By Ragan M. Conteh
One of the hardworking Members of Parliament from the opposition, Hon Lahai Marah, has revealed that he has submitted many documents to the Clerk’s office regarding the pending Chieftaincy elections in Fabala District and none has yet been placed on the Order Paper for attention or possible debate.
According to Hon Lahai Marah, one among the documents is a question to the Minister of Local Government on the elections of chieftaincy in Falaba District.
Some chieftaincies have several ruling families, and the difference among them in terms of economic progress has been subjected to study in 2013. They found out that there is a positive relationship between the number of ruling families in a chieftaincy and educational, health and economic outcomes in terms of human capital.
It could be recalled that the districts of Sierra Leone were divided into 149 chiefdoms of chieftaincies until 2017 and that since 2017 they have been divided into 190 chiefdoms.
The vacant chiefdoms across Sierra Leone are being overseen by old and newly appointed Regent Chiefs until elections are held in those chiefdoms.
According to the law, Regent Chiefs all over Sierra Leone should only hold the positions and being part of the electioneering processes, but are disqualified from contesting for chieftaincy according to the Chieftaincy Act.
Originally, many of the chiefdoms were single but have now been de-amalgamated into either two or three. For example, the new Falaba district, Wara Wara Bafodia and Sulima in Falaba.
The Local Government ministry has earlier stated that chieftaincy elections would be held before end of year 2019, so as to give ample time to Paramount Chief MPs that would be representing the various districts in Parliament.
Hon Lahai Marah has recently said in Parliament that he is receiving pressure from his constituents and his people are no longer working together or have peace between them because of the pending elections.