presidents have the right to withhold documents and testimony in the face of Parliamentary investigations or judicial proceedings.
Executive power is an implied presidential power that is recognised by the courts, most famously in Supreme Court cases. There are generally four areas that an executive branch's claim of privilege is based: 1) presidential communications privilege; 2) deliberative process privilege; 3) national security, foreign relations or military affairs, and 4) an ongoing law enforcement investigation. In previous controversies over Parliamentary access to Department of Justice documents pertaining to an attempt on Furious scandal investigation, the presidents and Attorney Generals often relied on the deliberative process power and also ongoing law enforcement investigation defence.
Most Presidents in Sierra Leone have not used this power for the public good; instead, some have claimed executive power to conceal wrongdoing or politically embarrassing information. In certain controversies where our Presidents claim executive power over documents, critics suggest that their actions constitute improper use of that power. Presidents and their defenders argue that they are instead protecting a core presidential function by stopping Parliament from intruding into areas where it does not belong.
No president in Sierra Leone ever used the phrase “executive power” until when his rots were about to expose. The truth is the phrase is not a part of the common language. Nonetheless, all presidents going back to Siaka Stevens have exercised some form of what we today call executive power. Often the use of this authority occurred when Parliament demanded from the Executive administration information regarding the unwise use of Sierra Leone taxpayers' monies or entered into negotiations at the national expense. Parliament specifically requested State House records and testimony from presidential staff familiar with the event. State House convened his Cabinet to discuss whether a president possessed the authority to deny information to Parliament. The Cabinet and the president agreed that the chief executive indeed had such authority when exercised in the public interest. The president communicated this view to Parliament in writing. State House eventually decided to cooperate with the Parliamentary inquiry and turned over the requested materials. But he had first laid the groundwork for the presidential use of executive power.
State House established the proper standard – that presidential secrecy must be used only in the service of the public interest. The evolution of the exercise of executive power and of the legal decisions governing its use make it clear that this is a legitimate presidential power when used appropriately. Nonetheless, most of our Presidents gave executive power a bad name when used to try to conceal sensitive information about rogue deals at the expense of the State.
Like other constitutional powers, executive power is subject to a balancing test. Just as presidents and their advisers need confidentiality, Parliament must have access to executive branch information to carry out its constitutionally based investigative function. Therefore, any claim of executive power must be weighed against Parliament’s legitimate need for information to carry out its own constitutional role. And, of course, the power of inquiry is not absolute, whether it is wielded by Parliament or by prosecutors.
In our constitutional system, the burden is on the executive to prove that it has the right to withhold information and not on Parliament to prove that it has the right to investigate. Executive power should be reserved for the most compelling reasons. It is not a power that should be routinely used to deny those with compulsory power the right access to information. Short of a strong showing by the executive branch of a need to withhold information, Parliament‘s right to investigate must be upheld. To enable the executive to withhold whatever information it wants would be to establish a bad constitutional precedent that would erode a core function of the legislative branch and upset the delicate balance of powers in our system.
There have been proposals in Parliament to develop a clear statutory definition of executive power. Yet no such legislation has ever passed, and it is unlikely that such an effort would reduce interbranch conflicts over access to information. To date, the branches have relied on their existing constitutional powers to negotiate disputes over assertions of executive power. For the most part, the system failed to work well without a legislative solution.
"Paopa!" try less fighting and speaking and doing to get “your” way—and a lot more sitting, listening, questioning, and being still.
What can the resistance against 'Paopa's" greed learn from George Orwell’s allegorical novel "Animal Farm"?
As many of us work to resist the largest inequality gap created by the current Beo-led government in Sierra Leone, we often get caught up in the question of whether “we” will “win.” Then I wonder whether the oppositional thinking of “us” and “them” and “winner” and “loser” and “our side” and “their side” and “99 per cent” and “1 per cent” can lead to transformational and lasting change. I think, in particular, of George Orwell’s allegorical novel Animal Farm, especially with the current Beo administration behaviour.
The quick plot The pigs on the farm lead an animal revolution against the oppressive humans. A central tenet of the revolution is that “all animals are equal.” But after the farmers are killed, the pigs move into the farmhouse—the place of the privileged—and even begin to walk upright on two legs. Ultimately, they rule as maliciously as the humans did. When questioned about the tenet that all animals are equal, they reply, “Yes, but some animals are more equal than others."
This is exactly how Beo's government is currently treating the suffering majority in Sierra Leone.
In what I will call a masculine-principled revolution, the uprising to remove the previous despotic government of Ernest Bai Koroma under the All People's Congress itself served as much to consolidate power in a new SLPP "'Paopa" ruler as to democratically oust the incumbent APC and their handpicked presidential aspirant. With an understanding that the hierarchy of oppression changes under the new ruler as a reward for supporting that consolidation of power. The selected few groups that supported the new SLPP ruler were granted new privileges with no effective checks and balances, and the group that was backbit by the selected few sycophants surrounding the seat of power and the suffering majority had privileges taken away.
Oftentimes, the rulers of the revolution end up concentrating more on maintaining the part of the power than the part of the suffering majority. Privilege is reassigned according to what maintains their personal interests. The foot soldiers in the revolution must content themselves with slight changes in their currency.
Here’s what that looks like under the current Beo-led government: The “resistance” reacts to Beo, whose supporters reacted to Ernest Bai Koroma, and on. The Orwellian animals become the humans, who become the animals, and so on. Meanwhile, the truly oppressed remain that way (this is the shadow truth of our binary choice system), and not much changes as we get distracted by the overly masculine-assertive desire for control.
Moving away from “us versus them” opens up the possibility of what I call “Only Us.” The oppressed of each “side” is rewarded just enough to convince them to support the leadership without actually taking part in that leadership. Thus, the pendulum swings back and forth.
Masculine-assertive energy is not good or bad, but rather adaptive or not, according to the circumstances. Too much reinforces the regime of extracting resources, and while it might have once advanced society, it is now killing us and our habitat. So there is an argument to be made that using masculine-assertive energy to fight masculine-assertive energy by the current Beo administration reinforces the pendulum swinging.
The choice becomes either being content to have the pendulum swing “our” way for a time or working toward an end to all that swinging.
Moving away from “us versus them” opens up the possibility of what I call “Only Us”—an all-inclusive state of being for all sentient and non-sentient existence.
To move toward Only Us may require a massive move toward feminine-receptive energy. What does that look like? Less fighting and speaking and doing for our way and a lot more sitting, listening, questioning, and being still. Mobilising includes listening—especially to the oppressed of the “other side”—and receiving what is offered as opposed to taking what is not. The so-called talking and doing system of the Beo administration is now well understood by what we keep on learning day in and day out.
Are there models for the feminine-receptive approach? Yes.
Mobilising includes listening. My own life story has brought me deep familiarity with 12-step recovery programmes. One of the things that I have most admired about these groups of people is their tradition of all-inclusive governance. Their second tradition goes something like this: There is but one ultimate authority—loving wisdom as it expresses itself in our group conscience. Leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
The amazingness is this: Workable and effective self-governance by some of the most downtrodden and disempowered people in our society—those trying to manage addictions. The will of so-called recovered or expert leaders are not imposed on the groups; they are required to fulfil the will of the group. Further, the will of the group is not that of the majority but of the consciences of the individual members and factions synthesised into one—ideally—unanimous group conscience.
The process is feminine-receptive principled in that it is about listening to one another and attempting to synthesise individual views into one community view. When a decision has been made that the entire group supports, there is no tyranny of the majority. There will be no need to overturn the group decision when a new majority takes power. Of course, this process is predicated on a faith in another recovery movement tradition—that “our common welfare comes first” because personal well-being depends on the well-being of the whole. Not us and them —but Only Us.
Let’s also consider the work of Elango Rangaswamy, the former mayor of the village of Kuthambakkam in India.
Rangaswamy pioneered a form of direct democracy by listening to his villagers, writing plans based on their views, and returning the plan to the villagers to discuss and rewrite in a circular process of receptiveness and assertiveness that refined itself to reflect the needs of all villagers. Again, no tyranny of the majority or the Executive Arm and a balance of masculine assertiveness with feminine receptiveness.
Rangaswamy then went on to train hundreds of village mayors throughout India in his methods.
The recovery movement and Rangaswamy’s self-governance models require a fundamental understanding that there is no use moving the fascist humans out of the farmhouse only to move in the equally power-hungry pigs. The models also require faith that the pendulum swing that comes with a masculine-energy revolution is not the best we can do, that “us versus them” degrades both “us” and “them.”
A model of receptivity by all rather than assertiveness by some can be used to create an Only Us that stops the pendulum and allows a longer-lasting highest good for the highest number. A question for those of us who are working to stop the current greed in the Beo-led administration for the general good is this: How do we use the feminine-receptive principle to create a dialogue with the oppressed of the “other side” and then move forward together?
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
Informed observers and commentators on the Sierra Leonean socio-economic and political terrain, indigenous and foreign, all agree on one fact regarding the swift collapse of the national economy after late President Ahmad Tejan Kabba left– Sierra Leone’s economic depression is policy-induced! It certainly is not by accident that a country of few million dynamic and hardworking people, that had successfully begun to diversify itself from a uni-product economy to one hinged on diverse sources suddenly awakes to find its fortunes violently depleted and reversed, with the supervisors of the national economy each passing day churning more regulations geared towards causing more harm and creating more confusion domestically and causing disinterest from genuine foreign investors.
In their quest for legitimacy, democratic regimes in Sierra Leone, after the late Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, find themselves having to balance two values that can be in some tension: fair and non-politically partisan public service delivery and, subject to the law, the responsiveness of public servants to the policies of the past Koroma and current Bio executives.
Neutrality in the sense of political non-partisanship in public administration is, of course, a precondition for ensuring that, regardless of their political orientation, citizens are treated fairly and in an equitable manner. Operationally, it is delivered by emphasising professionalism, merit and competence amongst public servants. These values are important to the level of justice and continuity in public administration – arguably a significant determinant of how much trust citizens place in their system of government. At the same time, public servants must be accountable to the government for the effective delivery of its programme, and responsiveness of the administration to the government of the day within the law and the constitution is key to the effective implementation of our government policies. As stated in the Principles of Civil Service Code In Sierra Leone:
(e) “Impartiality” (i) “Justice, fairness, equity and impartiality are the prime values of the Civil Service. Therefore, in carrying out public business, Civil Servants shall not display partiality as a result of personal or family ties or of gender, religion, region or ethnic background. They shall treat all people fairly, in making appointments, awarding contracts, or recommending individuals for rewards, promotions and other benefits and shall make choices based solely on merits”.
The Civil Service Act depicts how Sierra Leone developed institutional arrangements that balance these two concerns to avoid the extremes of a self-serving public service immune to political leadership or an over-politicised public service hostage to patronage and serving partisan, regional, tribal rather than national interests. With this in mind, I investigate past, and current secrete and open appointments to mainstream public service managerial positions by the Koroma and Bio governments. Other than for some occasional comparisons, my investigation does not consider the appointment of political advisors outside of the usual public service hierarchy.
The tensions between the values of neutrality and responsiveness are not at all evident in the past and current recruitment and appointment actions of the APC and SLPP governments. Political responsiveness can be enhanced by selecting staff on the basis of both merit and commitment to a particular policy programme. The question is whether those staff would just as willingly assist in the implementation of the policy priorities of a new government and the next, especially when they aren’t going through the “Regrading Committee” of the Civil Service.
My investigations unearth that, for the past and current APC and SLPP governments, political involvement in administration is essential for the proper functioning of a democracy. According to my sources, their incoming political administration would find itself unable to change policy direction without this. However, we are again experiencing a government that is deliberately ignoring the reality that public services need protection against being misused for partisan purposes, they need technical capacity which survives changes of government, and they need protection against being used to impair the capacity of future governments to govern. This was clearly stated in our Civil Service Act under Recruitment and Appointment;
Rule 2.1: In principle, unless the commission directs otherwise, all vacancies shall be fully advertised by appropriate notice within the Civil Service or through the Gazette, the press, other media, employment exchanges, or other appropriate means for the information of the general public. There must be a reasonable period of time, with a minimum period of one month, between the date of advertisement and the deadline for applications to be received. Rule 2.5(d) selection procedures must be reliable and guard against bias, and equality of opportunity must apply throughout the recruitment process.
Put starkly, when there are multiple principles, the single political principle with some responsibility for the sector portfolio (Ministers, Permanent Secretaries etc.) faces a distinctive incentive for politicisation as it gives them a stronger handle on an otherwise unresponsive bureaucracy. This conclusion argues against the assumption that underpins much public management literature, which warns about the negative effects of political involvement and often suggests that purely administrative determination of staffing decisions is the preferred state and that any steps down the path of political involvement are intrinsically damaging to governance. This was what late President Tejan Kabba believed and succeeded in building Sierra Leone despite the fact that he inherited one of the World's most brutal wars.
Those not familiar with the geopolitics of one of Africa’s richest nations in terms of natural resources and the erstwhile projected fastest-growing economy will wonder how any Government will be willing to deliberately ruin a national economy, cause great harm to the citizenry, heighten the prospect of potential internal chaos, and ultimately destroy economic prospects and potentials. Well, welcome to the oddity of the Sierra Leonean nation under the “New Direction government” this time around.
When at his assumption of office, the present Sierra Leonean ruler, Julius Maada Bio, a former Head of State who had in his erstwhile stint in office over 20 years ago contributed in driving the economy into depression, embarked upon a global frolic of major capital cities of the world telling whosoever cared to listen that he is now presiding over the ‘most corrupt people in the world’, and with the damaging effects of such self-deprecation just beginning to manifest the regime rolled out conflicting fiscal pronouncements, particularly in the area of accessing foreign exchange, amounting to policy somersaults which has the potential to scare off multinational companies from Sierra Leone (including Airlines, Extractive and service-sector conglomerates); and eventually capping the dire situation by deliberate acts of maligning the Judiciary and Legislative arms of government creating an impression before all and sundry that Sierra Leone was and still is a banana republic where powers resided and emanated from one single individual; the hand writing on the wall was clearly discernible to all who were discerning – Sierra Leone was being systematically and serially depleted with cynical ulterior motives.
Finally, those who doubted reality are now able to have a glimpse at the wider picture via the recent kite flown by those who are profiting tremendously from the deprecation of Sierra Leone: having succeeded in pauperising the Sierra Leonean State, depreciating the value of the country and its national assets, reeking in enormous profits from a fraudulent foreign exchange regime, suggestions are now being arrogantly floated that the remaining real natural resources of the Sierra Leonean State should be auctioned off for peanuts to supposedly "reinvigorate the economy with the redenomination of the national currency".
Really?
Sierra Leone’s prime national assets, the Gold, Bauxite, Rutile, Iron Ore, Diamond etc. operations, are now being particularly targeted by these hawks (World Bank/International Monetary Fund, African Development Bank, Britain, European Union, United States, China etc.). Also in their sights are other critical national infrastructures such as Water projects and Roads.
If these vultures are so smart and so rich, why don’t they build industries in Sierra Leone to add value to the mentioned raw materials and other critical infrastructure and compete with advanced countries to add genuine value to our economy?
Knowing how the fraudulent system works in Sierra Leone, an avalanche of ten-a-dime ‘experts’ (local and foreign) will be assembled to support the floated idea, and more punitive fiscal and socio-economic policies will be rolled out to squeeze the populace into believing that anything that brings in whatever amount of foreign currency into the system is good, and pronto, the economy and social service protection of the suffering masses, and other major critical infrastructure would be auctioned for peanuts to spurious portfolio-companies registered in some offshore tax havens by the unscrupulous who will suddenly turn up in "Forbes list of the richest" as Frank Timis did in the very corrupt African Minerals, and SL Mining rogue deals, whilst the poverty caused locally will unleash more domestic abject poverty for the majority.
As these vultures gather, is there anything a Government populated by vultures and or their stooges can do to forestall an impending disaster? Nothing! The people have to decide what they want of themselves by themselves. The people with these assets have every right to resist brigandage in the name of governance or government policies.
Restructuring and renegotiation of the Sierra Leonean contraption will minimise these vile practices.
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
The national financial crisis, which began in 2016 which the current SLPP regime promised to fix when they were in opposition, and whose repercussions will continue to echo in Sierra Leone for years to come, has triggered myriad criticisms of our capitalist system: it is too ‘speculative’; it rewards 'rent-seekers' over true ‘wealth creators’; and it has permitted the rampant growth of finance for the selected few at the expense of the suffering majority, allowing speculative exchanges of financial assets to be compensated more than investments that lead to new physical assets and job creation.
Debates about unsustainable growth have become louder, with concerns about the rate of growth the regime inherited and its direction. Recipes for serious reforms of this ‘dysfunctional’ system include making the financial sector more focused on long-run investments; changing the governance structures of corporations, so they are less focussed on their share prices and quarterly returns; taxing quick speculative trades more heavily; legally blocking financial leakages and curbing the excesses of the wage bill.
I have argued that such critiques are important but will remain powerless – in their ability to bring about real reform of our economic system – until they become firmly grounded in a discussion about the processes by which economic value is created. It is not enough to argue for less value extraction and more value creation. First, ‘value’, a term that once lay at the heart of economic thinking, must be revived and better understood.
In Sierra Leone, value has gone from being a category at the core of the economic theory, tied to the dynamics of production (the division of labour, changing costs of production), to a subjective category tied to the ‘preferences’ of economic agents. Many ills, such as stagnant real wages, are interpreted in terms of the ‘choices’ that particular agents in the system make; for example, unemployment is seen as related to workers' choice between working and leisure. And entrepreneurship – the praised motor of capitalism – is seen as a result of individualised choices rather than the productive system surrounding entrepreneurs – or, to put it another way, the fruit of a collective effort. At the same time, the price has become the indicator of value: as long as a good is bought and sold in the market, it must have value. So rather than a theory of value determining price, it is the theory of price that determines value.
Along with this fundamental shift in the idea of value, a different narrative has taken hold. Focused on wealth creators, risk-taking and entrepreneurship, this narrative now seeped into political and public discourse. It is now so rampant that even ‘nationalists’ critiquing the system sometimes unintentionally espouse it. When the APC lost the 2018 election, certain leaders of the party secretly claimed they had lost because they had not embraced the "wealth creators". And who did they think the wealth creators were? Businesses and the entrepreneurs leading them. Feeding the idea that value is created in the private sector and redistributed by the public sector. But how can a party that has the words "All People’s Congress" in its title not see workers and the state as equally vital parts of the wealth creation process?
