Infighting and internal squabbles is almost about to rock the New Direction-led government, ultimately denting their chances in the 2023 elections.
President Bio who won the March, 2018 elections with little above 3% of the total votes cast, inherited a hugely divided country along ethnic, regional and tribal lines.
He was very determined upon his election to provide the much needed goodies for the country leading to the development of an ambitious National Medium Term Development Plan 2019-2023 and rolling out of the Free Quality Education Plan.
The resources to drive these ambitious projects are largely not within but government has increasingly looked outside Sierra Leone with a view to harness resources to support the realizations of the plans.
He has put together a highly educated team composed of diplomats, retired military officers, peace experts and politicians to help him achieve this clear cut targets amidst a very tight schedule.
President Bio has stated many times while addressing his team during seminars and retreats that he wants them to make history by changing the narrative of Governance in the country.
He has emphasized that the people of Sierra Leone are in a worry and everything in the country has absolutely become a priority as far development is concerned.
But by the look of things, many appointees are going contrary to the aspirations of the President.
Some members of his team have not settled down for the herculean task at hand, as far as delivering the basic social services to the people is concerned.
Many of them have concentrated on internal and personal issues rather than helping the President to succeed.
They have forgotten that the task at hand is very much enormous and needs a highly concentrated and united team that will support each other in delivering the task at hand.
Divisions and infighting would in no way help towards getting the job done.
The APC regime still has a considerable influence within and outside the country to frustrate the development plans of the country, and this will quickly succeed if members of the Bio team are divided.
Ministries with powers, influence and resources to help others to do the job, such as the Ministry of Finance, are using their positions to stifle their colleagues in ministries, parastatals and other public sector entities from delivering on the President’s aspirations.
How can the Ministry of Finance allocate very infinitesimal budget allocations to Parastatals and Ministries like the NPPA and the Corporate Affairs Commission and many others.
The responsibility to manage the resources of the country should not be used to settle the ego of whosever is in charge, but should be used to promote the vision of the President.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Corporate Affairs Commission during the budget presentation, made it very clear that the Ministry is allocating huge resources to underperforming Ministries leaving those that have huge tendencies by their posture to win laurels for the government both in terms of procurement processes or tax mobilization/revenue and following on the internal bench marks for doing business in the country.
Highly influential Ministries that have the unwavering confidence of the President to inspire others to work on the national agenda, have used such influences to promote their selfish ego rather than helping to push the national agenda.
Some who were called by the President to serve at Parastatals and Ministries based on their past relationship with the President either at the Bo School or in his days in the army, are using such influences to disobey Ministers supervising their day to day affairs instead of using such influences to help the President.
The highly performing Parastatals and Ministries in the government are few.
Some if not most have turned to the old ways of doing things.
Many are using their influences in politics to create bad blood for the party in their home towns by supporting unpopular candidates in bye-elections, village head elections etc. knowing full well that the party still needs to galvanize support and win the minds of people in those areas.
Some heads of parastatals have refused to allow their deputies appointed by the President to work in tandem with the overall objectives of government.
They have maligned and victimized them just because their influence to the Presidency is exceptional.
All of these tendencies have continued to put the party’s position gloomy ahead of the 2023 elections.
These tendencies have continued to weigh down on the ambitious development plans of the government for the first five years.
The President should be able to uproot the unproductive elements in his team and replace those people who are determined to deliver laurels for the country.
Delivering the vision of the President would not require people to harbor petty grievances against the team members hence destroying the national vision which is the ultimate goal.
Such infighting and internal squabbles were responsible for sending the APC into the wilderness and the SLPP should learn from this.
The divisions in the party as a result of settling down for a leader to have led the party to the 2018 elections caused the party their current fate.
The infighting at the Ministry of Social Welfare and other key ministries badly affected those departments in attaining the overall picture.