Two Years in Office: The Achievements of a President

Polit­i­cal ana­lysts in Sierra Leone are still try­ing to eval­u­ate the per­for­mance of the Ernest Koroma led APC gov­ern­ment. The analy­sis are being made from the per­spec­tive of his promises upon which he was elected into office and the extent he has gone to meet some of these promises. Pres­i­dent Koroma promised to make the Anti Cor­rup­tion Com­mis­sion inde­pen­dent, to sep­a­rate the Office of Attorney-General from the Min­istry of Jus­tice, he promised to pro­vide jobs for the unem­ployed, et al promises.

Some of these promises have been met whilst oth­ers are yet to get the atten­tion of the gov­ern­ment. The Office of Attor­ney Gen­eral is yet to be removed from the Jus­tice Min­istry. In actual sense, this may demand con­sti­tu­tional change.

Views vary depend­ing on the per­sons you talk to; a mem­ber of the main oppo­si­tion Sierra Leone People’s Party would tell you, there is not much to write home about as far as the per­for­mance of the gov­ern­ment is con­cerned. But a mem­ber of the rul­ing party would tell you, they have scored con­sid­er­able polit­i­cal marks to the point that they now even qual­ify for re-election come 2012.

Dur­ing a recent radio dis­cus­sion hosted by the United Nations Radio in Sierra Leone, it became appar­ent that politi­cians are always at their best when it comes to defend­ing their poli­cies and objec­tives, even when things appear not to be well with the ordi­nary man. There were two pan­elists, Jacob Jusu Saffa and Vic­tor Bockarie Foe, both Sec­re­taries for the SLPP and APC respec­tively. Even when JJ Saffa would cry down the rul­ing party as not doing much to ame­lio­rate the plight of peo­ple, Vic­tor Bockarie Foh did all he could to con­vince the nation that they have scored, as a party in power over 60 per­cent just in two years.

He attempted to cat­a­logue what they have done in two years; the pro­vi­sion of elec­tric­ity for at least the cap­i­tal city being one major suc­cess. And also the fact that they have made the fight against cor­rup­tion a pri­or­ity since the body charged with the respon­si­bil­ity to fight against cor­rup­tion has been made inde­pen­dent. But for JJ Saffa, there is still more to do as far as the aspect of polit­i­cal tol­er­ance could go. He argued that the cur­rent make up of gov­ern­ment min­istries is com­posed of mostly north­ern­ers, thus the word ‘north­erniza­tion’ of gov­ern­ment offices.

Over the years, attempts have con­tin­u­ously been made to still inves­ti­gate the causes of Sierra Leone’s decade long civil war. And it is believed that cor­rup­tion and bad gov­er­nance were major fac­tors which led to the war. At one point, cor­rup­tion almost became a daily national norm, and this was so dur­ing the APC rule of Siaka Stevens. An so when this gov­ern­ment came to power, it saw the need to inten­sify the fight against cor­rup­tion and to an extent, this helped to build con­fi­dence and trust among peo­ple, both at the local and inter­na­tional lev­els that the Ernest Koroma led gov­ern­ment was and still one that came with sincerity.

Gen­er­ally, many scores have been got by the gov­ern­ment in the area of fight­ing cor­rup­tion. When it came, the gov­ern­ment ensured major cor­rup­tion related cases were pur­sued includ­ing that of one time Ombuds­man who had prob­lems with the courts for mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ing state funds. How­ever, there is still more to do despite the fact that the gov­ern­ment has given the Anti Cor­rup­tion Com­mis­sion the inde­pen­dence to pros­e­cute cor­rup­tion related cases.

There are still alle­ga­tions that polit­i­cal inter­fer­ence has shown its ugly heads in most cases that are often being pur­sued by the ACC; a case in point being the Income Elec­trix saga, when a Min­is­ter was reported to have influ­enced the con­tract, know­ing full well that the con­tract had flaws. The Pres­i­dent has on many occa­sions empha­sized that ‘there will be no sacred cow in my admin­is­tra­tion…’ These are good words but there is also need for him to be sup­ported by all to make this asser­tion realistic.

