In this edition of the Interview, Mohamed Jaward Nyallay talks to the recently appointed head of the National Electoral Commission, Mohamed Kenewui Konneh.
Konneh was appointed by President Julius Maada Bio last July, taking over from Mohamed N’fa Alie Conteh, who served one term. Konneh went through a fiercely contested confirmation hearing which saw his nomination approved through voting by Members of Parliament, with 78 voting in favor, against 51 opposition votes on July 29th.
Through this half hour discussion, Konneh speaks about his vision for the Commission, plans about outstanding bye-elections and the implementation of outstanding election recommendations, amongst many other issues.
Politico: For those who don’t know much about you, tell us a bit about your professional career?
Konneh: I graduated from the University of Sierra Leone with BSc in Economics and Honors in Accounting in 1996. I started work as an Accountant and Admin in a fishing company called Coastal Fishing Company. In 2000, August to be precise, I was recruited by the Anti-Corruption Commission as an Investigation Officer, and I rose from Officer to Senior Professional Standard as Head of Asset Declaration Unit of the Anti-Corruption Commission. In 2009, I was recruited by the Africa Development Bank as an Investigation Officer. So I left the ACC and I went to the Africa Development Bank in the Integrity and Anti-Corruption Department of the bank. This department is responsible to ensure integrity and prevent fraud and corruption in Africa Development Bank funded projects across Africa. I worked there for about ten years.
I came back to Sierra Leone upon the request of His Excellency, Julius Maada Bio, after his visit to Abidjan, where I was based and working. He requested that Sierra Leoneans who were working as professionals in the Africa Development Bank should come back and contribute to the development of the country under his New Direction Agenda.
In 2019, I came for vacation, not knowing that I have been identified to head the Financial Intelligence Unit. While I was here, I paid a visit to one of my former colleagues at the time; she had already started working with the government. She told me about this idea of me being the head of the FIU. So I went back after vacation. I requested for leave of absence from the Africa Development Bank so that I will come and serve my country.
Politico: So you come into this job with this blend of professional experiences; from accounting to investigation. How will these experiences shape the way you approach your new job as Chief Electoral Commissioner?
Konneh: As the Chief Electoral Commissioner, when I was appointed I framed the idea; I know people talk about ‘his background is not related to electioneering processes or electioneering experience’. But then everything about election, the major expected outcome, is the acceptance of the result. And people will only accept the result if the process is credible and has integrity. So therefore I link my administrative focus to what I will call Linking Integrity with Electoral Process for Credibility and Legitimacy. So this encompasses what is expected of NEC as body established to conduct free and fair election. For people to accept the process, it has to be credible, with feature of integrity, and that is what over the 20 years or so I have been working on, Integrity in Good Governance to prevent fraud and corruption.
Politico: During your swearing-in ceremony at State House, last month, you said: “I am fully aware of the weight of the responsibilities and expectations that I am entrusted with, as Chairman of NEC.”
You mentioned the phrase “weight of responsibility.” Tell us a bit about how much of that weight you are already feeling since you have taken over?
Konneh: Electing the President and other Legislative organs or leadership of every country is a key component to maintaining peace and order. I know that for sure and as a result a little mistake by the head of this institution will lead to unexpected result. So that is why I said the ‘weight’. I was aware of that and I am still aware of the weight. One of the common phrase people made when I was giving this responsibility is “da seat e hot (That seat is hot)”. And that is true, but you can only feel it if you try to absorb the responsibility all by yourself. And looking at some of the procedures and processes, conducting election is not just the sole responsibility of NEC, or maintaining good governance and peaceful co-existence in Sierra Leone is not just the responsibility of NEC. It is a shared responsibility among the citizens and all other government institutions. So my idea is to extract out those responsibilities that are unique to NEC which includes voter registration, which relates to conducting elections, counting vote and declaration of result. These are the core mandates which is the responsibility of NEC and that is what we are going to be accountable for. But that notwithstanding, for the results to be accepted, for the result to be transparent and have the expected integrity, you need other players to be part of the process; like the security, the judiciary. All of these institutions need to be aware of their responsibilities and be accountable for the outcome of a successful election. So I am aware [that] the weight is heavy and therefore I want to share this weight or whatever heat of this seat with other responsible organizations that contribute in the process of conducting elections.
Politico: Your selection as the Chief Electoral Commissioner hasn’t come without controversy; some parties have expressed dissent and the main opposition All Peoples Congress has even vowed to challenge the legality of your appointment in the courts. Does this in anyway affect how you relate with them as a political party?