Such assumptions about the generation of wealth have become entrenched and have gone unchallenged. As a result, those who claim to be wealth creators have monopolised the attention of past and current governments with the now well-worn mantra of; give us less tax, less regulation, less state and more market. By losing our ability to recognise the difference between value creation and value extraction, past and current governments have made it easier for some to call themselves value creators and, in the process, extract value. Understanding how the stories about value creation are around us everywhere – even though the category itself is not – is essential for the future viability of our economy.
To offer real change, we must go beyond fixing isolated problems and develop a framework that allows us to shape a new type of economy that will work for the common good. The change has to be profound. It is not enough to redefine GDP to encompass quality-of-life indicators, including measures of happiness, the imputed value of unpaid ‘caring’ labour and free information, education and communication via the Internet. It is also not enough to tax wealth. While such measures are important in themselves, they do not address the greatest challenge: defining and measuring the collective contribution to wealth creation so that value extraction is less able to pass for value creation. As we have seen, the idea that price determines the value and that markets are best at determining prices has all sorts of nefarious consequences.
This narrative emboldens value extractors in finance and other sectors of our economy. Here, the crucial questions – which kinds of activities add value to the economy and which simply extract value for the sellers – are never asked. In the current way of thinking, financial trading, rapacious lending, and funding property price bubbles are all value-added by definition because price determines value: if there is a deal to be done, then there is value. By the same token, if a pharmacy can sell a drug at a hundred or a thousand times more than it costs to produce, there is no problem: the market has determined the value. The same goes for Ministers, other political appointments and professionals who earn 100 times more than the average worker. The market has decided the value of their services – there is nothing more to be said. Our economists must be aware that some markets are not fair.
Price-equals-value thinking encourages rogues in the investment world to put financial markets and shareholders first and to offer as little as possible to other stakeholders. This ignores the reality of value creation – as a collective process. In truth, everything concerning an investor business – is intimately interwoven with decisions made by our elected governments, investments made by schools, universities, public agencies and even movements by not-for-profit institutions. Corporate heads in Sierra Leone are not telling the whole truth when they say that shareholders are the only real risk takers and hence deserve the lion’s share of the gains from doing business.
This market story confuses policymakers. By and large, policymakers of all stripes want to help their communities and their country, and they think the way to do so is to put more trust in market mechanisms. Step back and let the market magic work; this has become the slogan of our governments in Sierra Leone. The crucial thing is to be seen to be business-friendly. As a result, Sierra Leone politicians and all too many government employees are like putty in the hands of those who claim to be value creators. Regulators end up being lobbied by businesses and induced to endorse policies that make incumbents even richer. Examples include ways in which our governments have been persuaded by the World Bank and other rogue neocolonial institutions to reduce capital gains tax, even though there is no reason to do so if the aim is to promote long-term investments rather than short-term ones.
And lobbyists, with their innovation stories, have pushed through with rogue policies, which reduce tax on the profits generated – even though the policy’s main impact has been merely to reduce government revenue rather than increasing the types of investments that led to strengthening the economy. All of these serve only to subtract value from the economy and make for a less attractive future for almost everyone. Not having a clear view of the collective value creation process, the public sector is thus ‘captured’ – entranced by stories about wealth creation which have led to regressive tax policies that increase inequality.
The confusion between profits and rents appears in how we measure growth: GDP. Indeed, it is here that the production boundary comes back to haunt us; if anything that fetches price values, then the way our national accounting is done won’t be able to distinguish value creation from value extraction, and thus policies aimed at the former might simply lead to the latter. This is not only true for the environment where picking up the mess of disasters will definitely decrease GDP (due to various services paid for) while a cleaner environment won’t necessarily (indeed, if it leads to no disaster, it could increase GDP), but also as we saw to the world of finance in our contraption where the distinction between financial services that feed industry’s need for long-term credit versus those financial services that simply feed other parts of the financial sector are not distinguished.
Only with a clear debate about value can rent-extracting activities in every sector, including the public one, be better identified and deprived of political and ideological strength.
When Exploitative Politics and Economics Determine Fuel Price
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
Economics and very exploitative politics have always been at war – silent, sometimes violent. Like water and fuel, they don't mix well. In developing countries like Sierra Leone, politics tends to enjoy the upper hand, often rubbishing the best of economic sense. These impasses are impregnable walls to stop an economic argument or interest advancement. But there seems to be no clear winner in the current fuel situation. In June 2022, there was a strong economic reason to increase the pump price of petrol, and politics could not stop it despite the possible reasoning that a new administration was inflicting hardship on the same people that voted it into power. The gaping hole in the political wall was the massive goodwill or huge credit balance the government enjoyed during its honeymoon.
On June 29, it raised the pump price of fuel from 18,000 Leones per litre to 22,000 Leones per litre without any serious protest. There was market satisfaction, which underlined the irrelevance of the fuel tax cut – a government financial aid to enable Sierra Leoneans to buy fuel at affordable prices.
Also, long queues at fuel stations disappeared in the comfort of availability. Economics won, whereas, during the previous administration, politics won after nationwide song and dance, sometimes volatile protests, dubbed "Occupy Sierra Leone."
The market fundamentals have since changed, giving economics a stronger voice for a price review, pushed forcefully by profit-driven oil marketers. But the political scenario has also changed, and not even the most advanced explosives seem capable of making holes in the strong wall it has built.
The bottom-line of all current possible scenarios is the welfare of the people, which even weakens the present economic argument for current fuel price increases under the government of President Bio. Would a government visit on its people another round of hardship soon after an economic recession because market fundamentals have changed dramatically?
Both the Petroleum Regulatory Board and the Sierra Leone Oil Importers admit fundamental changes in the market. Sources from the Ministry of Trade and Industry explained that the 22,000 Leones and 18,000 Leones per litre prices were fixed when crude oil prices were $122.71 and $111.93 per barrel.
Expectedly, citing different reasons, some of the oil importers stopped the importation of the product ostensibly to protect their bottom line, leaving the entire burden of supplying the nation's fuel to All Petroleum Product (A.P.P.). In some instances, fuel dealers were punished by the fuel importers' monopoly cartel for buying their fuel products from All Petroleum Product. This shows that private fuel importers in Sierra Leone loyalty are to their shareholders; patriotism is never a key consideration.
A spokesperson of the Sierra Leone Petroleum Regulatory Board has said, "Since the price of crude is directly proportional to the refined product, we could not import petrol and sell at the initial 10,000 Leones per litre anymore. The truth is the current pump price of fuel in Sierra Leone fails to match the current drop in the price of crude oil in the international market.
So, the burden of importing 100 per cent is on the importers. And government claimed they continue to assist fuel importers through hard international currencies and tax cuts to make the product available and affordable. Now, you can imagine a situation where importers came together to use their finances to buy certain government rogues in their favour to exploit the suffering majority by sustaining the pump fuel price at a high cost and keep the already suffering majority in abject poverty. This pattern continues to make the lives of the suffering majority under the government of President Beo more vulnerable, and it is likely to get worse coupled with the fact that in the months we called the ember months from October to December, the consumption of petrol is highest in the country.
The increase in the landing cost of petrol per litre in 2018 to the current increase per litre is a strong economic reason that may necessitate only one scenario – a genuine review of the product's price. But the scenario doesn't end there. Despite the availability of the glaring numbers for all to see, the announcement of a price increase was likely to generate protests because any irrational increase in the pump price of fuel is tantamount to playing politics with the survival of the people and making the Beo-led government look very bad in the eyes of the public. This is so because fuel is a political weapon that has the tendency to impact all essential commodities.
So the demand to keep the fuel pump price at its current price, which is at odds with international best practice because the price of .crude oil has fallen significantly, is like a case one makes passionately only to get the response of 'we have heard,' without any immediate action. "This isn't the time to encourage chaos," a top government source said last week. Reports over the months have indeed shown that the Presidency may be reluctant to add to the economic burden of Sierra Leoneans. And if the oil marketers have not been explicitly told, they may have sensed that. But how can they properly understand the message of the President when some rogue people the President charged with the responsibility to protect the interest of the general good are partnering with the importers to exploit the people and create unnecessary tension for the President and his government?
Going Forward
With the apparent reluctance of the government to reduce the pump price to reduce the suffering in the lives of the already suffering majority and increase market satisfaction and stability, some experts suggest that efforts should be made in the immediate short term to genuinely liberalise the market and to specifically encourage investors that want to engage in oil refinery business in the country. They do not wish to repeat the tax cut regime that plundered the nation. Right-minded nationals agreed that the refineries should be built and made functional and relevant for a medium to a long-term solution. They argue that while legacy issues may justify the public doubt over yet another attempt by our government to build and revamp refineries, the current Ministry of Trade and Industry leadership deserves some credibility and trust to get the job done with its fresh and sustainable approach to investor and funding sources, as well as local participation.
That will also require the support of other key players, who sometimes contradict themselves over fuel issues. For example, while the Parliament of Sierra Leone has long recommended the rebuilding and reactivation of refineries as a solution to fuel scarcity and a reduction in the pump price of fuel in the country for the general good, the Ministry of Trade and Industry is too slow to work with investors in the Petroleum Product to realise this goal. Right-minded nationals believe that only local refining will make fuel affordable and easily accessible to all Sierra Leoneans, adding that every other measure to end the recurring problem of fuel scarcity will always be temporary. They have the support of industry experts who warn that conflicting signals discourage foreign and even local investors.
Making refineries work again is indeed one of the measures identified by certain government officials and experts for a lasting solution.
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
If there is one thing most Sierra Leoneans can agree on about the political and social developments of the last decade and a half, it is that our communal project feels threatened. It is not just that the Sierra Leone People's Party and the All People's Congress disagree about policies, legislation, or even elections. We now fight over reality and find it harder to maintain friendships with those from across our various divides. We are more likely to believe it is no longer profitable for Southerners and Northerners and for the various tribes and the secular parts of our society to live together under one coherent political union.
And yet, there are still reasons to be hopeful if one thinks of Sierra Leone as a series of difficult disputes settled, over the course of years and through a diverse array of means. For instance, we do not need to look back to the Civil War to find examples of partisan and tribal divides colouring the day-to-day relationships in Sierra Leoneans' life. For example, the popular actions during the eleven years of civil war show fierce partisanship, political pessimism, and commercialisation of sensationalising political disputes.
In this spirit, late President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah offered thoughtful leadership for our consideration. The question Sierra Leonean Citizenship and Constitutionalism in Principle and Practice seeks to answer is whether we can still live together coherently in spite of our differences after the presidency of late Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. The collective answer of these pieces is that we can, but that it will not be a smooth road. Years of experience offer us this tentative hope in two ways. First, by providing thoughtful examinations of specific historical cases where past Sierra Leoneans navigated fundamental challenges, and secondly, by mining the design of Sierra Leonean constitutionalism for tools, we can wield to help us get through the political challenges of our day.
Among the specific issues late President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah efficiently dealt with during his government, a few are particularly salient today. Perhaps the best place to look for tips on getting through today’s tests is to examine how Sierra Leoneans of the past handled similarly intense disputes. For instance, looking across Sierra Leone's history, we see that working for incremental political improvement is the norm, rather than the exception, among the great reformers. Looking at the lives of the most influential Sierra Leoneans (such as Dr Mohamed Sorie Forna, Hindolo Tyre, John Bangura, Mana Kpaka, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, Lightfoot Boston etc.), we also see that combining honesty about injustices with a generosity that holds out hope for future change.
Likewise instructive is the reexamination of Publius’s conceptions of the Sierra Leone system. The value here is both in looking at what the sharpest early Sierra Leonean minds correctly foresaw and seeing where their predictions have gone astray. As much as anything, this essay invites humility which is vital to a functioning democracy. If specific politicians in the current dispensation could be so wrong about how political parties would influence their country, or, maybe most importantly, about the eventual power dynamics in the relationship between Parliament and the presidency and how to save our country from neocolonial financial rogues, then we ought to accept that some of our politicians and academics, with the deepest convictions, cannot tell us with certainty how a novel policy proposal is going to shape our society for generations to come. One question this leaves us with in the practical sphere is what we can do about the areas where our system has not succeeded in moderating conflict. Sierra Leoneans, on both the Sierra Leone People's Party and the All People's Congress, would do well to think hard about this because patching the holes of a civil political discourse could grow harder as strife wears on our collective sense of confidence in our political institutions.
Among the writers that examine the way Sierra Leone currently does broad civic education is Dr David Moinina Sengeh, Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary Education. He's looking at how Sierra Leoneans have worked, and can work anew, to “[craft] the cords that bind” Sierra Leoneans to one another in civic life. My concern is what we can do to better nurture the breadth and depth of civic loyalty within the hearts of Sierra Leoneans today. My examination of our unique history leads me to conclude that it is not enough to remind Sierra Leoneans that we live in the same land; rather, we need a new robust approach to civic education that inculcates in us a love for our specific political and historical gifts.
Why would Sierra Leoneans buy this perspective in a time of shrill partisanship? Precisely because of the tenor of our discord, the value of a robust, imperfect, common good that can be appealing. We need not all like each other, but if we truly work to live together, knowing that doing so is not only materially beneficial but historically impressive, we should have a better chance at regaining a nomos, even though it will not be exactly the one anyone Sierra Leonean most desires. While this essay is creatively hopeful, it will not be an easy task to reignite a broad commitment to our system, above and beyond the partisan level. It may not be the case that a national approach to civic education can work as well as it did before, but that still leaves us with the question of what actually to do, even in part, to reset the foundation of citizen investment in the idea of Sierra Leone and a commitment to its practical workings.
Late President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah provides another worthy historical examination for today’s citizens. He revisited his progressive administrative skills to find APC members of that time defending the strong party system—that was a political environment where a small number of political parties powerfully channelled almost all important political decision-making—as an important tool for channelling democracy toward a common good. This essay is a timely response to the many Sierra Leoneans who now casually lament that our system has only two parties, that the parties do not seem different enough, that they are both home to zealots, or even that we have parties at all. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah recovered the argument that without strong parties, we will have no mechanism for channelling our passions, competing interests, and political energy.
Put another way, if we do not have strong parties that have a chance to harness and organise our diverse “factions,” then what hope do we have for a functioning political life in the long term? Or we can think about it this way: The two big parties are not going anywhere, at least not any time soon. We may not like them. In fact, most of us do not like either of them right now. But we do not have a real chance, legally or politically, of replacing them anytime soon. They have enshrined their power into state election laws, all three branches of the government, and voters' political imaginations. It might not be easy to make them representative of broad swaths of Sierra Leone or to have them check and moderate each other, but we had better try. Wishing the parties away for today’s Sierra Leone is like wishing a family history of a specific health threat away. The only response is to know and combat the threat rather than to hope it disappears. Of course, accepting that the parties we have are better than most likely alternatives does not do anything to solve the issues the current system presents. We should think carefully and in search of specific practical reforms toward the end of improving the things that do cure the party system we have today.
Taken together, SLPP and APC, along with the impressive collection of thinkers who continue to contribute to our contraption, provide their readers with an innovative, historically grounded, and good faith look at Sierra Leone today and how we might work toward a better Sierra Leone tomorrow. This is not a manual for those who want quick fixes and is not Pollyanna’s treatise of Sierra Leonean exceptionalism. And this is where its virtue lies. It takes a sober look at where we have come to and resolves to use our history, the creativity built into our unique system, and a commitment to civic hopefulness as tools to do the real work of citizenship: to strive to see the good in one’s fellow Sierra Leonean and to apply one’s gifts toward making the whole community a place with a stronger common good. While this anthology presents a worthy look at some of the major things that trouble Sierra Leone's democracy today, it is short on specific, realistic policy proposals that could lead to widespread improvement. The question of what to do next, then, is largely left up to the reader, but it is the most important conundrum facing those who want to rejuvenate Sierra Leonean political life.
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
A few days back, an audio in which Pastor Francis A. M. Mambu blamed bad leadership for Sierra Leone’s socio-economic problems went viral on social media. According to him, most politicians in Sierra Leone are too desperate to amass wealth illegally at the expense of the suffering majority. Months back, prior to his audio, there was another audio in which a man called for a Jerry Rawlings-type mass burial of the country’s political elite, which in his opinion, would help combat corruption and unlock the country’s potential. Both views echo the inner and hidden sentiments many people living in Sierra Leone have about the majority of their politicians. The reasons for these are not hard to find. Most politicians in Sierra Leone have done little to improve the welfare of their people, who are very poor, while they, and their cronies, live in opulence.
The rot goes all the way through the political chain to elected and appointed public officers – starting with political parties. Party financiers and godfathers dictate who holds what public office without regard for competence and internal democracy. They ultimately dictate how state affairs and funds are managed with barely a distinction between public and private funds. So, elections don’t seem to help, mainly as the politicians are the same. Despite Sierra Leone political parties espousing different ideologies and launching welfare manifestos, nothing really changes when governments change.
Corruption is prevalent throughout the contraption. Tied to this is the fact that anti-corruption efforts fail because of a lack of honest and accountable politicians who cannot lead but can only rule. We have co-opted democratic systems, such as regular elections, or the current SLPP simply make up the rules as they go along to stay in power. Behind it all lies an insatiable appetite for money and the realisation that power can deliver untold wealth. These scenarios are also seriously playing out across; the contraption(and the people) are sacrificed to greed. To make matters worse, those brave enough to stand up and be counted are driven out literally or figuratively.
Leadership Vacuum
Sierra Leone is home to many despots and sit-in presidents who either abuse their power or allow abuses to be perpetrated. The contraption is run like family property, and political dynasties are created. Checks and balances are weak, dissent is crashed, and alternative views are discarded, culminating in low accountability, further deteriorating leadership and reinforcing corruption.
One would expect multiparty democracy and its associated principles to produce visionary and effective leaders, but this is rarely the case in Sierra Leone. While elections are held, and rulers are changed at the ballot or Western Power Manipulated Regime Change, things usually remain the same. Often, policies and corrupt practices criticised by “Paopa” political rulers while in opposition now suddenly become right and justifiable when they are in power. In essence, there are new faces in government, but the status quo does not change or is even worse than before. The big question is, why?
