The New Direction government of President Julius Maada Bio is increasingly losing sight of the need to open its activities to public scrutiny. The President had campaigned on disciplined leadership and transparency, accountability and efficient management of state resources.
He had also said government was to a large extent able to meet these tenets during the earlier period in governance. He added that the activities of the presidency, such as overseas travels, economic progress of the state and other activities of most MDAs, were going to be made public.
This was very commendable against the backdrop that the previous regime had kept in complete secrecy all its activities to a point that we went into economic recession. The level of transparency and accountability was short lived on the part of the New Direction as we continue to see the government undertaking various activities without reference to the people.
Government continues to take decisions that have dire consequences on our economy and the people are left with no information.
President Bio continues to fly in and out of the country on international trips. There is no information on the composition of delegations and the strategic importance of these visits to the country.
Quite recently, the government has brought in a new electricity generation ship, which government says will provide power supply to the eastern part of the city. As we go to press we are not aware, as a people, under which arrangements the ship was brought in and what it will cost us as a people.
Why is it that the New Direction Government will bring a ship to augment the power situation when in the first place they had issues with the APC providing means of power supply that are not sustainable? This in itself is not economically prudent. With almost a year in office we as a people should have witnessed a realistic plan moving towards a sustainable plan, an issue the present government had raised when they were in the opposition.
Even though the ACC is an independent institution, and is doing very well as far as the fight against corruption is concerned, but it has not been transparent, especially with regards the settlements they enter into with people who are alleged to have stolen state monies.
Sierra Leoneans, for whom the ACC work, have not been able to know what these people have stolen. They have also not known the circumstances used to enter into such agreements. The people are aware that the ACC lacks the legal mandate to even enter into such civil arrangements, which compels them to enter into such agreements due to the state of our courts.
But what is worrisome is that, the Commission has not been transparent to indicate to the people the circumstances surrounding these agreements to ascertain whether they are in the best interest of Sierra Leoneans.
The ACC Commissioner should not be using his sole discretion to arrive at such decisions or, even if he decides to do so, he should have the courtesy to make them public.
Various legal luminaries have continued to question the amendments the ACC Commissioner have presented to Parliament for approval, noting that they would definitely make him a monster, who will be taking away the discretion of our judges and magistrates, especially in the area of handing down penalties for corrupt offences.