Many are appointed but few are outstanding. Cabinet Ministers are appointed solely by the Head of State but the criteria by which they are appointed rests with him alone.
It is his or her prerogative. One such appointee is Mohamed Rahman Swaray who has been carving a niche for himself in the Ministry of Information and Communications as Minister.
The public would not be surprised that he retains his position in any future reshuffle of the Cabinet.
Diligence is his watchword because he knows that everything yields to it.
He must have taken the immortal words of Sierra Leone’s first Prime Minister into consideration that ‘Independence means hard work’’.
Where there is no pain there is no gain.The Germans say without diligence there is no prize.
The position of Minister of Information is a very sensitive one in any government.
A government is elected on the basis of its acceptable activities and these can only be articulated by the Information Ministry.
In the past under the APC and SLPP governments there have been very astute persons appointed to that post and the appointment of Mohamed Swaray has not proved to be a disappointment.
In recent years, we have witnessed the performances of Ministers like I.B. Kargbo, Septimus Kaikai aka ‘sabi talk’ and Alpha Khan also known as an eloquent Minister etc.
It was doubtful whether Mohamed Swaray would be equal to the task but he has exceeded all expectations.
He has brought sanity in operations whereby some GSM operators were favoured against others owing to corrupt practices.
All that is now a thing of the past under the New Direction.
Mohamed Swaray is the only Minister in the Paopa regime to have exposed corruption to the extent that three senior government officials in his own Ministry were tried, found guilty and jailed.
Such malpractices could be going on in other Ministries with the collusion of other Ministers.
This could only be known through audit reports but as far as Mr.Swaray is concerned his name has been cleared as a man whom the lust for money could not buy.
The amendment of the Public Order Act of 1965 criminalizing Libel has been tantalizing over the years with each government including the APC and SLPP paying lip service to it but there is every indication like the Lungi bridge that citizens thought impossible to be done to be amended at last under the pioneering effort of the inimitable Mohamed Rado Swaray.
If thou does well shall thou not be praised? This piece is not about sycophancy.
It is about the political stagecraft of Mohamed Rahman Swaray.
Other underperforming Ministers should take their cue from Mohamed Rahman Swaray if not for the fear of being reshuffled but for the fact that their diligence adds to the Gross National Product of the country.