Money and Politics
Sierra Leone politics is synonymous with wealth, whether acquired legally or otherwise. Hence, the scramble for power can be intense and sometimes dangerous. The expectation of quick riches increases internal competition for party candidature, often requiring deal-making and buying votes. And failure to align with the party establishment can prevent members from ascending the party hierarchy. Party members are socialised in the same way, mainly to do whatever is necessary to win power by fair or foul means, and those who dare to think or behave differently are sidelined, sabotaged or expelled.
Corruption and Political Party Financing
At the core of Sierra Leone’s corruption and leadership is opaque party financing. Mostly, parties rely on private funding from individuals and organisations. But regulations on financial disclosure are either non-existent or ineffective, which allows wealthy individuals or godfathers known as “bras and Mummies” to wield significant influence, mainly for their benefit but to the detriment of the contraption. Even leaders perceived to be strong-willed can find it hard to withstand the pressures. These examples attest to how State House rulers can be controlled from behind the scenes by vested interests and crooked godfathers. In some cases, our Presidents are incapable of addressing the excesses of their sponsors, leading to anarchy and recklessness.
Being Different is Political Suicide
There is a popular idiom: “do not bite the hands that feed you”. Indeed, anecdotal evidence suggests that this is true for Sierra Leone Presidents. There is a high chance that rulers who act against the interests of their party establishment, financiers and godfathers, even for the benefit of the state, will not last long. The same applies to their policies.
So what’s the way forward?
Sierra Leone must regulate political party financing and strengthen state institutions such as National Electoral Commission to enforce compliance. Until then, most Presidents on the contraption will continue to be prone to capture and control by powerful and parochial godfathers. And the looting of public funds won’t stop.
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
A carnival of absurdity or misplacement of priorities Minus deliberately ignoring the facts (Auditors General Reports, Transparency International, United Nations Human Development Index, World Hunger Index etc.) to protect the interests of the selected few Equals Austerity.
To fix the economy: Government must declare National Debt; kick against IMF COVID-19 pandemic loans conditionalities, sincerely cut down government waste expenses; implement the Auditor General's Recommendations in all Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies to recover monies from unexplained wealth from rogue public officials; Go for Recovery to save the Banks and restore International Partners confidence to sustain SLPP in governance.
Self-praises by government officials in the middle of an economic crisis; are you marking your exam papers on your own, or are you manifesting your normal insensitive acts to the plights of the suffering majority?
Today consultants and thought leaders in Sierra Leone race to find the holy grail of leadership. Research studies into Sierra Leone leadership from independence till date inform us of amazing new insights into the mysteries of leadership in Sierra Leone, but are leadership all that mysterious? Is there really some magic bullet that, once discovered, will openly turn mere mortals in Sierra Leone into towering giants of leadership? The answer is a resounding NO. We know all there is to know about leadership and what it takes to be a great leader. The issue is not in gaining new Presidential praise singers' data that titillates the mind but in deliberately avoiding checks and balances in the presidential praising singing projects that wreck our economy and inflict the current untold suffering in the lives of the majority, but the key is to practice and apply what we know to be true from the heart.
What does this list of leadership competencies tell us about leadership? There are multiple ways to view these results from a Sierra Leone perspective. An extremely valuable inquiry is to ask, "what are the common areas of leadership that repeat in every study of effective leaders around the globe?" These are the core skills we need to focus on and strengthen in these worsening economic challenges, not a Presidential praise singing diary that failed to change the lives of the majority.
Effective leaders perform three essential tasks. They may be called different things by different authors, but the tasks are the same and show up in just about every leadership study. How the task is performed will vary depending on the leader’s style, the situation, and the people involved, but the tasks remain universal for all leaders.
Direction First, leaders point direction. A leader moves to an end purpose, and people who follow move with him or her. Without movement and change, leaders do not need leadership, for that is what leaders create. Leaders point the direction, and to gain followers, that direction must appeal to others (thus, it must be morally and ethically acceptable to them). This is becoming more of an issue in our country as two very different value systems emerge and collide. What is morally and ethically acceptable is now defined in the eyes of the beholder and less a universally agreed upon standard. As a result, we observe colleagues and elders who are unwilling to listen to others who espouse ethical standards or beliefs different from theirs. We watch our politicians spending State resources unwisely because they personally support causes, for religious or personal reasons, that are at odds with the consensus of the economy and their followers and who, therefore, demand the leader step down. This dichotomy of values will become more and more of an issue in the future. As society and followers fracture on what is ethically and morally acceptable, fewer and fewer leaders will have national appeal. Why is this important? Because there are many, who would make outstanding leaders who will never lead because people will not follow them. These people may become visionaries or prophets but not leaders because leaders cannot exist without followers. The important issue is that setting direction and its related ethical and moral underpinnings is essential to leadership.
Question To Ponder: A key question for aspiring leaders is, “does the leader shape the values and beliefs of the group or does the group shape the values and beliefs of the person, so he or she is accepted as a leader to them?” This is a moral dilemma President faces in Sierra Leone: does the leader say what the group wants to hear in order to curry favour and into a leadership position, or does the leader say what he or she believes in seeing if anyone follows?”
Growth: Not only do leaders lead the way, but they also grow things. In fact, they grow three things: themselves, their people and the government. When a leader grows himself and his selected few people within his government at the expense of the majority, he's not a leader. Note: Growth begins with an item mentioned in the direction “bucket”: the leader provides goals and objectives with loose guidelines and direction. This is the foundation out of which growth occurs. The leader seldom decrees the method, the “how”. The leader allows the majority of the people to grow through the struggle with how to achieve something. This is one of the problems with leadership today – all growth and development are structured and accomplished through leadership development programmes, project management training programmes, etc. and ad infinitum. Whatever happened to growth that allows the follower to struggle, experiment, learn by trial and error and ultimately grow by spending long hours talking to a leader? The leader builds a culture of growth by providing goals and objectives and by clearly communicating expectations (what success looks like). Then he or she gets out of the way while followers figure out the “how”. This is the soil out of which follower engagement, commitment and ownership spring. Growth is as common to all leaders as is setting pointing direction.
People & Culture: Finally, as the leader grows people and teaches behaviours consistent with that direction and values, he or she builds a culture: this is the way we behave. Culture is about people, and their behaviour and the leader cares about how followers act. It is not specific techniques that a leader teaches or even decisions he or she makes that make a difference over the long run; instead, it is the leader's impact on the follower's life. This is accomplished by building a culture that demonstrates how to practice consistently what the leader and followers honour, value, and belief in. This is where family begins, and family means relationships. The final common trait of the leader is that he or she impacts people over time, allowing the values taught to be lived out through others.
It’s Not A Mystery: Leadership is not rocket science. Three simple tasks are unbelievably difficult to live out consistently across multiple situations and with multiple unique followers. Sunni Giles writes, “While some (of the competencies) may not surprise you, they’re all difficult to master, partly because improving them requires acting against our nature.” I agree these simple tasks are difficult to master, but I do not think it is because they are against one’s nature. If they are, perhaps that person should never have been in leadership in the first place. Consistency is hard when one is tired, exhausted and even discouraged because he continues to fumble with progress by embezzling State funds and lying on oath. But consistency comes more easily when one practices what he or she believes to be true. That is the foundation of authenticity that naturally occurs when the leader’s high ethical and moral values are lived out through all the other leadership activities.
And after all, isn’t authenticity what followers are really seeking?
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
So it’s ding ding! Seconds out! And we begin the final round of that international slugfest, the International Monetary Fund COVID-19 pandemic loans negotiations. Out of their corners came President Bio, his Finance Minister and Financial Secretary shrugging their shoulders and beating their chests – and I just hope you aren’t one of those trusting souls who still thinks it could really go either way. The fix is in. The whole thing is about as pre-ordained as a bout between Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy; and in this case, I am afraid, the inevitable outcome is again another victory for the International Monetary Fund, with Sierra Leone lying flat on the canvas with 12 stars circling symbolically over our semi-conscious head.
I suppose there may be some aspects of the Chequers proposals that they pretend not to like. They may puff about “cherry picking” the dangerous Chinese loans and even genuine private investors to Sierra Leone that are not singing in the same hymn sheet with their rogue loans. There may be some confected groaning and twanging of leotards when it comes to the discussion on the International Monetary Fund rebuilding the economy they help battered in the previous regime(s) with their well exploitative conditions. But the reality is that in this negotiation the IMF has so far taken every important trick. The Sierra Leone government has agreed to hand over millions of taxpayers’ money and natural resources for two-thirds of diddly squat from the International Monetary Fund.
In adopting the Chequers' proposals, we have gone into battle with the white flag fluttering over our leading tank. If we continue on this basis we will throw away most of the advantages of Sierra Leone. By agreeing to a “common rulebook” with the International Monetary Fund – over which we have no control – we are making it impossible for Sierra Leone to be more competitive, to innovate, to deviate, to initiate, and we are ruling out major free trade deals that will help us rebuild our economy and address our social challenges, this time under the "New Direction" government of President Bio.
If we go ahead with the Chequers' proposals, we are forswearing the project of global Sierra Leone – so splendidly articulated by the President in his UN General Assembly speech of 23rd September 2018 – and abandoning the notion of Sierra Leone as a proud independent economic actor. We will remain in the International Monetary Fund taxi; but this time locked in the boot, with absolutely no say on the destination. We won’t have taken back control – we will have lost control. We will serve as a terrible warning to any other African or developing country thinking of changing its relationship with the exploitative neo-colonial financial institutions: that even Sierra Leone, one of the richest countries in terms of mineral resources, with a new government that promised a “New Direction”, was unable to break free of the gravitational pull of the International Monetary Fund and forced to sue for humiliating terms.
Of course, I hope that the President will still change course – and rediscover the elan and dynamism of his UN General Assembly speech and scores of international and national interviews. With less than one year until the end of his presidential term, there is still ample time to save Sierra Leone. If we are to do so, we must go back to the issue of the role played by International Monetary Fund in destroying our economy in the past regime(s), which has been so ingeniously manipulated – both by the World Bank and IMF and parts of the Sierra Leone Government – so as to keep Sierra Leone effectively in the hands of the very exploitative neo-colonial financial institutions to get very easy access to our country’s natural resources and fixed assets.
Instead of really tackling the problem of the economy we have allowed it to be occluded by myths. It is a myth – pure nonsense – to state that there is “ economic value in getting the International Monetary Fund COVID-19 Pandemic Loans or the presence of IMF in Sierra Leone is to promote democracy”. So, such a thought must be changed. Of course, the current government can rearrange its present actions and make them better for the general good compared to the past government. These are two separate governments, and on either side, you will find plenty of differences.
It is a myth to say that you could create an effective “economy” – by renewing your exploitative partnership with the International Monetary Fund on the pittance they continue to give your government as loans after deducting the usual 10% from the loan.
And above all, it is a total myth to say that by dancing to the International Monetary Fund music government will improve social service protection for the majority or rebuild its international image in human rights violations.
The tragedy is that as soon as the government accepted the exploitative COVID-19 pandemic loans, the International Monetary Fund began working on their very exploitative methods to sustain their looting in Sierra Leone – our Government get lost in an eternal dither and couldn’t make up its minds, for month after month, to satisfy the International Monetary Fund, they failed to seize the opportunity of re-evaluating the very exploitative COVID-19 pandemic loans and add value to them for the good of the nation.
It is now clear that some in the current Government never wanted solutions. They wanted to use the said loans to attract the International Monetary Fund back to Sierra Leone and they enjoy doing so even if it takes stopping a genuine contract from patriotic nationals.
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
I am not sure whether or not you have been in the same kinds of meetings as me. Meetings within the international development world with major multi-lateral funders, government funders or small community-based funders where the conversation goes a little something like this:
“We know our common mission is to eliminate poverty, hunger and exploitation. We see that issues like education (a youth-centred piece) and the explosive power of the youth Bulge in the Middle East and Africa are major issues. So with that in mind, we have a cute little programme that sounded great at the last major philanthropic conference to throw at it!”
This conversation always turns me upside down on two levels: First, I get so excited that the most prominent funders in the world, government or in a community are actually touching the powerful reality that the greatest engine for true change in either international or local communities is our youth. Real and lasting change occurs through the development of lasting changes in human behaviour. The classic story told in one of my summits of a Sierra Leonean politician giving a youth a dollar to feed his family, only to see him spend it on a Mercury lottery ticket on the way home illustrates this well. The youth do not just need money or jobs. The youth need Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. They yearn for a friend or community around them to help them take steps out of one level of seeing these needs met and into another. And then to just keep on going and growing.
Young people’s behaviours are less established and their nature is to grow and learn. Any of us who have helped a 14 years old addict and a 40 years old addict simultaneously know this truth better than anyone. Developing behaviour change in young people is a million times faster than it is in older adults. Youth also tend to establish norms (youth culture) around the “cool” things they are embracing that can/almost always generate grassroots movement-like dynamics. It is because of this that I get excited when a funder is taking notice of youth. If other people in social positions of trust in Sierra Leone are smart they would focus their efforts on the work that late President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah did assuming that they are concerned about effective youth development, that is!
Second, my heart then plummets when I realise how little wisdom exists in the world of our people in social positions of trust in Sierra Leone about what really works in reaching and developing youth. So many simply want to hand money to youth which we all know works with no one, young or old. Others want to simply “empower” youth in a way that is about bringing them together to talk and opine. Talking without action like the majority of our current people in our social positions of trust often do is a drug of the age who have given up on true impact and would not admit their failure. Drawing fresh blood to be equally ineffective is stupidity on a level almost to be equated with evil. I believe the above-mentioned president, was deadly suited to find ways to join together to begin making the case that youth development can and will change Sierra Leone if we begin to work meaningfully together to do so. Are you ready for this?
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
As I watched the cold grimace of calculating satisfaction which crossed the face of certain politicians in Sierra Leone as they presided over the rancorous, ethnocentric and divisive social media audios in Sierra Leone for many years, I could not but shudder in astonishment as to the callousness and criminal-like ingenuity and perfidy of some of these politicians, religious heads and international none governmental organisations.
Am personally not moved by the press releases and personal comments that are currently coming out from most of our politicians, international none governmental organisations and religious organisations. They saw this coming from a distance, but there was NO genuine intention to stop it until it reached this point.
Why Sierra Leone?
Understandably, many are asking this question in the wake of the largest lawlessness after the civil war in Sierra Leone. One survivor simply expressed last night when I reached him on the phone to ascertain his status, "We can only leave it in the hands of the Almighty. This leads me to ask: Are you there, God? And if you are, are you the God of the wicked that are sowing the seeds of discord in Sierra Leone? Truly if the Old Man is there, it appears he has abandoned Sierra Leone- probably too busy answering the all too frequent calls to "Bless America and their neocolonial institutions." In a world that allows the American to make more in one month than the average Sierra Leonean does in one year, something seems to be out of focus. The God of our weary years appears to be asleep at the wheel-or is He?
23 March 1991, brought us the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) war, and 2022 is about to end with a terrible bang of lawlessness, to say the least. However, in a span of five years, my prayer is that our world, our country and our various homes are ready to uncheck the option of apathy for sake of- get this action! Time is out up and waiting for the Heavens to split, the bushes to burn and the rocks to cry out. While the world looks up to affirm through faith that God has not gone AWOL, let us not as members of collective faiths repeat the same pattern of apathy and passivism that have only allowed cycles of social injustice to continue. As someone who holds his faith dear to his heart, let me share with you the clear mandate I believed God has issued to His people. This will alarm many people, and others will be surprised to hear me utter these words. But firmly, it is simply not enough to pray.
I am a Muslim, and I believe in the power of prayer, relying on it day in and day out. However, I charged you today to not just pray but to be an answer to someone's prayer. I am conscious of the blessings God has bestowed on all of us here in Sierra Leone. But now, we are reminded that it's not just about our being blessed. It is time to be a blessing.
By Farook Abdul-karim Sesay
The unfortunate mayhem and fatality that unfurled on Wednesday, August 10, 2022, in Sierra Leone - were narratives just waiting to happen! The omission to have acted swiftly by the government when the rumblings and manifestations bring to a halt the nation is a lack of a duty of care! Wherever there is smoke - there is fire! A strong, capable commander in chief, would have immediately cut short his travel and be at the helm back home, to show sturdy leadership. Yet, he stayed in London with his family. Even if his travel had been warranted by government business obligations - nothing was as more immediate and important than being in the country to oversee the wellbeing and welfare of the people and the nation!
When a country is under siege!
The interests of the state and the people are unconditionally more paramount. Mr Maada Bio has failed woefully in that department. Like it has been robustly stated many a time, President Bio is clueless, spineless, and has a soft underbelly like a snake! As a former soldier, who ruled the nation once (no matter how short a stint) - has shown the nation that he is not fit for purpose! He should bow his head in utter shame! A responsible and reputable security apparatus should always be either awake and take serious note of any incipient rumours or incidents brewing. A stitch in time saves nine! A weak and cowardly ruler, who only depends on the outcome of the Commission of Inquiry(COI) and the lapdog agency, the Anti Corruption Commission ( ACC) to muzzle his political opponents - so as to get a second term in office is a disgrace. An ignominy.
But, the axiom: you cannot give what you do not have - applies starkly and sadly, here! President Bio is an unwittingly consequential product of a botched strategy by the erstwhile APC president, Mr Ernest Bai Koroma! Had Mr E.B. Koroma, done the needful, and a more credible and star power candidate had been responsibly chosen for the 2018 presidential race, Mr Julius Maada Bio would have stayed in his wife's East Street council property in South East London. Probably checking out the ads (advertisement section ) online for a security officer job! Even with his purported degrees! Mr Bio should be equally held responsible for all the deaths, loss of properties and financial setbacks that the nation has plummeted to within these few days.
