By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
Sierra Leoneans must do away with over two decades of a political system that promotes identity over performance if the country is to make any head way in its development, a new report has suggested.
The report, the result of the latest study by the Freetown-based Think Tank, Institute for Governance Reform (IGR), strongly recommends for the depoliticization of the public sector and urges the country’s political class to focus on performance rather than the ethnic identity of individuals serving it.
The study titled: ‘Building Resilience: Leadership in Transition,’ explored the challenges faced by three successive democratic regimes that presided over the country from 1996 to date and how they dealt with them.
Not only does the study analyses the style of governance under the two major political parties that have dominated Independent Sierra Leone - Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) and All Peoples Congress (APC) - it also assesses how the three leaders, with different style of governance, dealt with these challenges over the course of the period.
APC and SLPP have been the only two parties that have governed Sierra Leone since independence, despite occasional interruptions by short-lived military regimes. These two parties have been built on the foundation of ethnic and regional identities, whereas the SLPP appears to appeal more to south-easterners and the APC to north-westerners.
According to the IGR report, appointment to public offices has been influenced by this geopolitical reality, even at the expense of performance in terms of service of service delivery.
The authors of the report used two of the state institutions often used to perpetuate this divisive political system – the police and the judiciary – to illustrate the problem.
The report was released on the backdrop of political tension occasioned by events in which both the police and judiciary played major roles. APC and SLPP are having an acrimonious relationship in parliament where the former believes it has been unfairly stripped of its majority thanks to a controversial High Court ruling last month.
The court’s decision sparked protests among APC supporters, which was met by a brutal response from the police.
Andrew Lavalie, Executive Director of IGR, said such acrimonious situations are bound to exist as far as these institutions tend to operate in the interest of the political class in power.
“If you look at the background of Police officers who were recently promoted, you will see how they were treated by the last regime; same thing with the judiciary, those who are in the courts making those decisions. They don’t need a call from State House on what to do, they know what to do,” Mr Lavalie said at the launch of the report at IGR’s office along Wilkinson Road in Freetown.
“Until Sierra Leoneans put performance over identity, then all this is a waste of time,” he stressed.
The study looked at the leadership of former presidents Ahmad Tejan Kabba (1996 – 2007), Ernest Bai Korma (2007 – 2018), and current President Julius Maada Bio in just above 12 months in office. It notes that all three leaders were all under considerable pressure by the expectations of democracy.
Lavalie said rather than comparing the challenges each of the three men faced, the study looked at how they reacted to those pressures.
“They all faced different types of pressure,” he said.
“Tejan Kabbah took a centrist position. There is a cost to being centrist. At the end of the day he became unpopular in his party’s base. The South and the East rose which led to the rise of PMDC,” he said.
Friday’s launching of the IGR report was characterized by the screening of a documentary, titled: “Beyond the Noise,” which re-emphasized the level of distraction ethno-regional rhetoric has been to the development of Sierra Leone.
Fredline Mcormock Haile, Research and Policy Director of IGR, said the solution to Sierra Leone’s problem is to create a fair judiciary to start with.
“It’s in everyone’s best interest for us to have a free judiciary. We also encourage politicians to think about job creation as a way of winning elections,” she said.
The report also proffered several recommendations, with emphasis on how politics should be practiced especially in the quest to reform public institutions.
The office of the Chief Minister was singled out as key player to ensure that these reforms are realized.
“The first solution in this report is to get the Chief Minister’s office to raise standards to affect everyone equally in the civil service. We expected his office to develop a performance standard,” said Lavalie.
“What is happening with the judiciary is not new. What is happening with the Police is not new. The problem is not just with the institution. The problem is also with politics.”
© 2019 Politico Online
