Government has been accused of empowering a business whose principal investors are of foreign origins, thereby depriving a local company of much needed business and support to job creation and training for Sierra Leoneans.
As President Julius Maada Bio’s promises to the electorates keep failing one after another; the failures of the Free Quality Education (FQE), the anti-corruption and financial leakages fight, and lately, the promise to promote local content appears to be receiving a serious knockout blow as a result of foreign encroachments influenced from within the President’s very government. Nightwatch Press has been made to know that a local company with full capacity, which was initially awarded a-one year contract in 2021 to produce Driver’s Licenses for the Sierra Leone Roads Safety Authority (SLRSA) and had so satisfactorily and efficaciously performed much to the nodding of both the SLRA Board and Management and had therefore been accorded a carte blanche by the National Public Procurement Authority (NPPA) and certified to proceed with the said contract for another five years to terminate in 2028. It is this demonstration of commitment and satisfactory delivery by a local business that is about to be abruptly terminated.
The license produced by the Sierra Leonean owned company that is the rightful contractor to produce Sierra Leone’s Driver’s Licenses for the SLRSA are of good quality and are currently being issued by the Authority, thereby ascertaining the credence of the said local company’s adherence to conditions as stipulated by the contract.
This medium is informed there is already a looming decision to rudely terminate the already awarded contract of this local business, as a result of the influence of a certain lady, alleged to have closer ties with the President and that the attempted decision so desperately being pushed by the Managing-Director through the Board is also said to be influenced by some “orders from above”.
According to sources close to SLRSA, the local company now being victimized issue, had executed the contract so well and had performed satisfactorily enough that, in the estimation of both the Board and Management of SLRSA and the technical advice from the NPPA, the local company had been given the fiat or carte blanche that approved the continuation of the said contract to produce Driver’s Licenses for the SLRSA for five years, circa 2023 to 2028.
Based on information gathered from individuals close to this procurement and Local Content Policy saga, they informed that since the award of the new contract, the local company had already produced a substantial quantity of the license cards that are currently being issued by the SLRSA management with no cause to complain.
Holders of the driver’s licenses produced by the local company have all praised the quality and design of the driver’s license. Disclosure that the identity card was produced by a local company was a shocker of a revelation as many had thought that it was the work of a foreign owned company, much as how government contracts to produce our national passports and national identity cards have been handed over to foreign owned companies.
However, we at nightwatch are baffled by reports around SLRSA circles that seems to suggest that the said authorized contract is now underhandedly, or rather secretly being undermined by the current SLRSA Executive Director who we are informed has called for the contract to be re-awarded to a certain foreign company we are told is named Africa Arab Investment (AAI) brought in by an individual said to be a related to the President.
But why should a local company that has executed a government contract with such dexterity be now sidelined for a foreign owned company? The answer we have been informed by government employees at SLRSA is for those closest to AAI to be able to receive finder’s fee commission and other financial perks, to continue perpetrating the lie that local companies cannot produce identity cards of international standards, and to deprive the company of proving that the Local Content Policy can and is working.
“The idea here is that we are seeing the bastardization of the procurement process. How can the government that came to power in 2018 promising to promote local content now turn around and backstab a local company that has proven to be capable of executing the contract it so laboriously bided in favour of a foreign owned company whose credentials and capability are not appropriately proven even to those egregiously pushing their agenda?
When foreign companies win such huge government contracts there is the issue of capital flight, which is something we have not been able to get under control. How are we to improve on our human resource capacity, even our human capital development if we allow for all contracts such as for mining, infrastructure, passport, national identity card, running of our ports and the like, be awarded to foreign owned companies?
Meanwhile, our investigation is pointing to a certain individual reportedly close to the President that appears to be the shadow influencer behind the illegal Africa Arab Investment takeover of the contract to produce the country’s driver’s licenses for the SLRSA that have been executed beyond cause for concerns by a local company.
Our investigation has disclosed that AAI intends to make redundant about 60 per cent of the SLRSA staff to be replaced by their own personnel at certain levels. But the eye raising disclosure is the indication that the Government of Sierra Leone will only attract 10 per cent of revenue from the proceeds from the production and sale of the driver’s licenses under a contract with the Egyptian company.
“If our government is ever serious about the Local Content Policy and putting Sierra Leone first, then they have to ensure that local companies are always given preference over foreign businesses in the awarding of contracts. We have to ensure that we have proper knowledge transfer where we absolutely need a foreign company to execute a project our locals could learn from. But for the government to make such a U-turn and order to have a contract with a local company terminated to give a foreign company a boost or edge or advantage, this is outrageous. The government cannot be depriving a local company that has proven to execute the contract without any complaints from SLRSA and NPPA. Why now all of a sudden the contract should to be terminated and re-awarded? The government, SLRSA and NPPA must explain to us why they want to take the contract to produce our driver’s licenses from a local to be handed over to a foreign company, especially when the local company has been doing the job beyond satisfaction?” a Policy Analyst at the Ministry of Finance averred.