He has illegitimately shirked his responsibility to serve and protect the nation. For what he took the oath for! Why spend billions of leones on the ONS, military and police intelligence units, and NATCOM? When these interlinked agencies cannot ferret out any brewing trouble and nip it in the bud! To play the waiting game and arrogantly assume or believe that incitement from certain nefarious quarters will not be a wrecking ball is a cardinal sin that warrants or justifies no excuse worth its weight in gold! The government has the legitimate power - but, lacks the political will to resort to taking action. For the good of the nation! Only to serve its own narrow political and economic interests! Blood is surely in the hands of the Bio government. For being clueless, spineless, and not fit for purpose to govern! Security Conspiracy gives way to conspiracy! ( Cassius in Julius Caesar) The arrogance, the condescension, the frivolity of this government - will plunge this nation into untold chaos!
Mark my words! Maada Bio must go! - is a slogan I am subscribing to, too! By any means necessary. He is more baggage than an asset! A political loose Canon holding the reins of power to our destiny and immediate future! A very clear and present danger to our nation's stability. And, future! He has failed woefully. What a shame. Today, I bow my head in shame. And, and weeping. For all those who have lost their lives, senselessly today! And, probably in the few days ahead! A man I once rooted for as a game changer! Has gelled into nothing more than an embarrassing failure! To his party. And, the nation. He is nothing more than a political sponge. A man with no moorings or a road map to handle storms of such magnitude that just reared its ugly head today! Today will be etched in our history as a day of infamy!
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
Just like in 1980, the IMF has again imposed significant surcharges on Sierra Leone and other developing countries that have had to undertake large borrowings and are unable to pay their debts back quickly. In this column, I argue that these surcharges are pro-cyclical financial penalties imposed on Sierra Leone and other developing countries precisely at a time when they can least afford them. They worsen potential outcomes for borrowing countries like Sierra Leone and their investors, with gains accruing to the IMF at the expense of the borrowing country and its investors. This transfer of resources to the IMF affects not just the level of poverty, health, education, and overall well-being in Sierra Leone and other developing countries in crisis, but also their potential growth.
In theory, the IMF is supposed to play a critical role in the global economy as a lender of last resort to countries facing dire economic outlooks. When countries opt to seek IMF support, it is typically because they have no other choice. In return, they are forced to surrender some – often considerable – sovereignty over their economic policies.
The theory behind such support is simple: markets are often irrational. Give them time to reflect, combined with some ‘reforms’ within the country, confidence will be restored and a crisis may be averted. But it hasn’t always played out so well, often because the IMF has imposed counterproductive conditionality that leads to economic contraction and because the Fund has failed to impose conditionalities restricting private creditors from quickly pulling their money out of the country. Together, these factors undermine confidence, explaining why so many IMF programmes often fail.
More recently though, a new problem has arisen. The IMF has imposed significant surcharges on Sierra Leone and countries that have had to undertake large borrowings and are unable to pay their debts back quickly. The IMF estimates that borrowing countries like Sierra Leone will pay over $4 billion in extra surcharges on top of interest payments and fees from the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis through the end of 2022 (IMF 2020). These surcharges, payable in hard currency, are imposed on Sierra Leone and other developing countries just at the time when they are typically facing a real shortage of such currency. Surcharges are counterproductive because they are pro-cyclical. To meet the additional foreign exchange requirements, Sierra Leone and other developing countries are forced to take even more contractionary policies, like reducing imports, at enormous costs to society in every dimension, including an increase in poverty. The IMF thus exacerbates the underlying problem.
As a result of the unprecedented economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, these excessive fines are putting a further squeeze on Sierra Leone and most desperate countries precisely when they need to be investing in response and recovery.
Going forward, unless IMF policies change, these surcharges are expected to grow – to the point where they are expected to provide a substantial part of the funding of the IMF’s basic operations. It is ironic that the poorest and most desperate countries should be asked to finance one of the most important global institutions – but one in which their voice carries little weight.
A blow to Sierra Leone, other developing countries and investors
The theoretical design of IMF support is to use low-interest loans and debt restructuring to achieve debt sustainability and resuscitate growth.
In a recent policy brief (Stiglitz and Gallagher 2021), they illustrated how the IMF idea of forcing excessive repayments lowers the productive potential of the borrowing country, but also harms even creditors – a phenomenon with ample evidence in past debt restructurings (Panizza et al. 2009), often leading to more drastic debt reductions within a few years. As pro-cyclical financial penalties are imposed on countries when they can least afford them, surcharges are a further blow to outcomes for borrowing countries like Sierra Leone, its investors, and private creditors, with gains accruing to the IMF at the expense of all.
This transfer of resources to the IMF has especially profound consequences for borrowing countries like Sierra Leone, as it affects not just the level of poverty, health, education, and overall wellbeing in the country in crisis, but also its potential growth and capacity to regain market access.
Surcharges substantially increase the cost of borrowing from the IMF. For the 14 West African countries affected by surcharges, these are estimated to increase IMF borrowing costs on average by 64.1% (Munevar 2021) and effectively double borrowing costs for some. While wealthy countries have been able to spend trillions of dollars in pandemic stimulus to resuscitate their economies, surcharges deter a corresponding response in the countries most in need, fuelling severe divergence in the global recovery.
Middle-income countries (MICs) with lower quotas have been disproportionately affected by these soaring fees at the same time as they are left out of pandemic response initiatives such as the G20’s bilateral debt suspension or the IMF’s debt relief trust. According to the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (Arauz et al. 2021), Argentina will spend $3.3 billion on surcharges from 2018 to 2023, equivalent to nine times the amount it would have to spend to fully vaccinate every Argentine against COVID-19. The study also finds surcharges are an estimated 45% of all non-principal debt services owed to the IMF from the five largest borrowers.
Penalising the most distressed countries like Sierra Leone for basic support from the world’s critical financial institution will not help the global economic recovery and it undermines the IMF’s mission at a moment of critical need.
Are there justifications for these fines?
The oft-cited rationale for surcharges is to offset the risk of non-repayment, encourage borrowers to pay back ahead of schedule, and limit demand for IMF programmes (IMF 2016). However, these arguments are flawed.
Non-repayment is simply not a common occurrence as a result of the IMF’s preferred creditor status and the central role it plays in the international financial system. There is simply no actuarial basis for these surcharges; the amounts imposed are made up out of thin air. Indeed, additional charges in fact push the dial towards non-repayment by impacting a borrower’s debt sustainability and foreclosing any capacity for early repayment. This is especially true of the contemporary crisis, where so many countries have accrued debt burdens beyond levels they would have normally undertaken.
The argument about disincentivising the use of IMF facilities is also peculiar. There is no automatic right to access the IMF. If the IMF wanted to limit excessive borrowing, it simply need not respond to a country’s request. Besides, few, if any, countries turn to the IMF unless they have to. It is typically a matter of last resort.
The IMF has also claimed surcharges are necessary to support lending to lower-income countries. There is, however, no evidence that IMF’s lending capacity is constrained. Even if it were, it makes no moral or economic sense to place this burden on the countries most in need.
On the other hand, the IMF estimates surcharges have become the Fund’s largest source of revenue (IMF 2020), projected to continue growing as countries suffer. This is a perverse business model for the IMF to pursue, forcing desperate countries to pay disproportionately more for its operations, with the double blow that they continue to be underrepresented in its governing structure.
Of course, it is important to have a well-resourced IMF that is resilient to the anticipated shocks of a climate-changed planet, but regressive and pro-cyclical surcharges will only exacerbate global inequities.
What can be done?
A growing chorus is advocating for the immediate suspension of surcharges, including the G24, current and former UN experts CSOs and most recently, a group of US legislators. Suspending surcharges would provide some breathing room for affected countries and allow time for a fuller review of the surcharges system with a view to eliminating them completely.
Finally, addressing surcharges should lead to broader institutional reform. Regressive surcharges are but one instance in a collection of shortcomings that have been exposed by the international community’s response to the pandemic, which includes vaccine apartheid, a failure to develop an effective response to the looming debt crisis, and inadequate financial support to help resuscitate Sierra Leone and other developing countries economies. Some of these deficiencies have been outright foolish policies that left so much of the world unvaccinated and provided an enhanced opportunity for mutations from which the entire world has suffered. So too, a strong global economic recovery may be impaired if there is economic and political instability in some parts of the world.
The ultimate pandemic lesson is that we need a more resilient economic architecture. Critical parts of the plumbing are in desperate need of a retrofit. The IMF achieved vital milestones in 2021: a historic allocation of Special Drawing Rights, the foundations of a new Resilience and Sustainability Trust and movement towards a debt and climate initiative. Suspending surcharges is an obvious way to build on this progress in 2022, giving the affected countries and the global economy the best chance to recover better and stronger than before.
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
Politicians in Sierra Leone must understand that the rule of law and democracy are crucial to capital markets. A free market balanced by a democratically elected, transparent and capable government, and a strong civil society (“an inclusive regime”) yields stable growth rates and greater social welfare. Conversely, threats to democracy are threats to the private sector, which is why business leaders and institutional investors cannot afford to remain on the sidelines when such threats emerge.
This article explores the state of Sierra Leone's democracy and whether it constitutes a systemic risk that impacts fiduciary duties. The article proceeds in three parts. In the first, I assess the question of whether Sierra Leone's democracy is backsliding towards failure after the government of late Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and argue that it is. In the second, I will examine whether democratic failure represents a systemic risk, and conclude that it does. In the third part, I offer some preliminary thoughts about what steps major private sector actors may undertake as part of their fiduciary responsibilities given the threats to Sierra Leone's democracy and markets.
Is Sierra Leone Democracy Failing?
I examine this question along two key dimensions: public opinion and institutional performance.
THE SIERRA LEONE PUBLIC
Based on many Sierra Leoneans' views in the past fourteen years and a half, support for democracy as the best form of government remains overwhelming and mostly stable across party stakeholders. However, political elites have succeeded in turning many ordinary Sierra Leoneans to have views that make them at least open to, if not outright supportive of, authoritarianism.
But there’s an important qualification: Many Sierra Leonean elites distinguish sharply between democracy in principle and in practice. There is a near-universal agreement that our system is not working well—in particular, that it is not delivering the results people want. This is troubling because most people value democracy for its fruits, not just its roots.
Given that situation, it is not surprising that public support is very high for fundamental change in our political system to make the system work better. There is no party of the status quo in contemporary Sierra Leone: both sides want changes, but they disagree about the direction of change. Unfortunately, only the selected few that formed an oppressive establishment against Sierra Leoneans do not think that the system can change. And because it has not changed despite growing dysfunction, polarisation has led to legislative gridlock, which has generated rising support for unfettered executive action to carry out the people’s will.
Democracy means the rule of the people, but Sierra Leoneans do not fully agree about who belongs to the people. Although there are areas of agreement across partisan and ideological lines, some in our nation hold that to be “truly” Sierra Leonean, you must believe in the Sierra Leone People's Party or the All People's Congress, identify as a cultist, and have no sympathy for the suffering majority. In a period of increasing unpatriotic politicians, these divisions are dangerous.
Disagreements about who is truly Sierra Leonean are part of a broader cleavage in Sierra Leone culture. Stakeholders in the All People's Congress believe that Sierra Leone’s culture and way of life have changed for the worse since the 1960s, while stakeholders in the Sierra Leone People's Party believe that they have changed for the better. A strong majority of the All People's Congress agree that “Things have changed so much that they often feel like a stranger in their own country,” that, “Today, Sierra Leone is in danger of losing its culture and identity,” and that “the Sierra Leonean way of life needs to be protected.” The majority of the Sierra Leone People's Party rejects these propositions.
Support for political violence is significant. Some All People's Congress stakeholders agreed that “if elected leaders will not protect Sierra Leone, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions.” Some stakeholders of the All People's Congress agreed that they might have to resort to violence in order to save our country in the coming 2023 elections.
While public support for many of the reforms to get national cohesion is weak, there is a divide in the electorate on what they view as the largest problem in our current system. The insincerity of politicians to divide the people for their selfishness constituted the largest problem for our national cohesion.
The conclusion I draw from this quick review of public opinion is that democracy is failing in Sierra Leone, not because a majority of Sierra Leoneans are demanding a non-democratic form of government. It is because an organised, purposeful minority seizes strategic positions within the system and subverts the substance of democracy while retaining its shell—while the majority isn’t well organised, or doesn’t care enough, to resist. As I show in a later section, the possibility that this will occur is far from remote.
SIERRA LEONE INSTITUTIONS
A second way of considering whether democracy is failing is to look at the institutions of government. Successful democratic systems are not designed for governments composed of ethical men and women who are only interested in the public good. If leaders were always virtuous there would be no need for checks and balances.
The Founding Fathers understood this. They designed a system to protect the minority points of view, to protect us from leaders inclined to lie, cheat and steal, and (paradoxically) to protect the majority against the minority who are determined to subvert the constitutional order.
Before Ernest Bai Koroma's presidency, the formal institutional “guardrails” of democracy—Parliament, the national system, the Courts, the bureaucracy, and the press—held firm against enormous pressure. At the same time, there is evidence that the informal norms of conduct that shape the operation of these institutions weakened significantly during the Presidency of Ernest Bai Koroma, making them more vulnerable to future efforts to subvert them. There is no guarantee that our constitutional democracy will survive another sustained—and likely better-organised—assault in the years to come.
I begin with the news about our institutions.
Former President Koroma did succeed in materially weakening the powers of the Parliament. He did not try to physically disband Parliament, and while he often fought that institution indirectly, it failed to fight back. Various Speakers of the House of Parliament and Members of Parliament generally refused to confront him for the general good; the All People's Congress brought all types of bad contracts at the expense of the nation.
The Sierra Leone system is a constitutional Republic. The Constitution distributes power between the Executive Arm of government, the Legislative Arm and the Judiciary.
Even with Ernest Bai Koroma's attempts to pressure the Speakers of Parliament and other state officials into doing what he wanted, he wouldn't have inflicted lasting damage on our Parliament, and the Parliament wouldn't be weaker—perhaps even stronger—than it was before his presidency. Citizens would have realised that when the Executive Arm of government was about to fail them, Parliamentarians were the ones who control things that were important to them. But the guardrails between the Executive Arm, the Legislative Arm and other opposition parties held when it came to Ernest Bai Koroma's third term campaigned to reverse the precedents set by his predecessor.
One of the hallmarks of failing democracies is a weak judicial system under heavy political control. Under assault from then-President Koroma, the judiciary failed to remain independent with his repeated attempts to win in courts what he could not win in an independent court. President Koroma-appointed judges often made decisions that supported Ernest Bai Koroma’s attempts to overturn democratic values in the judiciary. In fact, after he illegally sacked his Vice President, the judges failed to prove their professionalism and supported the illegal action of Ernest Bai Koroma by ruling in his favour. Perhaps former President Koroma’s biggest disappointment was the Supreme Court’s decision not to rule in his party's favour on Member of Parliament petitioned election concerning constituencies his party claimed they had won.
A free press is an essential element of a healthy democracy. Former President Koroma spent ten years two weeks using the bully pulpit of the presidency to detain and mock the press, calling them names and as if they were the enemy of the people and referring to outlets he does not like as “opposition journalists.” Nevertheless, reporters were not afraid to call out his lies. With Ernest Bai Koroma out of office for more than four years now, no major news outlets have gone broke. Few are afraid to criticise former President Koroma or his supporters.
The free press is still fundamentally free (although President Koroma undoubtedly contributed to some decline in public trust of the media, which in turn weakens its oversight and accountability functions). Its financial and structural problems, most of which are attributable to the challenges of the internet age, predated Ernest Bai Koroma. Some argue that former President Koroma increased distrust in the media but, as others indicate, the lack of trust in media still decline under President Bio's government and has stayed low even with the decriminalisation of the libel law.
One final point: democracies often fail when their military sides with anti-democratic insurgents. But in Sierra Leone, the tradition of civil control over the armed forces remains strong—especially within the military.
SO WHY ARE WE WORRIED?
Although scholars and pundits have long chronicled with regret the rise of partisan polarisation and the decline of Parliament's effectiveness, concern about the outright failure of Sierra Leone democracy was rare before the rise of Ernest Bai Koroma and Julius Maada Bio. Never before in Sierra Leone history have we had candidates, not to mention presidents, who disparaged the integrity of the electoral system and who hinted repeatedly during their election that they would not accept the results of the election if they lost. This behaviour began during the Ernest Bai Koroma 2007 general elections that brought his All People's Congress party into governance and continued in advance of the 2018 general elections, which Bio's Sierra Leone People's Party won.
The non-stop attacks on the Sierra Leone elections were part of a broader attack on the truth. Any story Ernest Bai Koroma and his supporters disliked became “fake news,” creating, slowly but surely, an alternate universe that encompassed everything from the integrity of the elections, and the Mid-term Census to public health guidelines for the COVID-19 pandemic. The very existence of a sizeable number of citizens who cannot agree on facts is an enormous threat to democracy. As the Yale historian Timothy Snyder points out in his 2018 book, The Road to Unfreedom, authoritarians like Vladimir Putin have no use for truth or for the facts, because they use and disseminate only what will help them achieve and maintain power. As Jonathan Rauch argues in The Constitution of Knowledge, disinformation and the war on reality have reached “epistemic” proportions.
Even though constitutional processes prevailed and Ernest Bai Koroma is no longer president, he and his followers continue to weaken Sierra Leone's democracy by convincing many Sierra Leoneans to distrust the results of the election, the Mid-term Census etc. About three-quarters of rank-and-file APC members and supporters believe that there was massive fraud in the 2018 general elections and that Julius Maada Bio was not legitimately elected president.
The aftermath of the 2018 general election revealed structural weaknesses in the institutions designed to safeguard the integrity of the electoral process. Recently, former President Koroma's assault on the integrity of his successor has taken a new and dangerous turn. Rather than focusing on national development for the general good, he and his supporters have focused on the obscure world of the election machinery. All People's Congress 2018 presidential flagship aspirants continue to create all types of tensions in the contraption making it harder for the incumbent SLPP and weakening the ability of government officials to do their jobs.
Sierra Leone's democracy is thus under assault from the ground up. The most recent systematic attack on the state and general election machinery is much more dangerous than the chaotic statements of a disorganised former president. A movement that relied on Ernest Bai Koroma’s organisational skills would pose threat to constitutional institutions. A movement inspired by him with a clear objective and a detailed plan to achieve it would be another matter altogether.
