SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) government is known for false and unfulfilled promises since it came to power in 2018 for which President Julius Maada Bio was humiliated at the state opening of parliament last Tuesday.
A group of main opposition, APC (All People’s Congress) parliamentarians chanted anti-Bio slogans and songs referring to the President as a great liar since he failed to meet most of his promises made.
Songs of disrespect were continuously sung portraying the President as one that has thrown dust in the eyes of Sierra Leoneans through promises he failed to meet.
The songs hit the walls of parliament showing the extent to which the President’s lies has reached mountainous peak, a stage the people of Sierra Leone could no longer tolerate.
Bio himself tacitly accepted that his promises were yet to be met owing to insurmountable challenges that have badly hit his government from the outset. As the President fails almost every aspect of life is touched. No one is spared.
As usual, the President would not hesitate to identify the Corona Virus and the Russia-Ukraine crisis as factors that have heightened the cost of living in Sierra Leone.
But, many Sierra Leoneans found it difficult to be convinced believing that Bio had failed prior to the outbreak of the global pandemic and the Russian-Ukraine war.
Bio however knew nothing about the current situation when he was making the promises in the campaigns, and it appears that he made no contingency planning.
Even in the face of a global pandemic and war, the President is expected to navigate his way through. It was a similar situation former President Ernest Bai Koroma faced between 2014 and 2016 when Ebola hit the land. Although the virus took a relatively huge death toll, life for the ordinary man was a bit better off as compared to the present.
In 2018, President Bio made many promises bordering on education, health, economy, Agriculture, energy infrastructure, inclusive governance and national cohesion saying that he would fix those sectors if voted in.
Carried away by Bio’s promises, the people of Sierra Leone chose him for a five-year mandate as hopes remained high that a young and energetic President would outperform his predecessor, former President Koroma.
The popular slogan had been: ‘Bio has been to State House once as a military ruler, and would be the best President if he goes there again as a civilian ruler.’ Without much questioning, the people accepted him.
As Bio’s mandate expires next year, Sierra Leoneans no longer trust the President as one that would offer them the goodies if given another mandate for a second term. Observers in the public and political commentators who have been closely monitoring the President’s actions mince no words that Bio has failed, and identified areas where the President has failed Sierra Leoneans.
They have also argued that there is no need why the people of Sierra Leone should vote in Bio for a second term. Education which is government’s flagship project has not seen much as those who dispense education (the teachers) are not poorly paid and less motivated, a situation that has brought about low morale in the teaching service.
Former Chief Minister and now Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Professor David Francis played significant role in convincing Sierra Leoneans why Bio should be elected in 2018 by giving a rough analysis of the state of education under the APC regime.
These claims are also found in his Governance Transition Team (GTT) report of 2018 where he went into detail how APC failed miserably in the education sector.
In page-34 of the report, Prof Francis made Sierra Leoneans believe that APC government made very little progress in the education sector in spite of the euphoria APC generated initially about their huge investment in education.
“Despite the former President’s boast of increasing investments in education and health, many schools are in dilapidated conditions,” a portion of the GTT report reads in part.
It also further identified low morale of teachers, examination malpractices in schools and frequent strikes by teachers and lecturers as key factors that water down effort I education.
“Gross enrolment at the primary school level is at 30.2%, one of the lowest in the sub-region, and only two of five adult Sierra Leoneans can read and write English, the country’s official language,” the report further noted.
Similar analysis is also captured in the 2018 SLPP Manifesto stating that education in Sierra Leone is far from being a quality one. These claims and analyses are enough to prompt a robust government action to turn situation in favour of Sierra Leoneans.
In what appears a rapid and robust response to the situation, Bio’s administration pronounced Free Quality Education (FQE) Policy in 2018 promising to fix all problems in the education sector.
In the 2018 manifesto, Bio promised to improve teachers’ welfare by paying good salaries and sound motivation. On the side of the pupils, more schools would be constructed to end the two-shift system, supply core text books, no payment of fees among others.
Without any fear of contradiction, government has succeeded only in ending the payment of fees in all public schools, and all other promises remain on paper.
The teachers still wallow in miserable conditions of poverty owing to their monthly take home packages.
With poor salary, the teachers feel disappointed about the whole FQE project, and resort to strikes and demonstrations to invite government’s attention to their plight.
Teachers, for the past week, have embarked on a strike action calling it a go-slow.
