By Ben Kabaguae
Sierra Leone’s Chief Minister, Prof. David John Francis, is having sleepless nights, and he’s deeply tormented since he noticed that he is no longer in the good books of his boss, President Julius Maada Bio and that his job is on the line for failure to meet deadlines for the installation of the 5,000 solar lights nationwide which has been stalled.
And the people continue to question the fate and whereabouts of the project.
Upon attaining office in April 2019, Bio is said to have inherited the project from his predecessor, former President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma, and he is trying to actualize the full implementation of one of Africa’s most reliable energy projects for rural Sierra Leone.
Bio whiles in New York recently promised to shine Sierra Leone like a diamond through Aliaune Damala Badara Akon’s Lighting Up Africa 5,000 solar lights project, targeting eighteen other West Africa countries.
Despite the growing demands for energy even in the rains, the Lighting Up Sierra Leone project is yet to meet its set goals of installing the much publicized 5,000 solar power, with 2.500 street traffic lights.
Prof. Francis, the evil son of J. B. Francis of the All People’s Congress party, who is being highly suspected of clandestinely undermining his boss for reasons best known to him, now hardly travels with President Bio, nor does he even attend public functions together with the President due to his misdirection and poor recommendations to the presidency and the government as a whole on couple of issues that end up denting the President’s reputation and the entire government.
Bio has lately realized that most actions taken by his government officials, especially Francis and irate Lahai Lawrence Leema, have of late tarnished his political image.
How can he contain these bad eggs within the ruling ‘Paopa’ Sierra Leone People’s Party is the long road ahead of President Bio.
Francis’ predecessors: Dr. Kaifala Marah, Dr Richard Conteh and Mr. Saidu Conton Sesay were more focused on helping former President Ernest Bai Koroma in the implementations of the Agenda for Change and the Agenda for Prosperity.
But now Chief Minister, Prof. Francis is concentrated on arresting and detaining of opposition politicians, because he has lost touch of ministries, departments and agencies due to the lesser attention being paid to the coordination, monitoring, evaluation and assessment of ministers in the implementations of government’s new direction development agenda.
No wonder flagship programs are rapidly derailing from progressive trajectories.
Lighting Up Sierra Leone was assigned to Prof. Francis by President Bio for its implementation by way of granting energy access to rural communities nationwide, but that has failed to be in the news for facilitating such an ambitious project.
Instead, Prof. Francis prefers to make headline news for ordering the arrests and unlawful detention of opposition APC party Deputy National Organizing Secretary, Karamoh Kabba and over twenty supporters on the orders of the Chief Minister, as part of a grand ploy to win Cnstituency 110 re-run elections through intimidation of opposition APC members and supporters.
He’s been in the news also for poorly recommending the wrong people for high profile jobs to President Bio and later his choice hardly proves well on their various jobs, are among several other undemocratic and bad governance practices by Prof Francis, the man who wants credits for everything done by the government.
Prof Francis is also in the news for chairing occasions and programs such as official launch and commissioning of bogus government projects.
Prof Francis hardly avoids controversy for equating his position to that of Vice President with the impression that President Bio needs him more than the Vice President, Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh.
And that was why he delegated more assignments to (him) Prof Francis than the legitimate Principal Assistant to the President, V.P. Dr. Jalloh.
Moreover, the Chief Minister along with others have also been recommending incompetent and people with bad reputations to the President which is why there are so many square pegs in round holes in ministries, departments and agencies.
However, on an afterthought, when President Bio recently started delegating assignments to V.P. Dr. Jalloh, then it apparently became unbelievable how in-effective Prof. Francis is rapidly becoming in the Paopa ruling political drama.
In the office of Chief Minister, officials are well paid with the hope of offering the best expertise, but perform poorly than expected.
And as a result of such, attitudes towards public service jobs under the ruling SLPP have stalled the implementation of the much publicized and ambitious 5,000 Lighting Up Sierra Leone rural electrification drive.
That self-titled prime minister, Prof Francis deliberately ignored the 5,000 Solar Lighting Up Sierra Leone rural electrification solar energy project for the pursuance of his personal political agenda; engaging in internal political campaigning of ruling party kingpins and delegates to elect him as chairman and leader of the Sierra Leone People’s Party.
Cynics believe Francis is new and has done nothing for the SLPP thus he better focus on working for his survival now before he is fired.