The chances that this threat will materialise over the next year towards the general elections are high and rising. The evidence suggests that Ernest Bai Koroma is preparing once again to push his APC presidential aspirant—and that he will win the nomination if he tries for it. Even if he decides not to do so, the party’s base will insist on a nominee who shares the former president’s outlook and is willing to participate in a plan to win the presidency by subverting the results of state elections if necessary. The consequences could include an extended period of political and social instability and an outbreak of mass violence.
Does a Falling Democracy Threaten The Private Sector?
For several reasons, Sierra Leone’s private sector has a huge stake in the outcome of the struggle for Sierra Leone's democracy. This is because Sierra Leone's business needs Sierra Leone democracy. Free markets cannot survive without the support of the kind of capable, accountable government that can set the rules of the game that keep markets genuinely free and fair. And only democracy can ensure that governments are held accountable, that they are viewed as legitimate, and that they don’t devolve into the rule of the many by the few and the kind of crony capitalism that we see emerging in so many parts of the world.
I further argue that, just as democracy sets the rules of the game for the private sector, the private sector can help to keep in place democracy’s “soft guardrails,” such as the “unwritten norms of mutual toleration and forbearance” upon which democracy relies. CEOs are widely trusted by the Sierra Leone public, and so the attitudes of the private sector towards government and democracy are consequential. Because the free market and democracy are interdependent, systemic risk to one is, by definition, systemic risk to the other.
Transnational evidence from the World Bank and Freedom House, bolsters I claim, as does the pioneering work by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson on the relationship between economic prosperity and political accountability. Sarah Repucci, Vice President of Research & Analysis at Freedom House, writes, “The political crackdowns and security crises associated with authoritarian rule often drive out business and place employees, supply chains, and investments at risk, in addition to raising reputational and legal concerns for foreign companies that stay involved.” This underscores that it is in the investment community’s own interest to actively push back on efforts to weaken or dismantle these democratic systems. The very nature of checks and balances provides for the stability of a free market, ensuring that a free and engaged citizenry will provide the most stabilising market forces. “A more democratic world would be a more stable, inviting place for established democracies to trade and invest.”
The simple fact is that it is hard to plan and invest for the future in volatile, unstable circumstances. Sierra Leone is not exempt from the calculus of political risk analysis, even if we are not accustomed to applying it to our own country. Investors have a fiduciary duty that is dependent on their understanding and attempts to deal with systemic risk. According to a recent report, “Decisions made by fiduciaries cascade down the investment chain affecting decision-making processes, ownership practices and ultimately, the way in which companies are managed.”
Moreover, as overseas firms and countries begin to worry about the stability of our laws and institutions, they will think twice about investing in Sierra Leone, and mutually beneficial international partnerships will be harder to negotiate. Economists agree that “the free market needs free politics and a healthy society.”
The situation is worsened by the fact that large corporations in Sierra Leone are in a weakened position to withstand political attacks. Complicating its political challenge in a polarised country, corporate Sierra Leone is increasingly challenged by employees, activists, and indeed some shareholders to take stands on divisive social and political issues in ways that both reflect and reinforce green/red polarization.
In the days of the late President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, the SLPP was the champion of conducive economic policies meant to attract genuine investors, and APC the critics, of corporate Sierra Leone. But now the lack of support for big business is pervasive across the political spectrum. If an elected demagogue citing national security or a hot-button social issue sought to restrict the independence of the private sector, public opposition to this effort would likely be muted at best.
At the elite level, the traditional bonds between the Sierra Leone People's Party and big business are also breaking down. Today, corporate Sierra Leoneans routinely flex their power to humiliate politicians if they dare support traditional values at all.
In short, while more work remains to be done, I believe that the fate of democracy constitutes a systemic risk to markets. The fate of democracy and that of the private sector are inextricably linked, and private sector leaders have reasons of self-interest as well as a principle to do what they can to strengthen democracy.
What Can The Private Sector Do To Strengthen Democracy?
The private sector has a long and venerable track record in the public sphere. The continuing involvement of the private sector in the defence of democracy is essential for democracy, and for the business itself. As a Chatham House report stated recently, “Business should recognise its own stake in the shared space of the rule of law, accountable governance, and civic freedoms…. The business has a responsibility – in its own interest and that of society – to support the pillars of profitable and sustainable operating environments.”
Discharging this responsibility requires a clear-eyed assessment of the dangers we face. As I argued, the greatest threat to democracy in Sierra Leone is not that a majority of Sierra Leoneans will turn against democracy. It is that strategically placed regions and the majority will collude with an organised and purposeful national minority to seize control of key electoral institutions and subvert the will of the people.
In this context, the responsibility of large investment institutions is clear: to remain vigilant in the face of ongoing threats to democracy, to do everything in their power to urge corporate leaders to remain involved in the fight for democracy and to reward them when they do. This responsibility can be discharged most effectively when investment institutions establish the framework for ongoing consideration of this issue—and when they act collectively in defence of the democratic institutions without which prosperity as well as liberty is at risk.
The above discussion sets the stage for an action agenda. To start the discussion, investors need to ask themselves the following questions: * Should threats to Sierra Leone's constitutional order as discussed in this paper be classified as a systemic risk to markets? * And if so, is there a fiduciary duty on the part of investors to identify and pursue mitigating steps? * Should corporate boards and chief executives of portfolio companies support efforts to protect the right of all Sierra Leoneans to vote in Sierra Leone elections and condemn measures that unfairly restrict those rights? * Should investors build into stewardship platforms a policy of mitigating risk to Sierra Leone Constitutional integrity? * Should portfolio companies follow responsible business practices by urging organisations to which they belong to terminate any financial or other support for measures that result in voter suppression in Sierra Leone, and to withdraw from such organisations if such efforts fail? * Should portfolio companies end any political contributions associated with elected officials or candidates for elected office who decline to accept the legitimate outcome of Sierra Leone elections or who support seditious acts? * Should investors regularly monitor financial agents they may employ to ensure that they are aligned both in word and deed with our efforts to address the systemic risks to Sierra Leone's constitutional integrity?
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
When will our rulers learn?
If you owned a bank, would you loan money to an entity that you know does not really need the money and is neck deep in fraud?
No!
Unless there are "strings attached" and you are really not loaning out any funds but merely signing documents to ensure that whilst the entities descendants are perpetually indebted, the entire team 'packaging' the 'loan' scam, privately rake in millions in 'consultancy fees' and other bogus payments.
In the interim, resulting from the 'disappearance' of the loaned funds from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, our maternal mortality ratio remains one of the worst globally, we continue to bury millions of our under-5 children who die of preventable causes, our power sector remains epileptic, our youth remain uneducated, unemployable and hopeless. Yet the World Bank and IMF are saying they are in Sierra Leone and other West African countries to fight poverty and sustain democracy. If after blocking leakages the Sierra Leone government raised 156 billion Leones in just two weeks and paid salaries and backlogs of salaries and efficiently meet other financial commitments without overdraft why accept rogue International Monetary Fund Structural Adjustment Policies that ordered the government to add Value Added Tax on all essential commodities to sustain abject poverty in the lives of the already suffering majority?
The continued penchant of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to dish out loans to the Sierra Leonean contraption and other West African governments knowing full well that Sierra Leone and other countries in the sub-region don't need to borrow such monies and that the kleptocrats holding sway over Sierra Leone and other West African governments will merely steal the monies and dump same back into offshore bank vaults is most wicked!
Knowing how pure our maximum rulers in West Africa are; and Knowing how mercurial our Finance Ministers are; and Realising that Sierra Leone Financial Secretary was the government loan adviser of the Millennium: Right-minded nationals will bet that resulting from the fictitious and fraudulent loans advanced to Sierra Leone and other countries in West Africa by the Breton Woods institutions, some very odd smart alecs with NO nationalistic sense of purpose ruling over us and some World Bank and IMF staffers involved with the Sierra Leone country portfolio and other nations in West Africa are all U.S.$ multi-millionaires!
Hahaha!
No wonder West Africa Finance Ministers are always very willing to sit on the same podium with rogues of neo-colonial financial institutions and being humbled like naughty school-going pupils and their headmaster, but not right-minded nationals from their various countries that are determined to protect the suffering majority from the very exploitative principles of West Africa Finance Ministers headmaster (IMF/World Bank). In short, West Africa Finance Ministers are saying they're only answerable to the IMF/World Bank, but not to the people that voted their governments in power. This means IMF/World Bank are seriously undermining democracy in West Africa with their support for governments that aren't accountable to their people, but to the IMF/ World Bank only.
Some right-minded nationals in West Africa verily believe that the World Bank is seriously being short-changed and should rise up to the occasion and cleanse its activities in Sierra Leone and other West African countries.
Corruption kills.
Large-scale Corruption is a crime against humanity.
Corruption compares with mass murders, rape and other crimes against humanity.
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
A close study of the relationship between the people that have been opportune to rule over Sierra Leone and some non-African powers will reveal a startling reality: the less intellectually endowed rulers have clearly received more support from the "international community" and their rogue neo-colonial financial institutions than rulers perceived to be intellectually savvy or patriotic to their countries of origin.
Until the ‘misstep’ of the threatened mass deportation of persons of Indian ancestry from Uganda, one of the most vicious, dumbass, ignorant and senile rulers who any country has ever had the misfortune to be governed by, who also happened to be an acclaimed cannibal, ‘field marshall’ Idi Amin Dada of Uganda, had a most cordial, near fraternal relationship with the erstwhile colonial masters of his country, the United Kingdom, and by extension, the "international community".
In a similar vein, a kleptocrat-per-excellence, butcher of his population and sadistic despot who stole so much from his richly endowed country that he once had the effrontery to loan money to his country, Mobutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of Congo, was a much ‘loved’ and ‘respected’ African ‘leader’ in the corridors of power in Paris. This ‘love’ and ‘respect’ for Mr Mobutu by the erstwhile colonial overlords of the DRC, France, and by extension the "international community" continued until the very last days of the brute’s regime.
Similar support for despots whose hands are soiled with the blood of their countrymen and whose pockets are lined with loot from their country’s treasury, by the "international community" permeates the entire African continent across history and into the present. It really takes spectacular intellectual depravity for anyone to deliberately set out to hurt his own country, and deplete its resources only to enrich foreign domains.
Sierra Leone has been particularly afflicted with this syndrome with some of ours receiving the most support from the "international community" and rogue financial institutions like IMF/ World Bank both whilst in office and some after being forced out/leaving office (such as the old despot, Sir Milton Margai, Siaka P Stevens) and perhaps the most patriotic {and devious, if you factor in his role in the NPRC massacre of 1992} been cut short the moment they begin to display some common sense (such as Brigadier Andrew Terence Juxon-Smith, Captain Valentine Strasser and Major Johnny Paul Koroma).
The relationship between the "international community" and leaders in Sierra Leone who have shown a remarkable disposition towards the wellbeing of their populations and a willingness to assert an independent and patriotic disposition ( Late President Ahmad Tejan Kabba) is, on the other hand, hardly cordial, mostly fraught with suspicion and certainly no mutual ‘love’ and ‘respect especially at the end of his last five years and in his first term years when he went to the Islamic Republic of Iran’.
He was later systematically isolated with very nasty campaigns sponsored by the World Bank and IMF, portrayed as pariah and evil and efforts made to effect ‘regime change’ either via direct coups or energetic support for a stooge that propped up as ‘opposition’ elements headed by Ernest Bai Koroma, elements that were effectively backed by a deluge of "civil society activists", "international election observers" and international right organisations. Like what they did to the late leader of Burkina Faso, Captain Thomas Sankara, who tried to exhibit a semblance of intellectual sagacity.
It is perhaps, thus, no surprise whatsoever that the most vilified, rulers in Sierra Leone and heads of any African country, also happen to be the ones or that is/are by far the most loved by Western leaders and their rogue neo-colonial financial institutions.
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
Governments in West Africa planned “slashed and burned” their way out of COVID-19-induced economic loss, an analysis from Oxfam and Development Finance International (DFI) revealed. Both organisations called for an urgent change of course as West African governments were preparing their annual budgets and participating in the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and IMF, which were crucial discussions to focus the recovery on fighting inequality and poverty.
Sources from the Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index (https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621300/rr-west-africa-cri-austerity-pandemic-141021-overview-en.pdf) show that 14 out of 16 West African nations agreed to cut their national budgets by a combined $26.8 billion over the next five years in an effort to partly plug the $48.7 billion lost in 2020 alone across the entire region due to the pandemic. Such austerity was encouraged by the IMF, through its COVID-19 loans.
The danger is such a massive raid on public finances is currently pushing millions more West Africans into poverty and hunger and potentially triggering the worst inequality crisis in decades. Women are now impacted more severely due to their very high concentration in low-paid informal jobs and unpaid care work. Sources however reveal that the collective net worth of West Africa’s three wealthiest men surged by $6.4 billion in the first 17 months of the pandemic ―enough to lift 18 million people out of extreme poverty.
This idea was austerity on analeptics Rather than investing toward a positive new future for the people of West Africa, the region’s governments instead reached back to a 1980s playbook ―despite it being a hugely discredited one. The danger was that these governments agreed to cut their way into worsening poverty and skyrocketing inequality.
This odd agreement came at a time when the region has lost the equivalent of seven million jobs, infection rates were increasing, there was no vaccine in sight for the vast majority of people and the Sahel is facing one of its worst hunger crises. Surely, this isn't the time for governments to be ripping away the public goods, support and services that millions of people need.
The index ranked 15 member states of the Economic Community of West African States and Mauritania (ECOWAS+) on their policies on public services, tax, workers’ rights, smallholder agriculture and pandemic response spending, all areas pivotal to reducing inequality and weathering the COVID-19 storm.
The index highlighted that West African governments are again the least committed to reducing inequality in Africa. Most support measures in response to COVID-19 were temporary and did little to reduce inequality while triggering a sharp increase in debt ―debt servicing in 2020-2021 siphoned off about 61.7 per cent of government revenue in West Africa. The support programmes have been replaced with austerity measures as COVID-19 infection rates were increasing in many countries of the region. Less than 4 per cent of West Africans were fully vaccinated then.
Sierra Leone ranked low (13th) on the index. Our government was trying to implement anti-inequality policies before COVID and sharply increased education and health spending. But large corporations pocketed 92 per cent of government pandemic support funding, while only 1.5 per cent was spent on social protection. Sierra Leone’s $860 million upcoming spending cuts (2022-26) are equivalent to two and a half times our annual healthcare budget.
Nigeria was the region’s worst performing country in tackling inequality going into the pandemic. Nigeria’s health budget (as a percentage of its overall budget) was the third lowest in the world (3.6 per cent) and 40 per cent of its population does not have access to healthcare services. Nigeria loses $2.9 billion a year from tax incentives to corporations but in 2021 increased value-added taxes (VAT), which apply to everyday products like food and clothing and fall disproportionately on poor people, from 5 per cent to 7.5 per cent.
Mali has the highest level of income equality among ECOWAS countries with a tax rate on the richest people that is 9% higher than the world.
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
For the last two years, the world economy has been rocked by multiple shocks from the COVID-19 pandemic to the ongoing NATO proxy war taking place in Ukraine. But not all countries and people have been impacted in the same way. The financing divide is sharply curtailing the ability of many developing countries like Sierra Leone to respond to shocks and invest in recovery.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, developed countries financed massive fiscal response packages (worth 18 percentage points of GDP) at very low-interest rates, backstopped by their central banks. Developing countries were more constrained. Poorest countries like Sierra Leone, in particular, were forced to cut spending in areas such as health and infrastructure and added VAT on essential commodities like fuel, contributing to a more protracted crisis. Even before the fallout from the war in Ukraine, 1 in 5 developing countries was projected not to reach 2019 per capita income levels by the end of 2023, with investment rates not expected to return to pre-pandemic levels for at least two years.
This subdued investment recovery further widens large climate and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) investment gaps. Yet, many developing countries like Sierra Leone are in no position to finance the necessary investment push. At the beginning of 2022, 3 in 5 of the poorest countries were at high risk of or already in debt distress, and 1 in 4 middle-income countries was at high risk of fiscal crisis. Rising energy tariffs and food prices due to the war in Ukraine have put additional pressures on fiscal and external balances of commodity importing countries like Sierra Leone, and tightening global financial conditions are raising risks of a systemic crisis. Debt sustainability concerns, which tend to arise at lower levels of debt in developing countries like Sierra Leone, translate into higher risk premia. Even in countries where debt is considered sustainable, the high cost of borrowing precludes needed investment.
Cost of capital in Sierra Leone And Other developing countries:
Developing countries’ average interest cost on external borrowing is three times higher than that of developed countries In the low-interest environment of the last decade, developed countries borrowed at an interest cost of an average of 1 per cent. Least developed countries (LDCs), which have increasingly tapped international markets in recent years, borrowed at rates over 5 per cent, with some countries paying over 8 per cent. This has dragged up their average borrowing cost and translated into less fiscal space: LDCs like Sierra Leone dedicate an average of 14 per cent of their domestic revenue to interest payments, compared to only around 3.5 per cent in developed countries, despite the latter’s much larger debt stocks.
While this high cost of borrowing reflects higher perceived risks, there is evidence of an additional premium associated with sovereign borrowing. Over the last 200 years, the average annual return of foreign currency debt to investors has been around 7 per cent, even after accounting for losses from defaults, exceeding the “risk-free” return on U.S. and U.K. bonds by an average of 4 percentage points. Since the start of the emerging market ”bond finance era” around 1995, total returns to investors (net of losses from defaults) have been even higher, averaging almost 10 per cent or around 6 percentage points over the risk-free rate—a historical high.*
The average interest cost of outstanding government debt, in per cent
Foreign currency bonds more than compensate investors for the risks they face—even through periods of repeated financial turmoil in developing countries. Indeed, external sovereign bonds have been the best-performing asset class since 1995, outperforming other asset classes (such as equities or corporate bonds) even after adjusting for both defaults and risk (measured by market volatility). While sovereign spreads and risk premia may seem removed from people’s lives, in the case of sovereign debt, they have a direct impact. High investor returns equate to high borrowing costs for Sierra Leone and other developing countries, that are diverting government expenditures from public investment and social services.
