Sierra Leone public service was established by our colonial masters around the core values of professionalism, critical interest in the advancement of state objectives.Civil servants are expected by the citizenry to be highly qualified to be able to manage a highly effective and efficient public service that would deliver the much required services for the advancement of the state .
But regrettably these values have been seriously eroded by a number of factors such as significantly diminishing conditions of employment of civil servants and politicization of every facet of the civil service. In Every change of government civil servants openly take sides and undermine parties in power that they purportedly do not belong to with a view to selfishly guard their interest.
It is very difficult now to draw a clear distinction between the administrative class (civil servants ) and the Political class (politicians ) as it is supposed to be when you visit Ministries ,Local Councils and other Public service entities.Civil servants who are now mere politicians are now at each others throat when Power changes hands.
It is very obvious now that this state of affairs has led to the leaking of very highly confidential and vital documents and memos from the ruling party to the opposition thereby defeating a very key value of the Civil service Confidentiality. This is largely because some civil servants instead of serving as civil servants performing their constitutional role they are now serving as moles.
This explains why new governments always fall victims of such civil servants and would want to bring ones on their side that they can trust to work with.
Former President Koroma in his handing over notes had regrettably stated that ‘’…I resisted tremendous pressure for me to remove from key positions in the Civil and Public service, certain citizens perceived to be supporters of your –now ruling SLPP party .Even at the Office of the President ,perceived sympathizers of the SLPP ,which was then in opposition, were allowed to be a part of the governance team …’’ .This goes a long way to explain how far we have gone as a country to reduce the civil service that had once prided itself as the best in British West Africa.
All these virtues of high quality education, a functionally efficient judiciary and an economy that supported national growth and development have all eroded due to over politicization of the service.
It is against this backdrop that President Bio should watch his back and even those civil servants working with him at State House. Just as the former President Koroma had told him out of experience that he had SLPP supporters/sympathizers at State house so he too would be having very staunch APC supporters/sympathizers at State House that would probably be bent on undermining his government rather than focusing on national development.
Even though this is not what we would want for our country but it is also sad to state that this is the reality of things and every leader who wants to succeed should be mindful and take such pieces of advice in good faith .If the APC would come back so easily in power they have learnt a lot and would be very careful with certain civil servants who had access and were privy to certain vital information that exposed the way they had handled the affairs of the state.