The purpose of setting up a Technical and Scientific Group in connection with the pandemic was for them to find ways and means of eradicating the virus. Several weeks into the pandemic this does not seem to be happening. Rather, there has been a gradual increase in numbers from our status of zero when the virus struck the sub-region to the highest in deaths. This is obviously cause for concern albeit the Group would not admit it. But expertise is what expertise does.
The fact is that the New Direction government has resorted to the age-old practice of calling in so-called experts regardless of the sort of crises whenever they occur. If experience is anything to go by one would have thought that there was already an infrastructure waiting to be made use of in case of a second Ebola scourge as well as officials who served during that period. Incidentally this is the reason why the embattled former Defense Minister, Alfred Palo Conteh, who served as the man in charge of the Situation Room and others like Dr Julius Spenser and Dr Alpha Khan have been reigned-in.
Every member of the Group is an expert in his or her own right and cannot be described as a square peg in a round hole by any manner of means. In their previous professions from which they were recruited they must have been obviously experts in their job descriptions with no equivocation. With all due respect to erudition the Technical and Scientific Group is heterogeneous and can hardly agree on one way forward. They would keep arguing with each one thinking that his or her suggestion is the right one. Even the consensus arrived at may be swayed by the loudest in the Group which may not solve the problem on hand. The chairman of the Group may not have the right answer but they have to suggest something to their employers in the medley of proposals.
In addition to Dr. Spencer and others there is no shortage of intellectuals in this country who are living with the everyday problems on the ground.
In the regular public service structures are set up in such a way that there is no room for equivocation. The minister or head of the department has the final say and responsibility. Not so with an amorphous group prevaricating and falling over one another.
The Technical and Scientific Group has not achieved the purpose for which it was set up. They should do the honourable thing by resigning. Alternatively let them be disbanded. COVID 19 is increasing rather than decreasing. Why?