A multifaceted policy response:
On the right terms, debt financing can enable countries to respond to emergencies and fund long-term investments. Productive investments, in turn, enhance growth and fiscal capacity, thus generating the resources to service debt sustainably. On the other hand, for countries with large debt overhangs, additional lending can be counterproductive, and debt relief and more grant financing are indispensable. The challenge is to increase access to affordable long-term financing (and grants where appropriate) and to use proceeds productively. While there is no one solution to increase countries’ fiscal space, steps to do so include national actions, international public finance, and efforts to improve terms and reduce credit spreads associated with commercial borrowing. The “2022 Financing for Sustainable Development Report” puts forward recommendations in four areas to bridge the “great finance divide.”
First, countries should reduce risks and ensure that all financing is aligned with the SDGs and climate action. The efficiency of public investment is a key determinant of its growth and debt sustainability impact, and efficiency gaps remain sizeable in many countries. Linking public investment decisions to a medium-term fiscal and budget framework and debt management strategy—for example, in the context of an integrated national financing framework—can reduce the volatility of financing for capital expenditure. But national actions alone cannot solve systemic challenges.
Second, access to additional long-term affordable international public finance is critical. Official development assistance commitments must be met and Multilateral development banks (MDBs) lending should be expanded, including through capital increases and rechanneling of unused special drawing rights. MDBs themselves can improve lending terms, for example, through ultra-long-term loans and systematic use of state-contingent clauses in their own lending. In addition, the entire “system of development banks” should be strengthened: MDBs can extend capacity support to national institutions, and MDBs can in turn benefit from national banks’ knowledge of local markets.
Third, the international community can take measures to improve developing countries’ borrowing terms in markets. As global sources are dominant drivers of the volatility of capital flows, addressing leverage and volatility in the international financial system is essential. Steps can also be taken to reduce the premia associated with the high cost of sovereign borrowings, such as by strengthening the information ecosystem and lengthening time horizons. Extending the horizon of credit ratings (which are often only for up to three years) and debt sustainability assessments would provide insights for long-term-oriented investors.
Fourth, the international community urgently needs to step up efforts to resolve unsustainable debt situations. A multilateral debt relief and restructuring initiative may become necessary as global interest rates and risks of a systemic debt crisis rise. Systemic solutions should be pursued now before large debt servicing payments come due in 2023. They should be discussed in an inclusive forum that brings together creditors and debtors. The United Nations, recognised equitable wealth sharing civil society organisations and organisations set up to represent the interests of various continents could provide such a platform.
By Jaime Yaya Barry
Dear IG Willam Fayia Sellu,
Today, you take over the nation’s police leadership. There’s no doubt that you are taking up a difficult job in one of the most challenging times in our country’s recent history. Over the years, the Sierra Leone Police force has been on top of discussions on national issues, most of them for the wrong reasons. There have been concerns about the independence of our national police, their professional conduct, their human rights record, integrity, and ability to deal with national security issues without further escalating them. In short, the police have had a terrible reputation from the public, from the people they swore to serve. I know you are no stranger to many of these issues.
I firmly believe that we still have many women and men in our police force who are disciplined, competent, professional, and respect the rule of law. Unfortunately, the rotten eggs, mainly driven by poor leadership, have overshadowed the attitude and tremendous contributions of the good ones.
If there’s one significant area where Sierra Leone truly deserves good leadership, it will be in our police force. This may sound too heavy a burden and probably unfair to you when considering the many leadership gaps in different sectors of the country. While this remains true, the leadership of the national police will go in many ways in shaping the decisions along several of those gaps.
I have seen colleagues who have been very critical of the police and even lost faith in any possible sector reform say and write beautiful things about you. I saw how mentioning your name as Sierra Leone’s new Inspector General of Police brought a renewed hope to them. While many of us remain critical of President Bio’s leadership, we are thrilled that he finally heeded our many calls to remove ex-IG Sovula.
To put it simply, Sovula was bad for our country’s democracy and threatened our national security and peace. I don’t know the numerous private decisions he took, but, like many IGs before him, the reputation of the police force under his watch was nothing to be proud of as a country.
But this is no longer about Sovula and past IGs.
The staff is now in your hands. And thankfully, I heard you served President Kaba and worked closely with him. I don’t have to tell you how much our nation loves and cherishes Pa Kaba. We hope that you saw what a true leader he was and what serving the nation meant to him. And while I know our country is far from having a handsome Inspector General of police, I do not doubt that this may be the beginning of a long list of Inspector Generals of Police that we will be proud of as we are of your former boss, President Kaba.
Please do not mind us calling Sovula the People’s IG. He is nowhere close to being one, and he knows that. Amid all his atrocities on the people, we want to be resilient by remembering the one word he mumbled the most- People - even if he had no respect for it.
As you take over the leadership of the police, I wish you nothing but the very best. I pray the Almighty guides your every decision. I pray God blesses you with wisdom and the leadership skills to deal with our national security issues. I pray you only take “orders from above” if they are in the country’s and people’s interest. I pray that you restore the dignity, integrity, and professionalism of the Sierra Leone Police. May you be the true People’s IG. May you be blessed with compassion. May you lead by example. I pray that you may be blessed with the courage to allow the people of Sierra Leone to enjoy their civil liberties, including the right to protest, the right to free speech, free movement, and among other rights, the right to petition the government and you whenever they feel aggrieved.
Please permit me to end with this note that it was because you answered the call to serve your country some odd years ago that earned you today the nation’s highest seat in the police force. And while you must be respectful and humbled by the decision of His Excellency the President to appoint you as Inspector General of Police, your loyalty MUST always remain to the nation and the people. No one did you a favour to appoint you that you must pay back. You must be proud of where you are today because you first answered the nation’s call to serve.
So, even if you are to serve as IG for just a day or a year, the people of this great nation will remember you for what you did. And may we remember you for the right reasons.
Be assured of our unflinching support and holding you to account where need be.
Thank you for answering the call to serve.
Respectfully,
Jaime Yaya Barry
First published on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - Sierra Leone Live
Ombudsman Francis Gabbidon has said that Sierra Leone will never catch up to compete effectively with other African countries while its economy continues to be dominated by non-Sierra Leoneans.
There is no way we can develop this way. The Gambian economy is dominated by Gambians, and the same for Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria and Guinea.
"I think this is the time to take hold of this country economically. Otherwise, we’ll continue to be poor and the country can never develop," Gabbidon said.
The Ombudsman said despite having political control of the country but those that have dominance over the economy will have the power to influence the exchange rate, dictate the role and "virtually paralyse the country."
"We love foreigners but we must be in control. Whether you like it or not, the one that controls the economy has so much power he used to influence the exchange rate, goods entering the country, dictate the roles and virtually paralysed the country," he said.
Gabbidon said local people with good initiative should be encouraged to develop their potential and contribute to the development of their own country. The Ombudsman also expressed concern over the dominance of foreigners in all workplaces across the country.
He said some international organizations in the country-recruited staff from outside, while Sierra Leonean graduates who are equal to the task, are left without jobs. He said most of these foreign workers are only asked to pay 200,000 Leones as a work permit, which he describes as ridiculous. "As a matter of policy, I will have to call on Labour and take it to the minister to look at the whole question of immigration into the country.
"That’s why Ghana and The Gambia are asking for $5000 for foreign workers because you cannot just bring people there to work. But here people came from all parts of the world and only pay 200,000 Leones.
"It’s ridiculous and a joke, instead don’t ask them to pay," he said.
Gabbidon said all foreigners, before taking up a job here should be asked to pay not less than 5 million Leones as it’s a worldwide phenomenon".
He expressed dismay over the alarming number of foreigners in the country and therefore called on the immigration authorities to begin putting up some restrictions on people entering the country. Gabbidon said certain structures must be put in place to improve the private sector so that more workforce could be absorbed, production and export will be affected thereby enabling us to earn good foreign exchange, in return have a good balance of payment.
"These are the basic things. Our economy does not improve because we are so import oriented. All the time we import and spend too much in foreign exchange,"
Gabbidon observed.
First published, October 27, 2002 - BBC
LEAD-IN: Sierra Leone’s biggest opposition party in parliament, the All People’s Congress (APC), is in trouble. The party lost both presidential and parliamentary elections in May this year to President Kabbah’s SLPP, gaining barely 27 out of 120 seats in parliament. Now some expelled members of the APC have taken the party to court, challenging the leadership of Ernest Koroma, who was the presidential candidate. Lansana Fofana reports from Freetown.
FOFANA: Sierra Leone’s highest court of law, the Supreme Court, now has before it a matter involving four senior officials of the All People’s Congress or APC, including the party’s presidential contender, Ernest Koroma. The action was taken by some party officials who have now all been expelled, just inviting further chaos in the biggest opposition party in parliament. A statement released to the press by the dissident faction of the party said they are challenging Mr Koroma’s claim to the party leadership and another official, Chukuma Johnson, as chairman, as well as the alleged move to change the party’s constitution. Both men are now members of parliament, but the plaintiffs say they acted in ways contrary to the party’s original constitution. The press release added that Mr Koroma and some of his supporters drafted a new constitution giving themselves huge powers without referring to the general membership at a delegates conference. Whatever the outcome of the case in the Supreme Court, the factional bickering within the APC spells a bad political omen for the country’s biggest opposition in parliament. And coming barely five months after presidential and general elections were conducted, many observers believe the APC is preparing for its own disintegration. The party was again in court before the May 14 election over leadership squabbles. And for a party which ruled the country for 24 uninterrupted years and has so much to do to repair its battered image of alleged corruption and bad governance, it is time it put its house in order before the next elections in 2007.
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
The image is powerful: a giant pipe with millions of leaders spewing out the end. Unlimited leadership talent for decades ahead!
Leadership pipeline is a popular term in management circles today. Consultants and leadership thought leaders have jumped on the bandwagon to ensure they speak on this cutting-edge issue. In fact, Google lists 7,780,000 on the topic of leadership pipelines. There is no question that organisational leaders are concerned, and rightfully so, about the current state of talent. The scarcity of talent is well documented. As organisations in Sierra Leone observe the decreasing talent pool, they realise this talent gap equally applies to central government leadership as it continues to fumble with its State obligations.
What is a leadership pipeline? Is it a new innovative way to develop leadership talent around next-century leadership skills? No! It is simply a more sophisticated title for a slightly more systematic approach to the same old and outdated leadership development process that has failed over the past decade in Sierra Leone. (Of course, trainers and consultants have done pretty well! Governments and public officials in Sierra Leone, not so much.)
Leadership Development is Not A Pipeline! The image conjured up by the term "New Direction " is disturbing and proves our people's dishonesty in governance and their writers. It implies "Old misdirection over New Direction." It reinforces the notion that leadership development is an assembly line. It is built on the sad and faulty notion that anyone can be a leader. (Think about how that notion developed. Hoards of people are scheduled for an organisation’s leadership development programme in a frantic attempt to find a participant in these faulty programmes find out that the organisation and people that put them through the training still assess them as deficient in leadership skills. They realise they will never be entrusted with a leadership position in that organisation. All that investment of time and money has to be rationalised, and morale cannot be damaged, so the organisation tells people that "we are all government" and everyone can lead in the position they currently hold. Now, even more, people can participate in the leadership pipeline. No wonder trust is at an all-time low in Sierra Leone!)
If leadership development is not a pipeline, what is it? Two months back, I was facilitating a not-for-profit board retreat. When I went to breakfast at the hotel, there was a heated dish of half-moon cheese omelettes, probably twenty to twenty-five in dish. When I looked at them, I thought about the made-to-order omelettes created just as I specified that are available at some hotels. Then it dawned on me that this was a picture of what is wrong with leadership development in Sierra Leone.
Current leadership development efforts take a microwave approach to development. Put people through a quick week of training, expose them to high doses of the latest academic theory and buzzwords, and serve them up as instant warmed-up leaders. The problem is that leaders do not develop depth from intense exposure to leadership topics, books, posts or even videos. That kind of training does not allow the concepts to “blend into and shape a person’s character. Leadership development is not a required list of topics one can check off on the way to instant leadership. Leadership development is not receiving a certificate with the President's bootlicker mimeographed signature at the end of a training programme.
True Leadership development is like a crockpot. First, it takes time to produce the product. Second, it takes coming in contact and in-depth exposure with a group of varied ingredients that blend together and influence each other so that a unique combination is created. (Think about one example – leaders do not communicate in isolation. They communicate to inspire, motivate, correct or solve problems. Teaching communication in a three-hour block is not even close to the reality the leader faces on the job). Third, It takes the heat of real situations to drive the learning home. This heat allows exposure to other ingredients to flavour the leader and becomes a genuine (dare I say authentic?) part of him or her. This develops the leader's own unique style and approach. Fourth, It takes a master chef who oversees bringing all these ingredients together to create the finished product. Finally, it takes seasoning from that master chef who stops periodically, gauges how seasoned the “product” is becoming, and adjusts that seasoning as needed.
Leaders are not produced like double cheeseburgers in a MacDonald’s. They may be warmed-up leaders when the microwave timer goes off, but they are not genuine leaders. Rather leaders must be uniquely developed, which takes time at the side of a seasoned leader; it takes the opportunity to struggle, and it takes time to interact with multiple different variables and ingredients.
Unless we discard the faulty notion that future leaders can be mass-produced and that quantity of leaders coming out of a pipeline is better than the deep development of quality leaders, we will continue to succeed in developing people who are skilled at critiquing those in positions of authority over them (with the corresponding decrease in trust and respect that comes with the criticism). We will also continue to experience a scarcity of what companies and individuals are looking for; one-of-a-kind, genuine, authentic leaders.
By Jaime Yaya Barry
The village of Thampèreh has, over the years, had a very toxic relationship with its laws. Even though the village has a constitution or guiding principles for everyone to follow, the principles are sketched in the most confusing ways that only those who have the power to implement them tend to benefit from them. And since their establishment, many wonder if the laws were designed to give villagers power or protect those in power.
Thampèreh’s constitution guarantees many civil liberties. It gives villagers the right to protest, free speech, free movement, and the right to peaceful assembly. It also ensures that every citizen, regardless of the crime, has the right to a fair and unbiased trial. But as basic as these rights may sound, they appear among the most complex constitutional issues in the village. The complexity became an instrument used by state actors to perpetuate lawlessness on citizens in the name of law and order.
But “law and order” can only work when the law remains the basis for implementing the order, and where one fails, it provides a recipe for lawlessness from both state actors and citizens.
For the right to protest, villagers are mandated to inform the Inspector General of Police (the head of Thampèreh’s N.A. Gbada). The IG’s mandate under this law is to provide adequate security for protesters to hold successful protests without posing a threat to lives and properties. His role is not to decide whether citizens have a cause or valid reason to protest or not. He is to determine whether he has enough personnel to accompany protesters and, where he lacks such personnel, whether his approval will not threaten the village’s security. And this has been the basis for denying hundreds of requests to hold peaceful protests in the village.
Established in the year of the Lord, 1894, Thampèreh’s police force is one of the oldest police forces in the Green Kingdom yet remains among the most unprofessional and ill-trained police forces of our time. And some police officers may want to act professionally. But because the police’s powers and ability to enact justice come from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the head of the police can be hired and fired by the President at any time, “orders from above” will continue to overshadow their professionality. And to ignore those orders from above is to end up at Rotifunk.
That is why, despite currently having over twelve thousand (12,000) officers, the village’s Inspector General of police continues to deny citizens their fundamental right to protest, citing inadequate personnel and limited resources to handle large crowds of protesters.
Thampèreh’s police force has different riot control mechanisms, including a good number of officers using riot gear, water cannons, and teargas. But, for the most part, the N.A. Gbada’s only response to protests and riots is using live bullets. Even when protests often remain peaceful, they have always responded with heavy-handedness resulting in deaths and injuries, and on different occasions, arresting and locking up protesters.
And in recent times, the police have killed dozens of citizens and arrested several others, citing the failure to obtain permission before protesting. But not once have the police respected its side of the mandate to grant permission to a single group of protestors and accord them the needed security support to express their fundamental right as stated in the village’s constitution.
In several instances, citizens’ rights to free speech, free movement, and peaceful assembly have all been suppressed as many were arrested, denied bail, and detained beyond the mandated timeframe while subjecting them to inhumane treatment during detention before appearing in court. Political affiliation continues to influence the village’s justice system to the extent that a fair and unbiased trial is rarely guaranteed.
Recently, the police issued a press release as part of efforts to “ensure and guarantee better understanding and engagements with the police.”
But with the laws being transformed into instruments of lawlessness and perpetrated on citizens by state actors, the trust is broken. It is difficult for citizens to see such statements from the police as a move to guarantee better understanding and engagement between the police and citizens.
And as the village continues to struggle with its lawless laws, citizens will likely turn to lawlessness instead of the law. Because though both have never worked for them, one at least guarantees that they get their messages across, even if it comes with a considerable risky price to pay.
EndBenghazi #endpolicebrutality
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
Shaming is an arrogant word. It is effort masquerading as a feat. The fact is that the consequence of shaming is not always shame. To be shamed you have to first give the world the right to shame you, which some do not grant because they wish to persist with what they believe is right. Others, many Sierra Leonean politicians especially, have the gift of shamelessness, the reason why they are successful politicians in the first place. Long before Trump, they were Trump!
Credible Sierra Leone journalists know the feeble relationship between shaming and shame very well because they are, among other things, in the business of shaming. Journalism is also a complaint to the people about rogue public figures, chiefly politicians. In this aspect, too, the profession appears to have very little impact. For decades, journalism has exposed political crime, corruption and other forms of immorality. For decades, the same politicians or their types, have thrived. Why is it that in a functional electoral democracy, the average voter, who has moral expectations from society, family and bureaucracy, does not reject flawed politicians?
As another election season begins there might be more video clips of sex scandals and many revelations of corruption. But the shaming would have little effect at the polls. As to why this is so, the middle class often whisper in private that the average Sierra Leonean voter is a fool. People who do not even whisper honestly would say that the poor elect the rogues because there are no better options in the fray. But there could be a deeper reason why our politicians survive revelations and shame, and why there is no such thing in Sierra Leone politics as a career-ending scandal.