Also, eval­u­at­ing the per­for­mance of the Ernest Koroma led gov­ern­ment should take into con­sid­er­a­tion his efforts in com­plet­ing the Bum­buna Hydro Elec­tric Project. Prac­ti­cally when he assumed the man­tle of lead­er­ship, the Project was at an over 90% in terms of com­ple­tion. This was even dis­closed by the Pres­i­dent dur­ing the state open­ing of Par­lia­ment in 2007. How­ever, it must be noted that, the Siaka Steven led APC gov­ern­ment was the one that started this project in the early 1970s but was never com­pleted. The Strasser NPRC junta admin­is­tra­tion also made its own vital con­tri­bu­tion too. The Tejan Kab­bah led gov­ern­ment came but was also unable to com­plete it.

But lat­est indi­ca­tions are that the project is near com­ple­tion with test trans­mis­sion cur­rently ongo­ing in the coun­try. It should be noted that when he assumed office, Pres­i­dent Koroma has vis­ited Bum­buna at least on five dif­fer­ent occa­sions, show­ing the level of com­mit­ment he has shown towards the project. A nation’s devel­op­ment could be ensured when there are indus­tries which could help in even pro­vid­ing job oppor­tu­nity for peo­ple. So in a way, Pres­i­dent Koroma has made some suc­cess sto­ries as far as the energy sec­tor is concerned.

Prac­ti­cally the issue of polit­i­cal tol­er­ance has been a debat­able one in the coun­try in recent times. To be tol­er­ant, accord­ing to the chair­man for the PDMC Mohamed Ban­gura ‘should go beyond one party merely attend­ing the func­tion of another party…’ but should take into con­sid­er­a­tion the need to con­sult even oppo­si­tion mem­bers when it comes to tak­ing crit­i­cal deci­sions. Ban­gura thinks the gov­ern­ment should do more in ensur­ing polit­i­cally tol­er­ant envi­ron­ment. But this is not the view of Infor­ma­tion Min­is­ter, Ibrahim Ben Kargbo. For him, there has always been an enabling envi­ron­ment for the oper­a­tion of all polit­i­cal parties.

The main oppo­si­tion SLPP has also accused the rul­ing APC as a gov­ern­ment that has ‘north­ernized’ all state insti­tu­tions. This is another crit­i­cal area that Pres­i­dent Koroma should not down­play. Granted that a party works with the team it thinks can per­form, there is also the need to ensure the inclu­sion of all and sundry, pend­ing, they can per­form. I recently had an inter­view with Moi­jueh Kai Kai, deputy Min­is­ter of Labour. He thinks, it is the pre­rog­a­tive of the Pres­i­dent and indeed, as stated by the 1991 Con­sti­tu­tion, to appoint peo­ple into posi­tions of trust. For Kai Kai, the Pres­i­dent should appoint the best team to run the coun­try ‘and if it hap­pens for the best team to come from one area, then so be it…’

Inter­est­ingly, Deputy Min­is­ter Kai Kai was a strong mem­ber of the now oppo­si­tion SLPP prior to the 2007 elec­tions. He comes from Puje­hun. But he had to resign from the SLPP to join the PMDC of Charles Mar­gai and also later left the Peo­ples Move­ment for Demo­c­ra­tic Change for the All Peo­ples Con­gress party where he is now enjoy­ing a deputy min­is­te­r­ial posi­tion. But from a holis­tic per­spec­tive, elect­ing the ‘best team’ should take into account all fac­tors, like the region, tribes and oth­ers. And this is where I think the gov­ern­ment should also pay atten­tion. The SLPP, like all other par­ties, is rel­e­vant to the sus­te­nance of Sierra Leone’s devel­op­ment be it polit­i­cal, social and eco­nom­i­cally. And as such, they should be part of the country’s devel­op­ment agenda. Until that is done, I think Ernest Koroma has made great suc­cesses within his two years in office. But he still has some chal­lenges to face.

© 2009, John Baimba Sesay. All rights reserved. Discuss this article on the Salone Forum Salone Forum

By John Baimba Sesay