Like all other governments have done, the New Direction Government has recently launched the Medium Term National Development Plan (PRSP 4). The occasion was full of pomp and pageantry and the President and his team were quite optimistic that the document, with its numerous clusters, will undoubtedly solve the plethora of problems the country continues to face – from lack of water to electricity, bad roads, a deplorable health infrastructure, youth unemployment, high spate of rape and domestic violence, etc.
I have continued to listen to the Coordinator at the office responsible for facilitating the Plan on radio, together with the Deputy Minister of Development and Economic Planning, lavishing praises on the model around which the document was developed.
Government and the Ministry of Economic and Development planning have stated that this document is a product of consultations among and between over two million Sierra Leoneans, which, according to them, was lacking in all other documents (PRSP 1-3).
Government has also stated that the development of the plan is informed by key lessons, such as prioritization of needs, strengthening of sector coordination, wider consultations and also the inclusion of socio-economic indicators, amongst others. These areas were largely missing in the other development documents, according to the NEW Direction Government. Hence it provided huge challenges for their smooth implementation.
The Deputy Development Minister has even interestingly noted that it is just too difficult for the Medium Term Development Document to fail because of all of these considerations in the preparation of the document.
Another novelty that Government has also boasted of having included in the Medium Term Development plan is the eight clusters contained in the plan, which specifically deal with how the plan will be implemented. This has included comprehensive indicator results framework and matrix as well as a precise cost of US$7.70 billion for a period of five (5) years. This cost has been distributed across the eight policy clusters, using the 2019 -2023 budget projections.
Another new phenomenon to the plan is the identification of mitigation risk to the implementation of the Plan, with a number of issues, such as susceptibility of the economy to shocks and slump to the global iron ore prices, etc.
Whilst launching the plan, President Bio told development partners and the private sector that their development assistance to Sierra Leone should be aligned to the 2019-2023 Medium Term Development Framework and assured them that his government will be transparent and highly accountable in the management of resources and the fight against corruption.
But whether this ambiguous plan will succeed in little over four (4) years remains a concern for many Sierra Leoneans. The flagship project of the Plan, Education for Development, is on a life support at the moment, with the most critical sector of the program, teachers, merely managing to teach against the backdrop that their conditions of service are deplorable. Government has spent over 400 billion leones already in the payment of tuition fees, supply of textbooks, exercise books, learning and teaching material, university forms and school buses, etc.
The Education flagship project is undoubtedly struggling with overwhelming problems of funding. There are still hundreds of unapproved teachers and schools across the country. They could be added to the 35,000 teachers who are still in contention with their conditions of service.
These problems are not only peculiar to the Basic and Senior Secondary Education. The Tertiary and Technical level also has its own problems, which are equally confronting Government and development partners. President Bio and his government were quite aware that Education is a costly investment, and they have rightly called on development partners to help.
Others clusters in the plan, which are also quite capital intensive, are the diversification of the economy, infrastructure and economic competitiveness, empowering women and children competitiveness, governance and accountability, youth employment and migration, addressing vulnerabilities and building resilience, amongst others.
In launching the plan, Government also disclosed the funding gap of USD 3.57 billion in financing the plan. This, according to Government, excludes non-salary, on interest fiscal estimates of USD1.83 billion and domestic and foreign development project finance estimates of USD2.30 billion.
From the inception of the plan, it is just too clear that the problems challenging its smooth execution are glaring and all these attendant problems, coupled up with the exigencies of time, will make it more difficult for the plan to holistically achieve all its intended objectives.
The plan is almost one year down the implementation calendar. The New Direction, like all other governments, have bitten too much than it can chew and, like all the other development plans that have characterized the country’s development trajectory, the PRSP 4 will achieve very little in terms of changing the narrative.