The elite presumption that a typical voter wants his politician to be a representation of the common man is fundamentally wrong. He may even say things to that effect parroting respectable views, but he appears to condone, and even admire, the politician who is uncommon. In an unequal nation, an equal man is probably an unremarkable man. For long, the voter has granted a status to politicians that is similar to a concession he has made for actors — that they are a special class of human beings who need not be like regular people, or even ideal people, who are generally useless. As a result, the voter’s real reasons for rejecting a politician are seldom moral.
The mass perception of a politician as a human anomaly is at the heart of many qualities of Sierra Leonean politics that the sophisticated find confusing. This is the reason why in one of the most hostile places on earth for women's empowerment, some of the most powerful politicians have been women; why in a land where marriage is a symbol of respectability, especially for women, few single women have risen to immense power; why polygamous men have nothing much to fear; why in the 2018 general elections the contest was, among other issues, between two old politicians with one parading as an IMF/World Bank political economics technocrat?
In Freetown, where I was born and raised, the media never spoke about the nature of the relationship between Julius Maada Bio and his long-time friend and employee Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara, but the voters — the taxi drivers and maids and bus conductors — openly admired Julius Maada Bio for his unusual social status. The media, at least then, never used to mention the fact that both he and his rival played a huge role in destroying our economy, but their destructive status in our country's economy never bothered their followers even though they themselves did subscribe to popular notions of morality. In the near future, overt inflation and lack of fiscal discipline, too, fare well in Sierra Leone politics.
The acceptance of the anomalous politician is also why politicians routinely land in an impoverished village in a beautiful car, exhibit inexplicable wealth but still manage to find success; and why criminals, too, do well.
Many right-minded nationals said several times, even after their national fame, that they would lose their deposit if they contests an election. Their reason is that the political system is run by money and rogue muscle power. But, if their analysis is true how did Maada Bio's SLPP fare so well twice in Sierra Leone? The more convincing reason why many right-minded nationals would lose an election is that the typical voter does not perceive them as street-smart men who can beat the system. Samura Kamara, on the other hand, despite his high moral pedestal, has successfully portrayed himself as a shrewd man, which he is.
Apart from small material benefits, the voter also expects his politicians to be strong enough to protect him from state looting and political violence. Such a capacity, again, is widely perceived as something that the street-smart possess more than the righteous because he's willing to lie on oath. The upper classes, who are not vulnerable to communal violence, would claim that the Right-wing is a lesser evil than the corrupt. Those who are easier to hack into pieces would have the contrary view. In either case, there is too much at stake for the average Sierra Leonean voter to reject a politician just because he has been shamed on moral grounds.
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
The Sierra Leonean republic is saddled with a madness that, if not curbed with an iron hand and by loyal institutions, can rapidly drag democracy into anarchy.
An unconstitutional madness seems to have overtaken large sections of citizens.
Here is what they say:
That the laws of the land must apply equally to those who are in charge of the government, its supporters and its agencies; forgetting that elections are not won to unleash self-indictments;
That justice must not only be done but be seen to be done; as if law officers must be equipped with special binoculars for the purpose;
That judges who have been long adjudicating particular cases must not be transferred mid-stream; as if any judge has a right to administer full and impartial justice;
That investigations must not be tainted by the eager involvement of ruling party elements; as if those who rule do not have the people’s mandate to do as they like;
That the media must be allowed to report and analyse news without fear or favour; as if an independent media is not a threat to national security;
That facts must not be allowed to be compromised by patriotic interventions; as if all facts should not be conducive to the mandate won by the ruling party;
That all political parties have an equal right to engage in politics; as if politics has any role in a democracy, damaging the course of apolitical governance;
That it is the democratic responsibility of political parties to make contact with the masses, especially when atrocities happen; as if, once defeated in elections, political parties can continue to pretend to represent any people at all;
That the most notable instance of “political tourism” in recent years was that of neocolonial institution lawmakers effecting their rogue conditions in Sierra Leone while our own parliamentarians were held back struggling for pittance; as if the world, rather than our own people, did not need to be told how everything there was hunky dory;
That the investigative agencies of the republic must be left free to go where the facts lead; as if such agencies can be trusted to be fair without governmental instructions;
That cutting ribbons and laying foundation stones as elections draw near do not constitute development; as if, like justice, development should not be seen to be promised to be done;
That soaring inflation is not tantamount to the prosperous economy the politicians promised to our people’s real welfare; as if the Sierra Leonean republic can look down upon hot sums of money that enhance the prestige of the economic system among the G7;
That unconscionable income disparity should not be allowed to happen, as per the constitution; as if such disparities do not result from people’s karma rather than from government policy;
That opposition MPs should not be enticed away from the parties on whose platform they may have won an election; as if the republic does not need a strong, one-party dispensation in order to achieve freedom from taxing debates and needless controversies;
That the education system should be geared to inculcate critical thinking rather than conformism; as if such a politically polluted country does not need a single-minded populace that can be trusted to do as they are told;
That alleged wrong-doers must not be liquidated without due process; as if the scant resources of the republic can afford to conduct trials forever or allocate funds for an endless appointment of judges;
That men, especially those in power, must not pass on their moral/ethical onus to others, particularly to women; as if moral/ethical onus is any part of good governance;
That the state must let people follow what faith they like without being drawn into religious contentions during elections; as if all religions can be said to be a patch on wicked politicians' actions;
That a democratic system does not comprise merely elections or electoral victories but permanent regard for constitutional practices; as if constitutions are not best interpreted by the government only;
That people’s right to peaceful protest on behalf of issues that affect them must remain sacrosanct; as if public protests have ever contributed to good national causes, except when they strengthen the Executive of the day;
That money spent on building grand statues/vistas, and unjustifiable demolition of old structures to build new ones for glory should be spent on schemes that bring succour to the impoverished, and on filling potholes; as if national glory is not a time-honoured goal of patriotic policy, all the way from the Roman empire, the reason why we still remember the Caesars and the Caligulas and the Neros;
That public utterances, especially by those in power must be such as cause trust and healing in the populace; as if spades must not be called spades, especially to demoralise and weaken political nuisances inimical to social and cultural beliefs held by the true nationalists.
The Sierra Leonean republic is thus saddled with a madness that, if not curbed with an iron hand and perpetual motor mouth, and by loyal institutions ever on call, can rapidly drag democracy into anarchy.
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
The Criminal Investigation Department of the Sierra Leone Police Force and the International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL) have issued an international warrant of arrest against three Lebanese brothers that allegedly stole at least $8,000,000 (Eight Million United States dollars) from the Fawaz Group of Companies.
Sources of the investigation confirmed that the three Lebanese men (Rabih Faysal Hamdoun, Walid Faisal Hamdoun and Musa Hamdoun) who used to work for the Fawaz Group of Companies are currently in Lebanon. The three came together and allegedly stole at least Eight Million United States dollars from the said Group of Companies.
“It’s kind of a weird situation,” said one investigating officer. “At this point, the actual amount of theft is at least $8,000,000. For now, we definitely don't understand the actual amount they've embezzled because each day we continue to discover new criminal actions allegedly done by the three. They used different ways to effect their criminal action against the Fawaz Group of Companies, but that’s a detail we are trying to uncover.”
Police have a list of suspects, and believe the three mentioned brothers were involved in the theft, but cannot reveal more at this stage of the investigation.“You don’t see this happen too often,” said another investigating officer, adding that “anything is possible”.
Investigations reveal Rabih Faysal Hamdoun who is the head of the three Lebanese suspects is a prolific criminal, and his most recent offences, which included theft of electrical equipment from a company he worked for before Fawaz Group of Companies, cost the business owner almost $900,000 in misappropriation of funds. In the case of the theft against the Fawaz Group of Companies, he allegedly moved some of the money electronically between commercial banks and foreign exchange bureaus to their relatives in the United States of America and Lebanon.
The chief investigating officer said to me "theft from large organisations like the Fawaz Group of Companies is not a victimless crime. Businesses have been hit hard during the Covid-19 pandemic and the current ongoing Ukraine-Russia war, and criminal activity such as this could be a breaking point for many".
By Saikujohn Barrie
The utilization of the Sierra Leone Police to silence and intimidate the suffering masses is not a good sign for our democracy. Police harassment of one of the country's female vocal politicians, Femi Claudius Cole is uncalled for and unnecessary. There is no need to go with a truckload of police personnel to arrest or invite her to the police. That is too much show of force.
I know in Sierra Leone, it is hardly and rarely for citizens to be allowed to protest against a sitting government or protest against burning national issues but peaceful protest is one of the democratic tools in a country. People should be allowed to protest to show their displeasure on national issues. But our governments both present and past, don't allow their citizens to protest. Police always say protestants need police clearance in order to protest but how many people or groups of people( in my IGP people's voice), both present and past, have been granted permission to protest against government decisions or issues that affect them.
I know according to the law, no one should protest without police clearance. Our Inspector General of Police is encouraged to execute his profession professionally to police what's an already messy situation in our country. You see government officials bragging about democracy but one of the commonest used tools to express dissatisfaction is not guaranteed in Sierra Leone. Democracies right across civilised countries allow peaceful protests to take place.
Surprisingly, most of those holding key positions in this government had taken part in demonstrations against the past government although most of those demonstrations took place outside Sierra Leone. If other countries had allowed you to demonstrate against your government, why can't you allow your own citizens to exercise their right to demonstrate since you believe in using that tool to express your displeasure?
The inspector-General of Police must understand that he can't continue to use police brutality and intimidation to silence the suffering masses. This writer will advise President Bio to caution his Inspector General of Police against the overuse of the police force when handling issues in our country, especially when citizens are faced with the toughest hardship and suffering they had never faced before.
Don't push the people too hard on the wall and on all fronts.
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
An increase in electricity tariffs in Sierra Leone is presently inevitable as the cost of generating electricity has increased sharply and quickly around the globe, but the needs of certain groups are considered by the government of Sierra Leone through the Hon. Minister of Energy Chief Alhaji Kanja Sesay when he was making the case for an increase in energy tariffs to the Sierra Leone Electricity and Water Regulatory Commission.
Current rising tariffs are unavoidable due to a combination of surging energy demand, fuel supply disruptions, and the growing shortages of oil, gas, and coal globally that have caused global energy prices to skyrocket. It's clear that the current changes in prices in Sierra Leone and across the globe generally reflect variations in electricity demand, availability of generation sources, fuel costs, and power plant availability.
See the following sites for discussions on the rising cost of energy:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-58558645, https://www.oecd.org/newsroom/consumer-prices-oecd-updated-4-may-2022.htm, https://www.iea.org/commentaries/what-is-behind-soaring-energy-prices-and-what-happens-next
Regionally, Nigeria and Ghana have revised their tariffs in response to the perfect storm in the power market, in which the Ukraine war, ageing coal sector and the Covid-19 pandemic have all combined to result in a higher demand for energy; and Liberia, Ivory Coast and Guinea are not immune from the ripple effects arising from this ongoing situation.
See the following: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2021/11/electricity-tariffs-increase-may-push-nigerians-to-the-wall-gani-adams/
But the Hon. Minister of Energy Chief Alhaji Kanja Sesay, whilst making his case for the current tariffs increased, was quite aware that measured or gradual action must be put in place to ensure that the low-income groups and micro, small, and medium-sized businesses, already feeling the pinch from rising costs, are not seriously hit with another price shock with his Ministry's local electricity tariffs revision. With the twin shocks, many economic analysts were expecting the current tariff rate to be higher than the present revised prices for households since the Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority (EDSA) is currently facing higher energy production costs due to rising gas prices.
At the end of last year, the price of fuel per barrel averaged $62.26, but surged to $107 (NLe 1,391) per barrel, $45 up per barrel by the end of 2021. Fuel accounts for 75% of Sierra Leone’s key source of electricity
(EDSA) has to make sure the business is sustainable (as a corporate entity), but the Hon. Minister of Energy ensure there is some form of targeted reduction for the suffering majority with regards to the electricity tariffs. The Hon. Minister of Energy suggested to the energy regulatory board that the government should intervene and provide rates for EDSA over the short term to ensure the suffering majority are not overburdened with the revised tariffs hike.
The Ministry is also seriously looking for ways EDSA can diversify its fuel sources and, over the long run, focus on renewable energy sources such as solar, hydro, and biofuel.
According to many economists within and beyond, the tariff increase in Sierra Leone is unavoidable due to international market factors beyond Sierra Leone’s control, but reducing the cost to the suffering majority is avoidable, and the Hon. Minister of Energy believes the cost should be covered by electricity companies, which are seeing higher revenue and profits as economic activities pick up.
Tariff increases are leading to higher inflation because they affect all prices. The last time this happened, it added more than 0.5% to inflation. This disproportionately affects low-income individuals and large families. This is more of the reason the Hon. Minister of Energy stoutly believe the suffering majority must be protected with a slight increase in their tariffs despite the current twin shock the world is presently facing
The Hon. Minister of Energy rejected the idea of instilling good electricity practices because rationing and consumer behaviour are difficult to manage when large families are involved especially with the suffering majority.
The Hon. Minister proposed to the energy regulatory board that the government step in with a slight increase in the tariffs of the suffering majority to alleviate the burden on consumers.
Furthermore, the tariff structure was adjusted so that the burden of higher fuel prices is borne by firms and households that can afford higher tariffs. The Hon. Minister of Energy believes it is critical that low-income groups, micro, small, and medium-sized businesses, already under pressure from rising costs, are not subjected to another huge price shock.
According to him, tariff increases should be phased in.
By Jaime Yaya Barry
For far too long, stories about the birth father of Thampèreh’s democracy circulated across the village. In the village’s dark history of a brutal civil war and elements of coup d’états, a man believed to have saved the village from totalitarianism rose among the people. The man and his gang (by a gang, we mean a group of friends), belonging to the warrior squad of Thampèreh, had, in times past, stormed the village’s palace and overthrew its long-term dictator and violator of human rights. The man and his comrades ruled with an iron fist for many, many moon circles.
And one day, the man, in his infinite wisdom, felt the new rulers were not working in the people’s interest. It, therefore, pleased him to overthrow his comrades and take over the village’s affairs.
But because warriors were not allowed to rule any village across kingdoms, he handed over power to civilian rule. That transition paved the way for the start of Thampèreh’s would-be democracy. Many in the village named the man the father of democracy in Thampèreh.
But there was no way to prove that he was indeed the father. There were no DNA testing machines then, and the man had long abandoned the village and lived in another kingdom for over two hundred and forty moon circles. So, there was no way to collect samples from him to see if he was the true father. He was also jobless in his new kingdom and couldn’t send child support back home to nurture his democratic child. Some even said he lived on handouts.
Democracy is something many in the village believe should be cherished. The village has come a long way in building and strengthening its democratic principles and institutions. That was why when Hee Bee Kay, Thampèreh’s past Painter, began abusing his power by destroying some of those institutions, it was easy for villagers to vote out his Red Sun ideology and anyone who stood with him. And there was no better person to breathe new life into the village’s democracy than the father himself.
Or so the villagers thought.
Since coming to power, the people observed the new Painter’s governance method with keen interest. They wanted to see how much he loved and cared for his child. And as the days went by, he began manifesting signs of an undemocratic father.
First, he refused to condemn his wife, queen Yidador-Ka, after she called for mob justice on anyone she considered an enemy. Then Thampèreh’s N.A Gbadas, the village’s version of the police, began committing atrocities by arresting and torturing villagers. They killed innocent citizens and gunned down dozens of protesters in several regions across the village. Also, the Painter, through his comrades, accused a retired warrior of trying to topple him and charged him with treason.
And while in prison, men and women believed to be loyal to the Painter said they dreamt the retired warrior tried escaping and, acting on their dream, they stormed his cell. In the process, dozens of prisoners were massacred and buried in unknown locations. The actual number of victims and their identity remain a misery.
Since taking over as the village’s Painter, his rule has been marred by several allegations of corruption, human rights abuse, N.A Gbada brutality, illegal arrest, detention and torture, and a host of other grave violations of Thamprèreh’s guiding principles. He continues to destroy the democratic fabrics that bind the village together.
Villagers are now wondering whether this man is the true father of Thampèreh’s democracy or an imposter. They wonder if he voluntarily handed power to civilian rule or was forced to do so.
But one thing is sure; if villagers collect samples from this Painter and conduct a DNA test today, the result will show that he is an imposter and certainly not the father of Thampèreh’s democracy.
By Mahmud Tim Kargbo
Servant leadership:
According to John Ballard, PhD. servant leadership is the second most searched leadership style on Google behind transformational leadership. Furthermore, the Leadership Quarterly reports that empirical studies of leadership styles only focused on servant leadership 1% of the time. Translate this to what we continue to experience in Sierra Leone, it means the majority of our alleged leaders continue to lie about serving the people, possibly even being servant leaders, but they know very little about what that means.
There is a danger to being drawn to a concept because it sounds good without understanding what that concept is or what it requires. There are many fake leaders today in Sierra Leone who espouse the benefits of servant leadership without understanding what the cost to the leader to implement such a style is.
The Focus Of Servant Leaders:
Individuals work in organisations and as a result, servant-leaders are both followers as well as leaders. The servant-leader serves the government he or she works in as well as the people they lead. Many people occupying social positions of trust in Sierra Leone forget about this dual focus of the servant leader and only focus on the leadership of their government and political parties. If the alleged servant leader does not serve their government well, they will quickly find that they are no longer in a position to be a servant leader. In all cases, the principles of servant-leadership must be uniformly applied.
What is Servant Leadership?
According to the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, “The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is a leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions… “ The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served.
In short, Sierra Leone is still suffering from leadership problems as the majority of our alleged leaders from independence to date continue to protect their self-interests at the expense of the majority.
Where Does Servant Leadership Come From?
Servant leadership does not start with a series of agendas or practices that produce weak checks and balances within the system and benefit the selected few as we are experiencing currently. This approach produces a facade of behaviours that staff and the general public quickly realise are not genuine.
Servant leadership begins from core beliefs. It is an attitude or philosophy that drives the natural and genuine behaviour of a leader. Without this core, attempting to be a servant leader only leads to disappointment and deteriorating trust with a clean sense to constantly marginalise the already suffering majority.
Servant leadership comes from two fundamental, and seemingly contradictory, attitudes. They are selflessness and strength. The combination of these two attitudes forms a third dimension that becomes the heart of servant-leadership.
