In the face of a hand-to-mouth economy, over 50% of the country’s revenue is used in the payment of wages and salaries to workers in Sierra Leone’s Public sector amounting to Le3.9 trillion, a government official anonymously told this press few days ago.
He also stated that about 34% is used to service a debt burden of Le30.71 trillion Leones which SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) has accrued in their short period of political existence.
According to the government official, the remaining 16% is used to run the affairs of the state, a paltry sum for even the tiniest country in the world. The main opposition, All People’s Congress (APC) while in governance had a wage bill of only Le1.9 trillion, an expenditure to which SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) was strongly opposed while in opposition.
A number of government officials have also told this press that the number of those employed in the public and civil service remains high and that most times, the jobs are meant to compensate those who worked very hard to ensure an SLPP victory.
It is true that SLPP has left power for about 11 years making it difficult for them. In recent times, the Public Service Commission has released a number of advertisements that have seen many SLPP sympathisers in government jobs and most times without the requisite qualifications to deliver.
Many Sierra Leoneans have been taken aback about the latest revelations on SLPP’s cavalier attitude to state money. It was a government that gave the people of Sierra Leone the impression that it would judiciously utilise public funds by ensuring a limited number of civil and public servants.
It was against the backdrop of building a small but efficient number of government workers that SLPP government embarked on massive dismissals in almost all public institutions in Sierra Leone.
At State House, the seat of power, over 100 employees lost their jobs in a day. A similar situation is seen at Statistics Sierra Leone, a body in charge of demographics, close to 200 personnel were asked to lay down kits without any reason.
Sierra Leone Maritime Administration also succumbed to similar fate as most of the agency’s hardworking workers were unjustifiably dismissed.
The waves of dismissals were also seen at the National Civil Registration Authority where workers were also given marching orders. Office of Diaspora Affairs (ODA) was also hit hard as workers were not only dismissed but also the office temporally shut down by government hiding behind the cloak of a management and functional review.
Throughout the interlude, no ODA worker was paid a salary, and no old staff was employed when the office was resuscitated at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation save its former director-general, Kallay Musa.
He too has been dismissed when a new Foreign Affairs Minister, Professor David Francis took over from Nabeela Tunis. Almost all public institutions were badly affected by intermittent waves of dismissals by SLPP government including embassies and foreign missions.
Sierra Leone’s ambassadors, consuls and high commissioners serving in different countries were dismissed in a day. None got an ex-gratia, and many stranded in foreign countries thousands of miles away from home. None also expected the calamity that befell them since normal protocols demands that ambassadors and high commissioners are usually re-called when a new administration takes over.
The dismissal was a move that was directly contrary to that of former President Ernest Bai Koroma who maintained officials of the Tejan Kabba government for three months with full salaries, privileges and allowances due any active government worker.
In spite of its callous nature, SLPP’s move was initially acclaimed as one that would save the country’s finances believing that more money would be left in government coffers in the interest of the state. Indeed huge money was saved in few months but not for the country’s benefit, but for Bio and cronies.
Hopes remain high that by such radical actions, fine songs would be heard in the new economy. But, Sierra Leone is today facing one of the worst economic crisis in history owing to subsequent unpopular actions government adopted in the business of state governance. SLPP government reverted to actions they hitherto condemned after they came to power.
They employed more personnel and created more institutions than the previous government leading to a bloated expenditure that they could not take care of lending credence to the old adage that should not chew more than it swallows. It is reported that SLPP government has created 16 new agencies and divided three ministries just to inflate government’s expenditure.
Ministries of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs, Lands and Education are those ministries which have been divided into two albeit less effective and efficient. It is visible from the outset that there is nothing new which Bio’s administration has achieved in the face of many ministries. SLPP was highly critical of such spending saying it had the potential to wreck the economy.
The then opposition party, SLPP made big noise about what they referred to as shrinking economy leading to the APC’s loss of 2018 elections.
Today, SLPP has more than tripled what they were criticising while in opposition between 2007 and 2018. The current government has far surpassed the past government in terms of wage bill, debts accrued and even in corruption.
The wasteful and reckless use of public money is a fatal blow to the SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) government which promised to take good care of state resources and ensure a zero-tolerance strategy on corruption.
APC officials have made no mince of words that Professor David Francis, the lead author of the Governance Transition Team (GTT) report, 2018 is today in a land of great regret as his government never adopted the least of what they preach.
SLPP government resorts to the worst practice than APC government in just four years of leadership. In the GTT report, Prof Francis accused APC of not only reckless government, but an “organised racketeering enterprise.” In the report the erudite professor made a succinct criticism of APC’s bloated expenditures and high debts even though it inherited a debt-free economy in 2007.
“The APC government inherited a solvent nation with no external debts and with tens of millions of dollars in reserves in 2007. When SLPP government left power in 2007, it bequeathed to the incoming government Le524 billion at the Bank of Sierra Leone,” the GTT report reads in part.
The report also went on to state that the Koroma government received within a period of five years over US$1.3 billion in external development assistance adding that the boom in Iron Ore production and other economic activities in 2012 and 2013 increased the value of the country’s export to an unprecedented US$1.6 billion in 2014.
The former Chief Minister held a strong view at that time that the “phenomenal increase in revenue should have been used to create an environment of prosperity and inclusiveness that would have helped manage expectations. He also holds the view that revenue from extractive industries is subject to changes.
The weaknesses pointed out by Prof Francis in APC government never served as lessons for the SLPP as the worst has been done in just four years.