Konneh: No, that has not changed and that will not change my decision or approach to them or any other political party, including those that supported my appointment. As a matter of fact the first thing I did was to call the leadership of all political parties that are registered. I called them personally, those that we can get access to their phone numbers, I called some of them but it could not go through. In addition to that, I have requested for a meeting at their party offices. This is a novelty in the process, because you can only get acceptance when you move out and understand what the feelings of other people are. Political parties are the secondary beneficiaries of whatever services NEC is delivering; the primary beneficiaries are citizens, ourselves, Sierra Leoneans.
So my approach is based on Open Door Policy. I have requested a for meeting. I have met with three of the registered political parties. I am still waiting to receive acceptance from other parties, so that we can go there, sit down in their own comfort zones, talk about their issues and see those that are related with our activities and see how we can address them.
Politico: What has been the response of the parties you have met with? And which parties have accepted or are yet to accept meeting with you?
Konneh: Those I spoke to, it was very favorable and those we’ve met with we had a cordial, friendly environment of discussions and they brought out some of their concerns which, for example, has to do with the hundred and eleven recommendations that were made after the 2018 elections. Before I came in NEC had already started looking into some of them.
Politico: We will comeback shortly to those recommendations. Now during your nomination interview in Parliament, you spoke about a reform agenda, which includes addressing the human resource capacity, finance and the general operations of NEC. Can you tell us some specifics about the reforms you were referring to?
Konneh: The perception from people about NEC activities is always limited to electioneering period and after election it appears as if NEC does not exist. So one of the approaches for me is to bring about a continual process of electioneering activities wherein we don’t need to wait until we get to election before NEC becomes active. So as a result, I am trying to motivate the staff members of this organization and I am trying to improve on the IT infrastructure here; it is one of the things that we need to improve drastically. And I think coming through the office you saw some watermarks on some areas of the wall, the building itself needs some amount of rehab, so that it can portray the image of the organization, not only to us but to outside partners. There is also a need for even the condition of service for staff of this institution to be looked in to. All of these are conversations that we are having internally and with external partners to see how we can increase the motivation of staff.
In terms of organizational responsibilities, we are going to look at the possibility of decentralizing some of these activities so that we can operate a kind of circular dependent organogram where one activity is related to another activity, like a production chain, when you do the primary production it goes to the secondary production. So these are the type of ideas I want to bring onboard. I am pushing for the staff to be well motivated, so [that] at the end of the day we can have a peaceful and credible election.
Politico: Now to election issues proper. Voting right for Sierra Leoneans in the diaspora was a very thorny issue during the 2018 elections; you even said in your nomination interview that you had to pay some hefty money to return home and vote. Is this something that you are looking to change before the general election in 2023?
Konneh: The law, Public Elections Act 2012, provides for registration for Sierra Leoneans out of Sierra Leone. It says “NEC may consider”. And when it says “May”, that means there has to be the logistic to do that. There has to be the resources to embark on that, and it also has to be credible. So for the moment, these are things that we are looking into, all the dynamics involved, to see if it is something that we have to embark on. We can look at various options. If we want to do it we can consider the possibility of doing it incrementally, we can say let’s look around at our neighboring countries, if the resources are available. But at this point in time, I cannot make a categorical statement if it is something that we have to do or we will do, it depends on the circumstances. But it is all part of our strategic plan of issues that we will be looking at.
Politico: Earlier on you spoke about recommendations that NEC was already implementing even before you came in. But there are backlog of recommendations from 2012, right up to 2018, that are yet to be considered, especially from the EU Observer Mission. For example, allowing prisoners on remand to vote or allowing independent candidates to register for the presidential election. Are these things that you will push for to be implemented before the next election?
Konneh: That brings me back to my earlier discussion that the conduct of free, transparent, free and fair elections is not just the function of NEC but there are so many other players that are involved. So if we want to take onboard things that are not within the existing law or regulations, then it means we have to review those parts of the law so we can make provision for these recommendations to be implemented. There comes in the responsibility of the judiciary and the legal department.
What NEC has done is to put these recommendations into various categories and identify key responsible institutions that are going to implement these recommendations. So we are working on the process of bringing these stakeholders together so that we can share with them whatever responsibility that has been categorized and issue it out to them. Once we do that, we can think about having a taskforce that will monitor the implementation of these recommendations.