Prof. Francis had recently thrown his hat in the ring as one of the prominent political figures from Kenema that is vying for the party’s top position against the incumbent, Dr. Alex Prince Harding and Jimmy Batilo Songa.
The highly distractive political battle is seemingly diverting Prof. Francis’ attention from governance issues that normally obtains at MDAs.
Instead, he is pre-occupied with secrete political meetings with delegates campaigning round the clock to unseat Dr. Harding while the Office of Chief Minister and the entire presidency is left ineffective.
According to a very reliable source at Office of Chief Minister, the rural electrification project is being stalled because Prof. Francis is now purely focused on winning the chairman and leadership of SLPP.
This, the source adds, “is one of the best energy programs President Bio inherited from the last administration of former President Koroma, but it has been almost killed due to lack of attention by Chief Minister, Prof. Francis and others whom the implementation of the project were delegated to.”
Lack of access to energy is however one of Sierra Leone’s major economic challenges, apart from the pulling out of multinational foreign investors, the Ebola disease outbreak in 2014 that killed over 4,000 people and scared many investors and drop in global prices of diamonds, iron ore and other rich mineral products in 2015, all dashed hopes and expectations of the masses due to failure on the part of the Bio government to meet campaign promises.
There is absolutely no access to energy in Freetown and in rural communities across Sierra Leone and had government meant well, this would have been a golden opportunity to electrify rural Sierra Leone.
President Bio is said to be in a regretful state but he is trying to manage the pressure being mounted on him for wrongly appointing Prof. David John Francis as his Chief Minister.
Some critical ruling party members are also of the strong view that Prof. Francis has nothing to offer the government, owing to his shortfalls in the coordination and regular failures in the supervision, monitoring and evaluation of MDAs.
And have consequently protested urging the government with suggestions that President Bio fires Prof. Francis now before he renders the SLPP unpopular before 2023.
That he is making no contribution towards the progressive implementation of the SLPP development blueprint of the new direction, then there is no need to have an office of chief minister in the first place.
It has never in fact existed before. But because President Bio is academically ineffective, he is by no mistake obliged to Prof. Francis which is why he made him top minister to be always wrongly advised, even though Francis lacks the knowledge of governance.
As the name C.M. then, he also dissolved the former Office of Chief of Staff, sacked over one hundred staff with the impression of making the required positive impact, though now worsen than before.
There and then he dashed in maliciously compiling the infamous tribally and regionally compiled GTT report in which they wrongly accused opposition APC politicians and workers of the last Koroma administration of corruption for which he offered very bad political governance pieces of advice to President Bio only for the president to shoulder those blames in future as political incorrectness by the SLPP.
On his main assignment which is the supervision of ministries, departments and agencies, Chief Minister Prof. Francis hardly performs the needful monitoring and evaluation of ministers and their related agencies due to diverts of his attention to winning higher level chairmanship election of his party.
But since President Bio is just too jittery to fire non-performers in his cabinet including Chief Minister Francis, the lack of service delivery from MDAs have become a normal thing for public servants under the SLPP regime.
Cabinet Secretariat sources revealed that none of the ministers and their deputies has performed above 35% of the contracts signed with President Bio, yet he continues to keep them on their jobs because he does not want to kick asses of Bo school and political friends.
Violent oriented Prof. Francis makes frequent visits with militants to the SLPP parliamentary candidate, Josephine Jackson of Constituency 110 to cause havocs and continues to harass and intimidate APC supporters onto August 24th re-run election and if possible replicate similar strategies across in the 2023 general elections.
You may want to ask what else Prof. Francis wants when he can’t offer this country anything especially for the job he’s being paid for thousands of United States Dollars for which the President deeply regrets.
However, deep down the heart and mind of President Bio’s regret for the manner in which the Chief Minister, Prof. Francis is conducting himself within the government and his level of incompetence has shown that he actually needs to be shown the exit door by President Bio so as to correct his political mistakes now than latter.
This is simply because people won’t hold incompetent Prof. David John Francis for failing to deliver, but President Julius Maada Bio for not being up to the task.
So, Mr. President forget about the Bradford University ties with Francis and do the right thing like you did in the case of the incumbent Chairman and Leader of the SLPP, Dr. Alex Prince Harding and don’t be afraid to sack David John Francis for ignoring his job for petty politics.
So fair enough, do it now and kill depression you are going through President Bio, your people are fed up and tired with too many excuses by your regime and want to stop questioning the whereabouts, status and level of implementation of the mega 5,000 Solar Lighting Up Sierra Leone project.