By Allieu Sahid Tunkara
Unprecedented salary inflation has been discovered at the Sierra Leone Electricity and Water Regulatory Commission (SLEWRC).
The net salary of the current SLEWRC Director-General, Emmanuel Mannah, stands at Le43,832,500 per month, which is equivalent to US$4,300 compared to the monthly take home salary of the former Director General, Tamba Kellie, standing at 16, 124,400, which is equal to US$1,600.
The salary disparity between the current and former Directors-General occurred barely a year ago. The inflation, according to some members of the public, is unreasonable and unjustifiable.
The Commission is set up by SLEWRC Act, 2011 to regulate the provision of electricity and water services in Sierra Leone.
A document laid hands on by Nightwatch indicates fabulous salaries and allowances paid to SLEWRC staff at different scales since May, last year.
The Commission comprises 17 staff with Emmanuel Mannah as the current SLEWRC Director General. They take home high salaries monthly at the expense of state coffers.
The head of the Commission, Mannah, is placed at Grade 12 with a gross salary of Le64,135,000, which is equivalent to US$6,400.
According to the document, Mohamed B.D. Sesay, one of SLEWRC staff, earns Le20, 850,000, which is equal to US$2,000 a month, with a gross salary of Le23,900,000, which is equal to US$2,300.
Other staff of the Commission, Sallieu Mohamed Barrie, Kelcise Vidal Sesay, Mohamed Kargbo and Brima Bah, Saidu Bockarie, Tani Pratt and Ngayenga Sahr James, each earns over Le11,000,000 (eleven million Leones) with gross salaries of over Le16,000,000 (sixteen million Leones)
The remaining seven staff of the Commission earn salaries ranging from Le3,000,000 (three million Leones to Le 10,000,000 to ten million Leones) with gross salaries hovering around Le5, 000,000 (five million Leones) and Le 12,000,000 (twelve million Leones).
Only two staff of the commission, Ibrahim Sesay and Imran Ibrahim Sesay, receive over Le1, 000,000 (one million Leones) with gross salaries of also over Le1, 000,000.
Moreover, the combined value of the monthly net salaries paid to the staff of the Commission amounts to Le 187,121,160, which is an equivalent of US$18,700 per month.
The posts occupied by the personnel who enjoy the inflated salaries are not identified by the document.
Evidence of inflated salaries at the Commission is made clear by a pay slip dated 28th August, 2018, which Nightwatch got hold of.
The yardstick employed by government to inflate salaries of SLEWRC staff remains unclear to date. The problem of water and electricity shortages in Freetown and its environs as well as in the provinces remains acute.
It raises the question about the competence of the regulators in the face of huge salaries they receive.
Most Sierra Leoneans have argued strongly that the salaries paid to the staff of the Commission do not match their role in national development.
One of the critics of the huge emolument is Ibrahim Bangura, a teacher at the Huntingdon Secondary School at Calaba Town, east of Freetown.
Bangura holds a Higher Teacher’s Certificate, a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics and a Master’s degree in administration, and has taught for over 20 years.
By virtue of Bangura’s academic credentials and experience, he is supposed to earn comfortable salary monthly. But he takes home slightly above Le1, 000,000, and seems unhappy about that.
“If a Grade-7 worker at some commissions, parastatals and other government agencies take home over Le4,000,000 a month while I take home just above Le1,000,000, imagine the miserable life I would live,” Bangura complained.
Another government worker, a police officer, Inspector Edward, share Bangura’s view. He tells Nightwatch that he takes home a monthly “pittance” as compared to other government workers in Sierra Leone.
“As a graduate in the police force, I receive below Le 1,000,000 while other graduate government workers receive far above what I receive monthly,” Inspector Edward complained.
Currently, Inspector Edward stands at the SLP exit door as he has almost gained a job as logistics officer in one of the country’s local non-governmental organisations.
Also, personnel of least paid government agencies, including the health sector, the army, the police and the teaching service, among others, have made their voices heard in respect of the low salaries they receive monthly compared to those of other public sector workers.
Owing to the low, disproportionate salaries, strikes, resignations and other forms of industrial actions are not infrequent in Sierra Leone.
Few months back, various health professionals, including doctors and nurses, went on a sit-down strike action in protest of low salaries. They compared salaries they receive monthly to other public sector workers.
Almost, invariably, lecturers of the University of Sierra Leone and Njala University, the two oldest universities in Sierra Leone, were on strike actions over a month ago for better salaries and conditions of service.
The industrial actions embarked on by the under-paid government workers are a way of expressing their disappointment with government.
The strike actions, most times, are ephemeral owing to government response to them by way of slight increase in salary or promises of salary increment.
Teachers, who account for over 40% of the government workforce, have over the years achieved notoriety for transient industrial actions. Slight increases have been made in teachers’ salaries but still remain poor in the face of a spiraling inflation.
Now, teachers await a 30% increase in salary this month under the finance Act of 2020 presented to Parliament by the Minister of Finance, Jacob Jusu Saffa, in the form of budget speech.
The awaited salary increment hovers around Le200,000 and Le300, 000 for graduate teachers and those at Grade7 who receive slightly above Le1,000,000 per month.
Those teachers who receive less than a Le1, 000,000 get less than Le 200,000.
While other teachers are quite hopeful of the much-talked about April increment, others remain insistently critical of the increment owing to its small impact.
However, teachers’ unyielding hope for the increment has been dashed in the face of COVID-19 threat.
Recent publication titled: ‘Pay Roll Corruption in Sierra Leone: The Ministry of Finance’s Scandalous Wage Bill’ of the Africanist Press, a US-based media institution, also indicated huge salary disparities.
Officials of the Ministry of Finance and other public sector institutions were brought under the spotlight. The publications put the salaries of some government officials as follows: Sahr Jusu, Financial Secretary, MoF-Le 86,000,000, (Eighty-six million Leones), National Telecommunications Commission Director-General, Le 85,000,000 (Eighty-five Million Leones), Director of Public Prosecutions-Le59,000,000 (Fifty-nine million Leones and the State House Cook-21,000,000 (Twenty-one million Leones).
The Africanist Press publications, almost two months back, coincided with news reports indicative of an already existing financial crisis facing the government.
The news report followed revelations of the government’s inability to pay monthly salaries to many public sector workers for January, this year.
The issue of salary disparities in the country’s public service has been thorny. It has caused mass exodus of personnel from one agency to another in search of lucrative salaries, commonly referred to as “greener pasture.”
No doubt, according to most Sierra Leoneans, salary disparities have lowered morale in the country’s civil service, one of the many problems President Julius Maada Bio and his predecessors have been grappling with.
Low salary has been repeatedly cited as the main cause of petty corruption in Sierra Leone although authorities are always ready to refute such claim.
In response to salary disparities, government recently hired a consultant to work towards harmonising salaries of government officials.
The consultant works in the Public Sector Reform Unit, Office of the President. Signs of completing the job remain unclear.
On assuming office, the Bio administration launched multiple audits into the past activities of the President Koroma administration. The audits were designed to examine issues of political and financial corruption, nepotism and the large-scale economic graft in ten years the All People’s Congress was in power.
According to Africanist press, a press release from Ministry of Finance issued on February, 13, 2020 blames the recent salary payment delay on the huge domestic and external debt inherited from the previous government of Ernest Bai Koroma.
Conversely, the Bio government, according to the report, has led the highest wage bill ever recorded in Sierra Leone’s history.
Inflated Salaries At SLEWRC