Politico: Now, still with the recommendations, what are some of the most urgent recommendations that you think NEC should act on now to ensure that we have a credible election?
Konneh: Some of the recommendations have to deal with those relating to review of the laws, which have to be looked in to. The other part, which is a priority for me, is enhancing the capacity of NEC itself; infrastructural and human resources. Already we have developed our strategic plan for the next electoral cycle, 2020-2024, which includes most of these recommendations.
The other priority is the funding, which is a key recommendation: that government has to own up to funding the elections and therefore the government is currently working based on discussions with the Ministry of Finance. They are putting together cabinet paper for the establishment of Electoral Trust Fund, which will be there so at the end of every year government could set aside certain percentage of the national budget into that trust fund, so when we get to election at least there could be some resources.
Politico: This brings me to the issue of the voter register. The NCRA is currently gathering data on citizens, and we know NEC have said they are working with NCRA on this. We know some of this data will be used by NEC to update the voter register. But, it has been two years now, how far has that process gone?
Konneh: Before I assumed office, I think it was in 2017 or before that, NEC and NCRA had signed an MoU for collaboration; exchange of personnel, materials and logistics. That MoU is still in existence. It has just been reviewed and resigned before I came in. The relationship here is NEC has the sole mandate to do voter registration, whiles the civil registration (NCRA) has the mandate to register citizens or people resident in Sierra Leone. But that is not what is going to be used in its entirety, because you can register today and you are not at the voting age. And therefore we use our mandate to register people who are supposed to vote, which by the way is not mandatory, compared to the NCRA registration.
So for us to use the data of NCRA, one, it has to be credible. And we are working with them in certain aspects to ensure that whatever they are putting in is what we would use eventually. Part of it will be used when we are doing registration. We cannot use it wholly, but then it’s a basis for what we will use for people to come and verify; because you cannot just take names and say this is the voter register, these are the people who are going to vote. So the registration between NEC and NCRA is about cooperation.
Politico: So does this mean that by next election we will not go to polling centers to register but to verify?
Konneh: No, you will still go there to register because we will have to issue out voter registration cards. Even if we have the data you will have to avail yourself for us to make sure. So we cannot just take the list from NCRA and we put it there and say these are the voters. You will have to go there and present yourself. So we will register you based on the criteria for you to be recognized as a voter.
Politico: For people living in Constituency 110, they will be hoping that finally a new election boss is here and finally they will get an MP. How soon will their bye-election be conducted, considering they have gone more than a year without a Member of Parliament?
Konneh: Constituency 110, I am sure if COVID was not around, probably before I came that election would have been conducted. That is not only limited to constituency 110. We have other constituencies. We have the Paramount Chief elections, about 55 paramount chief elections which NEC has to conduct. All of these elections have been put on hold because of the emergence of COVID. But now that the country is opening up, schools are reopening and some activities are going on, we are talking to stakeholders, including security personnel, to see how we can put in place a conducive process that will ensure we abide by what is the requirement for COVID-19 prevention processes, for us to do the elections. How soon? It depends on when we conclude all of these discussions; then we can come up with a date for these elections.
Politico: So there are no timelines set for these elections?
Konneh: We have not set any timeline for that election. At the moment the timeline we have is to have discussions with all of the stakeholders involved, so that we can all agree that we can go ahead and conduct the election and put in place the relevant protocols and preventive measures, including the security and bringing onboard the stakeholders in those communities.
Politico: In your transition so far, from FIU to here (NEC), I know you have been holding a lot of meeting with the staff here, but have you called up the former Chief Electoral Commissioner to consult or get some advice just to understand the job properly?
Konneh: Oh yes, we have spoken on several occasions. He called and congratulated me and then subsequently I have been in touch with him. Not only him, but other commissioners who have recently left the organization. As a matter of fact, last week Friday, when Commissioner Mattia came to say farewell to us, we organized something that befits and recognized his contribution to this institution.
Politico: Now, finally, at the end of your tenure, whether you serve one term or two, what do you want Sierra Leoneans to remember you for, apart from the late night anticipation when you might be calling results?
Konneh: As the commissioner that conducted one of the peaceful, non-violent elections. And we are going to do this through the participation and involvement of all stakeholders. That is why my first approach is to go out to stakeholders, like the Inter Religious Council. I want to see an election in which people will be confident in the process and at the end of the day accept the result. When that happens, then I will be remembered that Mohamed Konneh said it and he did it.
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