By Saio Marrah
The Executive Chairman of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) in Sierra Leone, Dr Charles Joezil Silver, has during an interactive session with the media highlighted the need for governments across the African Continent to address issues of poverty, bad governance and violence.
He told the journalists assembled at the Ministry of Information and Communications in Freetown on Wednesday 20th October 2021 that APRM’s aim is to complement the activities of government in addressing those issues.
He said the state should therefore function as “an organism” to address those challenges and it was high time people started drawing the line between the government and the state.
The APRM boss said this is because governments always come and go but the state stays. In that vein he said loyalty should be given to Sierra Leone and by extension , support and cooperation be directed to those in governance as they only exist to serve the purpose of the state.
He therefore pointed out that Peer Review in a sense is to review the prevailing issues that can be seen in all other African countries such as lack of electricity, bad governance and poverty.
“All the problems we are grappling with in Sierra Leone are also prevalent in other African States and perhaps even beyond Africa,” he said.
The APRM Focal Point is the Minister of Political and Public Affairs, Ambassador Foday Yumkella. He asserted that most of the problems African countries have is as a result of the absence of good governance.
He therefore said that for this reason, no matter how many schools you build, or the number of hospitals or roads you construct, the absence of good governance will have people resort to criminality. He viewed good governance as the bedrock of stable and developing society and where it is lacking, will stifle sustainable development.
Yumkella said APRM is for African countries to monitor governance issues and at the end of the day put in place the necessary structures.
The representative of the APRM National Governing Council Chairperson, Munda Rogers said the council, which comprises various facets of society is to make sure everything that APRM does is within the framework of the national agenda. He therefore said everything they do is geared toward meeting the aspirations of the people of Sierra Leone.
Programme Assistant, APRM, Mohamed Alpha Koroma stated Sierra Leone was among the few countries that first reviewed their health governance and responses to COVID-19, from which other countries are still learning.
He said they did so that they can look into what needs to be done to strengthen the health system for any future outbreak.
Speaking on behalf of the President of Sierra Leone Association of Journalists, Dr. Emmanuel J.M. Stafford, CEO of Diaspora Focus, encouraged APRM to make sure they open their doors to the media for better transparency.
Copyright © Politico Online 22/10/21