They go to schools and sign registers and diaries, but they don’t teach, a big loss to not only the pupils and parents but to the nation.
The impact of strikes appears not being felt today, but will be felt tomorrow spelling doom for the country’s future.
The prevailing situation in the education sector is not too different from that in the health sector which was also captured in Prof Francis’s report.
“Low morale of health workers, frequent strikes and the proliferation of counterfeit drugs have been the result,” Prof Francis report noted in his GTT report.
The report also revealed that the outbreak of Ebola in 2014 exposed an astonishing level of dysfunction in the health sector prior to and during the crisis.
He said it was the result of a combination of neglect and corruption by government officials particularly those in the Ministry of Health and Sanitation.
The neglect and corruption, according to Francis, undermined response effort, a situation that led to the rapid spread of the virus and the death of 3, 995 people including 221 health workers more than the combined total of neighbouring Guinea and Liberia.
The analysis presented by the erudite professor, a dominant personality in the PAOPA government sent a loud and clear message to Sierra Leoneans that the health system would be fixed, and that a road map has already been drawn.
Nothing tangible has been done in four years despite promises made by the President.
The government’s failure to construct the diagnostic and radiotherapy hospital which President Bio said would come into reality out of money recovered from corrupt politicians worsens an already polarised situation.
The hospital is indeed badly needed owing to its strategic importance as, according to the President, people would stop going to Ghana for advanced medical treatment. Although the promise seems very much pleasing to the ears, a big problem lies to its actualisation.
The outbreak of Corona Virus in 31st March, 2020 also exposed government’s weak links in the health sector as their response have been largely haphazard and uncoordinated.
At the peak of the virus, health workers have staged strikes and protests since their hazard allowances are not paid on time and sometimes not paid at all. Bio’s lies about the economy are also very clear according to several opposition parliamentarians.
Despite promises of fixing the economy if voted in, Sierra Leone’s economic status is nothing to write home about after four years of SLPP governance.
Inflation is still double digit as recurrent price indices show over the years. The 2019, 2020 and 2021 price index reports indicate that inflation is still sky-rocketing, and show no sign of receding in coming years.
Infrastructure also almost remains in their current state as Bio has put in place strong policy for innovation. Prof Francis’s report also captures and criticises the past government for what it referred to as a costly and cosmetic roads project.
“The former APC government embarked on a large infrastructural programme with the construction and rehabilitation of several important roads networks. This effort, however, was undermined by the exorbitant costs of the road construction project, due in large part, to rampant corruption. The poor quality of many of the expensively constructed roads and the triumph of tribal political instincts over national interest consideration,” the report further noted.
Prof Francis also made it clear that the cost of APC’s constructed roads was almost certainly corruptly inflated citing the construction of Wilkinson Road in Freetown as a bright example. “Wilkinson Road merely 5.2Km began with Le50.5 billion but was later inexplicably increased to Le80.3 billion (US$18.5M),” he stressed in his report.
The report further noted that it was a grotesquely poor job without proper drainage system leading to massive flooding making the road almost impassable during the rainy season. Notwithstanding the criticism, President Bio has not learned any lesson from these criticisms.
Bio’s failings persist in almost all sectors of the economy including agriculture and the minerals sector.
But the failing in governance and national cohesion remains the most apt and glaring. Since SLPP was installed as the party in power, government’s actions have always had negative implication on peace and national cohesion.
The removal of 10 parliamentarians in a single day, continuous arbitrary arrest and killings, dismissals and other brutal acts are those that seriously undermine peace anywhere they occur.
SLPP’s brutal actions have close nexus with Prof Francis’s findings and recommendations. “Sierra Leone is an ethnically and culturally diverse society, and the result of national elections tends to reflect patterns of ethnically and regionally influenced voting. The key aspiration of any political party leader elected President in such a circumstance must be inclusive governance and national unity.
In that, the APC government failed woefully,” Prof Francis and team asserted. The past government is seen as a group of people that practised the highest form of tribalism ever seen in Sierra Leone.
“Despite its rhetoric about inclusive governance, APC government practised extreme forms of tribalism and regionalism in its recruitment and promotion of personnel at State House in government ministries, diplomatic postings and particularly in state parastatals and agencies,” Francis sums it up, and such is the discord of high levels of political intolerance and instability in Sierra Leone.