The First Fundamental Building Block: Selflessness
Selflessness is defined as “having no concern for self; showing great concern for and willingness to give unselfishly to others.” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/selfless".
Selflessness is putting others first and self last. Needless to say, the majority of our current alleged leaders do not reward selflessness. The psychology of entitlement mentality permeates our society’s thinking so that the majority of people approach a situation to see how they can protect their interests or get more than their share. Situational ethics, the philosophy that indoctrinates students for twelve years of their lives, teaches them to apply values to accomplish their personal goals in the given moment. Genuine selflessness as a result is often looked down upon and even mocked in our current system of governance.
The Second Fundamental Building Block: Strength
But selflessness by itself is not sufficient to be a servant leader. Strength is required. Servant leadership does not arise out of weakness. Strength is defined as a legal, logical, or moral force; a strong attribute or inherent asset; a degree of potency of effect or of concentration. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/strength
The servant-leader obtains strength from their character and from the position they hold. By virtue of these two items, the leader could demand the rights that belong to them; they could demand others obey and follow them. Instead, the servant leader willingly steps aside from what they rightfully could claim.
In essence, strength is the power to take action. The reason this is critical for a servant leader is that there must be the willingness, the strength, to step down from one’s position and to “serve others.” A person who is weak in character will not do this.
The Servant Leadership Quality Produce Sacrifice.
When strength and selflessness interact together they form a third attribute that is seen in the actions of the servant-leader. That attribute is sacrifice. Sacrifice is basically death to one’s own desires to serve others. When servant–leader selflessly steps away from their own desires to serve others, it becomes an act of sacrifice. The greatest example of servant leadership is Jesus Christ of whom it is written, “who, being in the form of God (strength), did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation (sacrifice), taking the form of a bondservant (selflessness) and been found in the form of a man, he humbled himself (selflessness), and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (sacrifice)” Philippians 2:6-8.
The attribute that allows the servant leader to sacrifice willingly is humility. Humility is not a sense of self-deprecation. It is not a belief that one is not worthy of the position of leadership or that the leader has no power or authority. It is the belief that others’ needs are more important than the leaders’.
A great example of this equation is Abraham Lincoln. Operating out of the power of the presidency, Lincoln selflessly and with humility took the actions to bring together a team of rivals to help achieve the mission. Personal power and reputation were not important. The mission was to unify a nation but to do so by implementing Lincoln’s beliefs in respecting the dignity of all mankind. (The values he was not willing to compromise or sacrifice). Ultimately, Lincoln sacrificed his health, his popularity (in the moment) and eventually his life to achieve the mission that was set before him.
Sacrifice becomes the hallmark of the servant leader. There are many other things that this leader could do with their time and authority that would be much more satisfying and enjoyable. But the servant-leader sacrifices for others.
What Is The Servant-Leader Unwilling To Sacrifice?
It is important to notice first what the servant-leader is not willing to compromise or sacrifice. As the servant-leader serves others there will be, from time to time, heavy pressure to compromise or give in on areas that are core to the leader. The leader may teach or explain these areas to those who do not understand, but the leader is not willing to compromise them. If the leader were to do so would mean the leader would lose the very reason for assuming the role of the servant-leader in the first place. All areas the servant-leader is unwilling to sacrifice are primarily related to mission and values.
• Values: A servant-leader is driven by values. The only thing more important to the leader than the people he or she serves is the values he or she stands for. When conflict arises between the values the leader stands for and the people they serve, the servant-leader always chooses to be true to values. But if the leader does not know what their values are or what they stand for, or if their values are compromised for expediency popularity, or compromise, then servant-leadership cannot exist.
If servant-leadership is attempted without a sense of values, the leader will serve the group’s whims and desires. In essence, the leader becomes obedient to the group and its pleasures. This is what many of our alleged leaders are executing today in Sierra Leone as their groups become more important than value or principle.
• Mission: A servant-leader assumes a leadership position because there is a mission that is worth accomplishing. There is an end goal that the servant-leader is moving toward, a direction that dominates their sights. The servant-leader is unwilling to compromise the mission or direction in order to gain followers of popularity. Again this becomes a challenge in today’s “politically correct’ works, where only a group consensus of the mission and values is tolerated. Standing alone for what one believes in is fast becoming a missing skill in Sierra Leone's alleged servant leadership styles.
• Trust: A servant-leader guards integrity. This means earning the trust of the people by being honest with them in all transactions. Note, this does not mean the servant-leader has to tell everything they know. There is a fallacy today that transparency means leaders must share everything they know or they are not being honest. Not true. The servant-leader will never lie to or knowingly mislead an individual or group, but the servant leader does not, and cannot, always share all information to which they are a party.
• Team: Servant-leaders know they are no better than the quality of the team they develop. As a result, they protect their team. This may be protection from unjust criticism; it might be correcting the team when it is off course, or it might be defending the team when they are asked to perform outside their capabilities. It might be removing a member who is destructive to the team’s morale and performance. The leader is not leading when they allow the group to ignore issues they must address in order to improve. In essence, the servant-leader defends his or her “flock” by confronting the issues that challenge them.
• Progress and Results: A servant leader is not lethargic when it comes to making progress. The servant-leader is not leading when he or she allows the group to function slower than is required. The leader assesses the progress the group is making and intervenes with the group to make corrections to ensure the team is on track. In this way, the leader protects both the group and the organisation from failure.
What Sacrifices Does The Servant Leader Make?
The servant-leader primarily sacrifices to ensure the growth of the government and the growth of followers with no sense of segregation to achieve the stated mission. The cost of growth in others is high as is the accomplishment of reaching performance goals, but it is a cost the servant-leader is willing to make.
• The servant-leader sacrifices personal priorities. Servant leaders allow others’ needs to take priority over their own. • The servant-leader sacrifices personal time. Servant-leader allows others access to their time. Rather than work on personal work, servant leaders use their time to help others as needed. • The servant-leader sacrifices personal preference. Servant-leaders might prefer to go in a certain direction or take a certain course of action, but they allow others latitude to take different paths (consistent with the mission and values). If others’ ideas and suggestions make sense, the servant-leader is willing to listen and accept other alternatives. • The servant-leader sacrifices personal knowledge. Servant-leader shares information and knowledge so that others gain the capability to perform on their own and live out the stated mission and values. Servant leaders often see others bypass them in the level of technical or professional skills. The servant-leader does not compete with his or her own staff to see who is the best technician. Much like a parent, the servant-leader takes pride in the accomplishment and growth of staff. • The servant-leader sacrifices personal praise. Servant leaders step aside from the limelight so that the group receives praise and recognition for the work performed or goals accomplished. Often groups will wonder why they needed a leader at all. However, they make the mistake of not seeing everything the leader did to prepare them for success. • The servant-leader sacrifices personal ease. Sometimes it would be easier for the servant-leader to simply do the job for himself or herself. The servant-leader knows that the growth of others requires allowing them to perform, as inefficient as that may be. The servant-leader knows that part of growth is to try things that are out of the box and this means some of those ideas will not work and may even cause more work. • The servant-leader sacrifices personal popularity. Servant-leaders realise that popularity is not their goal and that in doing the right thing, they may not gain the praise of the group. Others in the group may actually begin to receive greater popularity than the leader as they are noticed and recognised for their performance that the servant leader helped develop. • The servant-leader sacrifices perfection. Servant leaders are willing to accept mistakes and shortcomings along the way as people learn, grow and build capability.
There Is A High Cost To Servant-Leadership. Servant leadership is a high calling, but it is also a lonely path. It is a path that can cause leaders discomfort. It is not a style that should be adopted to impress others. It emanates from a personal attitude toward building a high-achieving team and this requires the leader’s personal sacrifice in order that others may succeed in a mission that is worth accomplishing.
There is a cost to being a servant-leader. That cost is death to self-interests. Most people are unwilling to pay that price but without it, servant-leadership will never be genuine or successful.
So you want to be a servant-leader in Sierra Leone? Count the cost!
By Saikujohn Barrie
Electoral Commission Sierra Leone, has the sole authority with the constitutional mandate to prepare and conduct public elections and referenda in Sierra Leone. From this backdrop, this writer wants to remind the chairman of the commission that it is his sole responsibility to ensure that every eligible and willing Sierra Leone voter is registered in the coming month for the 2023 elections.
Sierra Leoneans don't want to hear people complaining about not being registered to vote in this coming registration process. Even though the main opposition made efforts to stop their people from being counted in the 2021 census, hundreds of willing people waited to be counted but no enumerators turned up to count them. Cases of people not being counted were reported in many parts of the country, especially in the Western Area and the Northern part of the country.
With that in mind, this writer would want to remind the Chief Electoral Commissioner that free, fair and credible elections start from the voter registration process. The registration system should not be rigged in favour of any particular region of the country. Sierra Leoneans in all corners of the country must be registered so that they will be able to exercise their rights to elect their leaders.
The 2023 election is one of the most important elections in the history of Sierra Leone for Sierra Leoneans because many Sierra Leoneans who started to vote in 2007 have experienced the governance of both the two main political parties in the country, i.e. the ruling SLPP and the main opposition APC, so this coming election is an opportunity for Sierra Leoneans to make a crucial decision to either go with what they have for the past four years or make a change based on their experience from both parties.
I am not talking about a third force here because I am sure Sierra Leoneans are not prepared for that yet. This writer believes that 2023 is the most important election because it gives Sierra Leoneans the golden opportunity to kick the current government out of power which will show politicians that if they don't deliver what they were elected for, they will only serve one term in office. If the electorates make such a bold decision, they would send a strong warning to the incoming politicians that Sierra Leoneans are no longer fools and if they too fail to deliver, they will be kicked out in 2028.
On the other hand, 2023 will also give the SLPP government the opportunity to know that they are indeed in the right direction if Sierra Leoneans vote for Maada Bio for a second term. Voting for Bio in 2023 will demonstrate that the too many cries, yelling about hardship, and complaining about bad economic policies were just fabricated to tarnish the government. The 2023 election will also allow the main opposition APC to ascertain whether their governance system is indeed better than the current SLPP or not.
This writer believes 2023 will be a historical election because voting SLPP out will send a strong and clear message that if politicians come to power and fail to address the needs of the people, they will be kicked out as soon as their first term ends, while if the SLPP is voted in for the second term, it will show that the opposition APC is so abysmal and rotten that despite the current hardship and suffering in the country, Sierra Leoneans still don't trust them to run the state.
If the APC loses the 2023 elections, they should just go to their ancestral shrines to pray for cleansing. For the aforementioned, the Electoral Commission must ensure that they provide a level platform for everyone willing to be registered to vote by giving ample time for voter registration to take place in every village and town in the country so that everyone has the opportunity to pass judgement on these two old political parties in our country.
Let the commission be a neutral referee where every player is allowed to exhibit their talent without hindrance. The chief electoral commissioner should know that the future of the country is in his hands and he should have statesmanship and loyalty to the people of the country. This is why Sane Sierra Leoneans are calling for members of Parliament to pass electoral laws that do not deprive any Sierra Leoneans in the country.
The election commission must ensure that everyone is registered so that they will be able to take part in the appraisal of the two main political parties come 2023.
This writer, therefore, thinks everyone should be given the opportunity to register to vote.
I rest my case
Today, I want to speak directly with members and supporters of the Sierra Leone People’s Party. I have a few questions for you. What do you really want? How do you want other Sierra Leoneans to remember your party? How do you, as a person, want to be remembered for supporting this great party?
I say “great party” because I come from that generation of young Sierra Leoneans who, immediately after the war, were introduced to the governance system of the Sierra Leone People’s Party. Through Pa Kaba, we saw how the SLPP showed us what democracy is. It wasn’t the perfect democracy, but it was close. Like many other young Sierra Leoneans, I transitioned from experiencing a decade-long brutal civil war to knowing a democratic country where all citizens were treated equally through Pa Kaba’s SLPP. We saw how, as young people, our nation moved from the barbaric times we were introduced to one where we could hope, dream, live freely and where necessary challenge our government, as long as we “don’t go to the bush.” That is why my generation will forever consider Pa Kaba, our hero. And I am sure many of you at the party will say the same.
But Pa Kaba is no more, and I find it hard to believe that when he died, he died with his values and that of the party. And even if what we are currently seeing and experiencing is the true SLPP, I still would want to believe that Pa Kaba must have installed some of his values to this green party.
So, what happened to those values?
Over the last few years, I have interacted with countless party members. And for many, the discussions are always different in private and public. In private, they worry about the party’s direction under its current leadership. Dozens of senior SLPP members supported and campaigned for President Maada Bio not because he was the most competent of all but because they thought the SLPP as a party would remain what it is. It doesn’t matter who they send to the polls; they thought the party could still shape the candidate to conform to the party’s values. They were wrong.
Deep down, most party members are entirely dissatisfied with the way things are in the country. They know the party no longer represents its values and their beliefs in it. Many feel like the party has been hijacked. The current state of the party and the country is not what many bargained and voted for. That is why I think it must be hurting so bad to have been at the forefront of things only to see the party and the nation crumble in front of you as it is today.
But now isn’t about what you did or thought you could have done. It is about what you can do now.
Sierra Leone is at a very important crossroads. These are very challenging times for all citizens, regardless of party affiliation. The current challenges will (probably) continue in the coming year or two.
Elections are around the corner, and the biggest threat to the SLPP’s reelection isn’t the social media keyboard warriors, the ragtag, the haters, or the opposition party members. The biggest threat to the SLPP is the silence of those genuine individuals in the party who bled and sweated for President Bio’s candidacy. The threat to the party is those who spend hours defending bad governance and insulting anyone who disagrees with them on national issues.
So, as we start the countdown to next year’s elections, you must ask yourselves what you truly want, how you want Sierra Leoneans to remember the SLPP, and how you, as members of this party, want your fellow citizens to remember you.
It is time you stop grumbling in private and speak up about what is happening. It is time you start holding each other accountable. You must be willing to speak up and know whether Maada Bio gets re-elected; you will walk around with your heads up, knowing that you stood up for your country and defended your party or what you think the SLPP should be.
And it is up to you to decide. I can’t choose that for you. I am just a lousy-wannabe celebrity-Social Media keyboard warrior-Ragtag-outrage guy.
So, as the party’s member of parliament, minister, senior party member, or ordinary supporter, are you satisfied with the direction of your party and the country? What do you want for Salone? What do you want for the SLPP? And how do you want to be remembered as a party member and supporter?
By Mahmoud Tim Kargbo. The government of Sierra Leone slashed fuel levies to bring the pump price down with an expectation to make the commodity affordable and available for the general good. So why are customers in Sierra Leone still facing artificial scarcity and are paying record prices to fuel up?
Considering the huge amount of international hard currencies the government is giving fuel companies, the drastic tax cut done by the government of Sierra Leone and the huge amount of revenue the government is losing in these tax cuts which fail to reflect on the current pump price, right-minded nationals are still asking why the fuel companies aren’t facing new government inquiries to determine if high fuel prices are the result of anti-competitive practices—the kind of review that will put the government in a better position to properly ascertain the reason(s) why measures like fuel tax cuts and the provision of international hard currencies for fuel importers aren’t reflecting on the current pump price of fuel in Sierra Leone.
We all understand the government of Sierra Leone cannot control world oil prices, but it is responsible for over 50 per cent of the pump price in taxes. If the primary purpose of these levies was purely to make money for the government, it means the government must cut down on taxes even though it is losing a huge amount of money to fuel importers and dealers (Connex).
The government of Sierra Leone further went on to provide international hard currencies for fuel importers and dealers (Connex) in order to make the commodity affordable and available to consumers to alleviate the suffering of the majority.
With all this, the fuel pump price is already far too high and the marketers, in a specific case an importer and marketer (Connex) is a part of the cabal to force the government to sell fuel at 21,000 Leones per litre.
The question is if government taxes are increasing the pump price of fuel above 50% and the government has drastically cut down on these taxes, why are these fuel marketers creating the current artificial scarcity in order to really force the government to increase the pump price to 21,000 Leones per litre?
GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION IN THE INDUSTRY
Bank of Sierra Leone Foreign Exchange allocation from March to May 2022 – 47 million US dollars.
Petroleum Subsidies to keep pump prices below the market price:
2020 – 66.7 billion Leones
2021 – 248.9 billion Leones
2022 – 200.5 billion Leones
Aggregate – 516.18 billion Leones
- Oil Marketing Companies’ monthly foreign currency demand is USD 30 million. (Source: Government Strategic Communication Unit).
Sierra Leone, like other nations, is reeling from sticker shock as the price of fuel soar in the wake of the Russia-Western proxy war that’s currently going on in Ukraine. Over the weekend, the cost of a litre of petrol in Sierra Leone topped Le 25,000 (black market) for the first time in history. At the same time, the government of Sierra Leone continue to assist petrol importers with international hard currencies and tax cuts with a sense to make the commodity affordable and available in all parts of the country.
Are oil companies colluding to keep fuel prices high?
The artificial scarcity and the surge in the current pump price should prompt government action to ascertain whether the huge amount of international hard currencies government keep issuing to fuel companies is being wisely used for the intended purpose. This is the time the government of Sierra Leone needs to arm the country’s competition authorities to come down hard on fuel companies that are failing to pass on the benefits of the present fuel tax cuts plus the international hard currencies help to consumers.
Oil companies in Sierra Leone may claim, of course, that the tax break and the international hard currencies government keep on issuing to them are overtaken by the cost of transporting fuel to the country and within the country. Part of the government’s inquiry will involve;
a probe into whether on a specific purchase, fuel importers are using all the international hard currencies they’re getting from the government to purchase fuel;
If yes, what is the class of fuel we are using in Sierra Leone?
What is the international price per barrel?
Is the amount commensurate to the international hard currencies the government is issuing out to these fuel importers on a specific order?
And
Are the wholesale price and transport stages of the fuel sector to determine if cost escalations are indeed behind the spike in pump prices?
The government of Sierra Leone must promise stiff fines if any anti-competitive activity that led to the current artificial scarcity is discovered. And such inquiries shall result in strict punitive action. Fuel importers and marketers must be forced to pass on tax cut benefits to their customers. Sierra Leone competition watchdogs should investigate if fuel companies in Sierra Leone are colluding to keep prices artificially high in a sense to make the government generally look bad.