View Point – is International Community Watching?

Concord Times (Freetown)

John Momoh

30 June 2011

column

Freetown — What many Sierra Leoneans sometimes fail to realize is the fact that even the very international community which happens to be dominated by the influence of Western nations – especially the United States, Britain and France among others – has their shortcomings when it comes to being a role model to follow on issues of transparency, good governance and multi-party democracy. This weakness is sometimes capitalized on by corrupt African leaders to prolong their stay in power.

During the inauguration of President Ernest Bai Koroma at the National Stadium, an event which saw a peaceful transfer of power from the deposed SLPP regime of ex-President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah to the democratically elected APC government of President Ernest Bai Koroma, the outgoing President mentioned that he was leaving behind a rich legacy to be inherited by the APC Government. He also spoke of the near completion of the Bo to Masiaka Road and the Bo to Kenema road while a contract had been realized for contractors to begin the construction of the Kenema to Koindu Road.

What is puzzling to many however is that although the ex-President reiterated that about Le72 billion was left in the national coffers, this colossal amount was meant to facilitate the smooth transfer of power and the implementation of on-going development projects. Some economists argue that the huge amount may have been part of the millions of dollars that were pledged by donors in cash and kind for the implementation of the PRSP during the November 2005 London Donors’ Conference on Sierra Leone.

Unfortunately however, the incoming APC regime had always been indifferent to such claims, insisting that President Kabbah was lying to the nation and that they inherited virtually nothing from the past regime. The debate over the financial aspects of the SLPP’s legacy to the present regime has always been raging around the country; prompting some analysts to assume that it would be a major point of contention in the coming 2012 Presidential and Legislative elections in which both the APC and the SLPP are sparing no efforts to win outright.

It was also speculated that in view of the extravagant spending of the amount that the APC inherited from the past regime, SLPP politicians reportedly alerted the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the issue, and a team of World Bank technocrats passed a memorandum to government urging a freeze on spending. Thus in view of the freeze, it appeared that government embarked on looking for fresh sources of revenue generation and one of the vital options that flashed a ray of hope was the focus on the mining industry such as the arrival of the African Minerals Mining Company.

In the eyes of many, it was the SLPP Chairman John O. Benjamin who pioneered the intervention of the Bretton Woods Institution to signal to them not to sit by supinely while such an amount is lavished on for example foreign travels. On the whole the international community is watching these unfolding events and they should be in a better position to explain the truth to the public. Indeed it is only a matter of time for the revelation to be made public as to whether or not the past SLPP government left such a huge amount to serve as a working capital for the incoming APC regime.

Certainly in recent years the partiality of the international community as manifested in the resolution of conflicts in several African countries has been very glaring. What many people have noted is that the international community only speaks the truth if speaking that truth would serve in their interest. This notion is currently being unfolded in the resolution of the conflict in the Ivory Coast and Libya. But in the supreme interest of the development of this country, every patriotic Sierra Leonean would appreciate if the real truth behind what can be termed a legacy inherited by the APC from the past SLPP government, and what can be considered the incoming regime’s real development achievements.

What happened barely one year of APC rule was that the debate over what Kabbah left in the state treasury re-emerged afresh, as certain newspapers were often accusing the government of extravagant and frivolous spending sprees, in which only few of the country’s leading politicians were benefitting. Government must realize that unlike yester-years, the winds of change imposed by good governance is blowing across Africa; to the extent that to remain in the good books of the international community, applying the benchmarks of good governance and the respect for human rights should be the order of the day.

One of the major characteristics of any government that is anxious to win elections in a free, fair and credible manner is such a government striving to gain the confidence of the electorate; so that without hesitation, a political party or an individual politician that has delivered or can deliver would be voted to power on the basis of performance and not by coercion. This is why apart from the building of infrastructures and institutions governments should also be mindful of meeting the basic needs of the people, including scaling down the high cost of living, providing quality education and the means for the less privileged to access schools. Others include meeting the health, sanitation and transport and communications needs of the people.

So far, an assessment of the first three years in office of President Ernest Bai Koroma highlights the need for government to be vigilant in efforts to cut down on the price of rice, petroleum products, transport and communication and the creation of jobs. What many people are saying is that although it is important to embark on infrastructural and human development activities, which are all an essential aspect of development that ought not to be neglected, we must consider that meeting the basic needs of the people in a country where the vast majority live on less than one dollar a day is equally very important. Teachers, for example, should be well paid so that instances of teachers preparing and printing their own text-books as means to supplement their revenue and to make ends meet could be minimized.

What we must all be grateful to the international community for is the strong solidarity that they continue to manifest in developing countries. For instance since the turn of the new millennium, the international community had remained steadfast in their efforts to bridge the gap between the rich and poor countries. The initiation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the United Nations General Assembly in the year 2000 is just one of such development landmarks. The MDGs are a development framework seeking to bridge the standard of living gap between rich and poor countries through eight interventions. Namely: to ensure food security and the development of agriculture in developing countries; to promote universal primary education, gender parity and women empowerment; to reduce deadly diseases such as cancer, tuberculosis, polio etc; to reduce maternal and infant mortality; enhance environmental sustainability; and promote global partnership for international development.

Sierra Leone is reportedly doing well in efforts to achieve the eight MDGs by the target date 2015. One of the programs put in place to reduce maternal and infant mortality had been the introduction of a nationwide free health care delivery scheme for children under five years old, pregnant women and lactating mothers, a vast campaign to encourage universal primary education through the establishment of SABABU education primary schools in all the 149 chiefdoms in the country, while structures have been put in place to mitigate the effects of climatic change and ensure environmental sustainability.

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