With the government of President almost clocking one hundred days in office we are witnessing blunders everyday either from the administrative section of the Presidency or from his actions or that of very senior government functionaries.
The Public relations machine of the opposition has been feasting on these missteps,lampooning some of these false starts day by day .
We are bringing to light a number of issues which seems to have overwhelmed the public discussion foras, bars, cinemas and other places where people normally conglomerate to review happenings around a government that was elected with very high hopes of turning around what President Bio has described in his campaign as ‘’despicable state of affairs.
Firstly there were sporadic attacks on opposition supporters across the country immediately the President was sworn into office to a point that people were killed and a whole area in Kono moved to Masingbi and were virtually displaced.
Here in Freetown decent citizens are been chased away to surrender government vehicles in a largely disorganized operation retrieve government vehicles. A number of high court judges and other senior public servants were molested.
As we speak we have still not got a report to tell us about the inventory of government fleets.
Rado Yokie, the then chairman for this commission is in the wilderness still looking forward to an appointment after he missed out on the Transport Ministry which he had loudly boasted of to friends and loved ones.
We also witnessed the President struggling to appoint a nationally balanced cabinet and other appointments but it came out clearly that the South East seems to be carrying the lion share with Predominantly Bonthe and Kenema district people leading.
Then came the issue of the Chief Minister which many believe would overshadow the role of the Vice President. The non-fulfillment of promises relative to reducing a highly bloated cabinet as contained in campaign pronouncement is also another issue that has caught public attention. There was a very robust attempt to explain and defend these actions but the opposition Public relations machine was far ahead.
Then came the issue of the President’s inauguration into Office and the unquestionable role of the First Lady of the Republic of Sierra Leone Madam Fatima Bio in heading the organization of the events and the invitation of a lot of celebrities from Nigeria purportedly from the budget of the event against the will of other members of the committee.
There was a clarion call by the opposition and other civil society actors to make the inauguration budget public since there is the much trumpeted campaign promise that the new direction would be very transparent.
There were also leaked memos from the Presidency to a number of Arab countries in which the President has made a number of request for vehicles and other logistical support. It was even alleged that our sister African countries had donated huge sums of money to support the President who had earlier on cried to IMF officials and Sierra Leoneans few days after assuming office that the kitty is totally empty.
The Government could not yield to such pressures to account for funds spent on the inauguration. Instead the government response that they had spent a little lower than the APC.
Things are getting worse from the transparency angle when a number of groups have called for the transition report to be made public and subsequently a commission of enquiry on APC ministers.
As we go to press this is almost becoming history just like the APC did in 2007. The SLPP new direction could not come out new; instead we are moving towards the old order.
As the dust was about to settle, we also witnessed another embarrassment in which the President had earlier on met with the business Community in the country on the 23rd May ,2018 at State House.
Consequently, the Secretary to the President had put out a memo on the 24th May ,2018 after twenty fours to the Financial Secretary instructing him that the President is requesting him to put on hold the financial Acts of 2016,2017 and 2018.
The same Secretary to the President has caused to release another memo apologizing for what he referred to as error on his own part and distancing the President from the scandal.
He could not survive this and he was fired, making him the first casualty of government commitment to respond to spoilers in position of public trust.
This time again the opposition successfully exploited this blunder and were the ones leading the campaign for heads to roll.
But what is also clear is that apart from these administrative blunders here and there, the Public relations machine of the new administration are always coming behind time to make amends after the damage is done.
Several of these damage control efforts were not effective as in the instance of: the Ministerial Order No.1 by Dr. Sandi, diamond turn stone wahala, the issue of the Secretary to cabinet, appointments of Dr.Alex Prince Harding and his Party scribe against earlier campaign promises of depoliticizing NATCOM.
Quite recently we are now battling with a strange memo purportedly from the Attorney General’s office, cautioning the Presidency on the removal of certain highly placed people such as the Registrar General, Anti-Corruption Commissioner, the Bank Governor and his deputy.
While the newly created wing of the Attorneys Generals office is fighting to distance the Attorney General from this memo but whosoever could have authored this memo succeeded in stirring public reaction around a very topical issue at the moment. This involves the sacking of heads of Parastatals and the legal procedure which the president should follow.
Whatever we may say there is a paradigm shift from the President new direction in certain areas especially relating to Presidential appointments. The President should be aware that we have civil servants and Board members that are merely serving ‘mama salone’ with no political strings attached and the example are there for us to see.
Even if they are people from the other side they should be given an opportunity to destroy themselves. Munda Rogers Former Director General of SLRSA who everyone knew was SLPP served in the position throughout the first term of President Koroma and was only sacked after he and the former Minister A. P. Koroma were quite unable to solve the deplorable road situation in Freetown.
Even as we go to Press we are getting unconfirmed rumours that all regent Chiefs principally from the North who were acting as Paramount chiefs have been dissolved by the new government. How could this be interpreted? we wait to see in the next coming days.
Whiles we keep on highlighting these blunders we are also privy to a number of violations of Presidential Executive Orders especially so by Ministers of Government.
On the 31st May, 2018 the Youth Ministry had hosted a Youth Conference at the Kona Lodge in Freetown against the Order that all Conference should now be hosted at the facilities of the respective Ministries. Kona lodge seems to be benefitting from all these violations but one could understand why this is been given a blind eye ‘’nar party pekin’’
Several Civil servants across the country are turning up late for work almost in all sectors.
Kudos to the Resident Minister East who is making himself visibly in respective MDA’s to checkmate these punctuality violations and this should be the spirit in other regions since the President could not be everywhere to check on this order.
Youyi building in Freetown is saturated with visitors who visit ministers everyday on personal issue as early as 2 in the afternoon depriving people who are genuinely there to transact official government business. These people who are mainly party cronies are sometimes given due attention by these Ministers against people who are there officially to transact government business.
This and many more are happening. As the Public Relations disaster that is surrounding the New Direction we would recommend that it is only the Communication campaign team that can handle the APC tactics of sabotaging the new administration .
Kekehtoma Sandi and others currently manning the Communication of the government have not been able to return fire for fire.
It is my view that they are losing the media battle very early into the new administration’s rule and it is high time that the government returned to the drawing board; as it is very imminent that the APC propaganda arsenal is fastly regrouping and now causing trouble for the largely unsettled Public Relations team of the government.
Time is catching up on you move fast and do something.