By Ralph Sesay
It has always been the case, with African governments, to undertake too many development projects at a time amidst very little resources and heavy dependence on international donors to fund a considerable aspect of their national budgets.
Most, if not, significant portions of such projects end up being abandoned or they do not create the much desired impact on the people. Many of these projects are often designed only to score points against political opponents as their sustainability is also most times questionable.
This brings me to the question of whether President Bio’s New Direction Government is biting more than it can chew in its quest to bring development to Sierra Leoneans.
The Government was popularly elected on an ambitious Free and Quality Education platform, which became difficult to successfully implement. Hence the government secured the people’s mandate. This was largely because the scope of the FAQE, during the election campaigns, was wide.
This explains the reason for people doubting its practicability, especially against its huge economic ramifications in a donor driven country.
The formation of technical inter-ministerial committees, comprising specialists in Education and project programming and development with a view to work out the implementation plan, succeeded in narrowing the plan into phases.
During the launching of the FAQE, on the 20th August,2018, President Bio announced the contents of the first package of the FAQE, which was: free tuition for all pre-primary, primary, secondary schools in government and government assisted schools, free exercise books, free four core textbooks, learning and teaching materials, fifty school buses for schools in major municipal towns and cities, school feeding for schools in vulnerable areas; the list goes on and on.
Out of this scope the President also pronounced a number of other goodies, including free university application forms and free tuition for all candidates offering sciences at the University and other tertiary levels.
Some of the goodies in the initial package, such as the school feeding and the school buses and furniture for selected schools, are still not feasible; either due to late allocation or government is still looking for money somewhere to meet these commitments.
Amidst all of these challenges, the issue of teachers’ welfare is also presenting a looming threat to the scheme. It is the belief of teachers and other stakeholders, in the sector, that these remain very cardinal to the success of the FAQE and hence every attention should be paid to their welfare.
A huge number of teachers are affected as a result of non-approval of their schools after teaching for several years.
Current statistics shows that there are over 15 thousand unapproved teachers across the country, and there are also more unapproved schools than the approved ones.
With the current state of affairs of the New Direction’s flagship project, Government is also pushing through with other projects that have huge economic implications.
Despite the fact that there was a need to complete the roads already started by the previous government, the move to commission new roads, especially in the South and East, is merely a burden to the already depleted economy.
Sierra Leone stands at over 2 billion USD in external debts and over Le 400 billion in domestic debts. It is therefore not economically viable to keep on spending. Rather government should have undertaken more measures that will grow the economy with a view to have a quick turnaround.
The huge budgetary allocation to Education, Health and other sectors was laudable, but consideration should have been given to the agricultural and manufacturing sectors against the backdrop that they have the tendency to quickly impact on the economy and create the much needed forex and jobs.
Government, on the other hand amidst all of this, is also running and funding three Commissions of Enquiry, which are expected to last between three and six months.
Considerable resources are also being put into these Commissions as government estimates that they will have to spend over 6 billion leones.
One would argue that this squarely falls within the mandate of the President to set up COIs, but it was also equally reasonable to have forwarded the numerous Auditor General’s Reports to the Anti Corruption Commission as the basis for the fight against anti graft.
I have closely followed the ongoing hearings at the COIs and all what the state counsels are presenting, as a way of evidence before the COIs, is from subsequent Auditor General’s reports. I have not seen them making reference to the widely publicized Governance Transition Team report, which had a conclusive opinion on past officials.
It is a fact that Government has done a fantastic job with regards improving on local revenue collection and consolidation. But why is this not trickling down to the ordinary Sierra Leonean? It is largely because the government is spending too much amidst the meager resources it is collecting, coupled with the issue of having to offset the local and external debts government have accrued from the previous government.
It is very difficult to see immediate results against all of the above factors.
Dr. Kandeh Kolleh Yumkella of the National Grand Coalition, while making his submission on the 2019 budget in the Well of Parliament, had criticized the government for over spending.
He was of the view that the continuous hiring of more workers, thereby inflating the wage bill, was unnecessary at the moment. The NGC leader advised the government to grow the economy through the prioritization of the agriculture and manufacturing sectors.
He also highlighted over taxation, especially of the private sector, which, he noted, has the tendency to scare away investors.
Was this advice taken in good faith by the Bio Government? This is another kettle of fish all together. The trend has still not changed and Government continues to announce more projects in various sectors leaving out others.
The economy remains the same; things continue to be difficult by the day; and prices at the market are sky rocketing every day. All of this is happening with the economy at time when government has hugely succeeded in attracting huge taxation from business houses that were largely not complying during the past regime.
What is responsible for all of this? Is it that the Government is biting more than it can chew?