Owing to marked failings in performance and service delivery over the years, President Julius Maada Bio will soon embark on a clean up to get bad apples out of State House and Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
Weak links are visible within top ranks of the SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party)-led government and only a tough action from the throne that can take the party back on track. Many who formed the crux of public servants at State House hold presidential ambition as they eagerly wait to see President Bio’s back from State House.
It is yet unclear which units and directorates would be affected by the President’s radical measures and the officials to be removed are also not yet known, but heads are sure to roll for an immediate turn around. The people need services from government as the situations gets tough every day, but service delivery needs expertise.
Senior officials including ministers and deputies will be equally affected when the decision for non-performance, but the MDAs also are not yet named.
For too long, the President has been dragged into glittering generalities through fraud, lies and misconception.
Political Charlatans’ claims were proved to be terribly wrong when teams of monitors and evaluators were deployed on the ground to verify the achievements.
Although most government officials said the manifesto commitments had been achieved, there was very little evidence on the ground as the people still continue to wallow in conditions of abject poverty.
Although it was low key, the clean-up exercise had started long ago following the dissolution of his advisory team at State House quite lately, and the President needed capable men and women to fill in the vacancies.
Head of Presidential Initiative on Infrastructure, Dr John Tambie was asked to lay kits just few months after June 24, 2023 polls owing to failure to perform. Tambie who had fine academic credentials in engineering and aeronautics could not deliver quality services as SLPP government embarked on major road projects in the country particularly the Lungi bridge which had been Bio’s key promise to the people of Sierra Leone.
In early 2019, investors from different parts of the world jetted in Sierra Leone and knocked State House doors seeking opportunity to invest in the Lungi bride project but later left after lengthy negotiations without any better result.
SLPP’s former flag-bearer, John Oponjo Benjamin who was also a key adviser to President Bio also has been dropped although the reason was unexplained, but it could also be unconnected from negligence and weak result.
First to leave State House was the first and former Chief Minister, David John Francis, lead author of the Governance Transition Team (GTT) report which went a long way in misleading President Julius Maada Bio.
The report which many said was “tribal” led to the formation of a judge-led commission of inquiry whose findings and recommendations resulted into the confiscation of assets of past government officials, an action which majority of the people of Sierra Leone said it was arbitrary.
The seeming arbitrary and drastic action is one of the causes of an enduring bad blood between SLPP and the main opposition, All People’s Congress (APC).
Without any iota of doubt, government resorted to such action after it was misled into believing that South-Easterners were also unfairly treated in the hay days of the Ernest Bai Koroma regime, a situation that was not the situation.
Several senior officials whose names could not be mentioned here have gone, but more to follow as the weather becomes stormy.
State House officials, for the past years, have been accused of influencing key appointments in MDAs by way of wrong advice to the President, and the result has been very terrible.
It is extremely difficult and almost impossible for incompetent persons to deliver quality services to the people since the capacity is not there.
It is also alleged that State House officials have been misleading the President on several write-ups which is at variance with the realities on the ground.
Incompetence and under-performance defines the Bio administration for the past six years, a situation that has triggered the presidential action.
Such action, many say comes just too late, but it is timely since the people of Sierra Leone will point of finger of blame at President Bio if he fails to act.
It could be recalled that President Bio made fine promises ahead of June 2023 elections that he would deliver quality services to the people under the big ‘Big Five Game Changers’ with Agriculture being the flagship project.
Launched in Pujehun in November, last year, the flagship project known as ‘Feed Salone’ was meant to ensure food sufficiency for all Sierra Leoneans, and to cut down foreign capital flight from the country.
Importers, according to government reports, annually spend over $200m to bring food into Sierra Leone from other countries, but with a viable agricultural system, the foreign currency would be used in other sectors of the economy.
The pronouncement of agriculture as a flagship project quite well resonated with a global vision of improving agriculture in the world with a focus on Africa so that Africans can feed themselves.
According to global sources, a good chunk of foreign aid would be directed to the agricultural sector come next year, and that was the reason President Bio has been attending global food summits with the one in Rome, Italy being the most prominent.
Despite government’s good intention, agriculture in Sierra Leone is still a bad narrative for many Sierra Leoneans especially the have-nots who stand on the wrong end.
A 50kg bag of rice hovers between Nle1, 000 or Le1, 000, 000 (one million Leones) and NLe1, 500 or Le1, 500, 000 (one million, five hundred thousand Leones), a situation that still shows that Sierra Leone is not yet out of the woods. Other aspects of agriculture especially poultry is still neglected raising critical questions about who is really in charge.
World Bank reports show that Sierra Leone has huge agricultural potentials evidenced by fine weather (abundant sunshine and rainfall), good soil and able-bodied youth population to till the land and the swamps to ensure sufficiency in food production in Sierra Leone.
But, it is also up to the government to come up with sound policies to take the 2, 500 commercial motorists (okada riders) from the streets to the farms.
Like agriculture, other areas such as infrastructure, energy, youth employment also still struggles and the situation calls for the right men to be in the right place.
The failings in State House and various MDAs now is almost the same as those in years gone by as President Bio made sound promises to the nation in 2017 making Free Quality Education (FQE) as its flagship.
The project which attracted millions of dollars from the international community was to ensure that children in Sierra Leone acquire primary and secondary education free of cost.
Investment in the education of the children of any nation, according to development experts, is one that has no equal anywhere in the world, but its implementation left many questions than answers.
Pupils, the main beneficiaries of the FQE project, were freed only from paying fees while they paid other charges particularly admission fees.
With a weak monitoring and evaluation mechanism, some unscrupulous teachers also saw the system as an easy way to prey on some unwary parents and pupils rendering the project as a farce or comedy show. Others call it a “mere masquerade.”
It is not uncommon to hear parents saying “they are better left alone with the old system where they pay fees.”
Even the teachers, FQE’s academic foot soldiers, enjoyed little benefits as their terms and conditions of service still remain miserable despite huge funds poured into the project.
However, President Bio was also deceived when he informed the international community that each Sierra Leonean parent could save as much as $500 owing to the FQE initiative, a claim that did not go down well with many parents and pupils. The projects, despite it’s the euphoria and fanfare in the first term, was halted owing to its poor performance and results, and President Bio was defeated.
Even the energy situation was more of a liability than asset not until President Bio took over the sector. It is now better off.
The failings are also noticeable in the economy although it is showing signs of recovery over the years.
Five years ago, former Finance Minister, Jacob Jusu Saffa, well-known for his bread-and-butter policy, miserably failed the people of Sierra Leone. Like others, he was also asked to take an exit as Bio was on the move for more reforms.