By Joseph Lamin Kamara
The Freetown City Council (FCC) has allocated the sum of Le 735, 000 to all councilors of the Freetown municipality for development projects in their different wards but there are concerns as to how these funds are being utilized. The municipality has 49 wards in total, and Le15, 000000 has been disbursed to each councilor.
According to an anonymous source, the disbursal was done more than a month ago, almost two months now, and the media was not invited, prompting concerns over the motive.
There has been no press statement yet from FCC, and the Chief Administrator of the council declined talking about it when he was approached by Politico.
Politico learnt that the money was from the Consolidated Revenue Fund and it was meant for mini-development projects in each ward. So from Orogoo Bridge/Allen Town in the far east of the capital, where the Freetown municipality begins, to Portor Levuma around Goderich in the far west, where it ends, councilors are expected to at least be implementing projects such as providing sanitation, safe drinking water, repairing or constructing bridges, among others, in their wards.
Councilors in especially Freetown have been complaining about neglect by government in the fight against the Ebola virus. The complaints followed government’s allocation of Le63, 000, 000 to each Member of Parliament (MP) in the country to step up such government efforts as sensitization and social mobilization about the Ebola outbreak at constituency levels. Most constituents complained they saw no work done by their MPs.
Councilors say that they are better placed to the grassroots people.
According to Sylvester Leslie Thomas, Resident Technical Facilitator between FCC and the Decentralization Secretariat at the Ministry of Local Government, some ward accounts have not received the money because projects documents of those councilors “have not yet been completed.”
Mr Thomas refused to talk further about the project.
Many councilors who have received the sum have stated they are providing water facilities in their wards, but the anonymous source fears they are using old water projects they had either started or implemented, which were long supported by the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints, and are referring to them as those executed under the current allocation.
While some councilors say they are implementing projects of the Le15, 000, 000, over 90% out of around 30 people Politico spoke to randomly in Freetown on Tuesday said they did not know their councilors had received any money. Most people complained that they last saw their councilors either just before or after the last general elections.
“I set eyes on my councilor only after the elections in 2012,” said Alusine Fofanah.
Fofanah is 37 years old, in the central business district of Freetown, in Ward 374 which covers Hagan Street, around Eastern Police.
He said his councilor was Abu Yankra and had never spoken to them since his election into office.
In Ward 379, in central Freetown, which covers St John, it was the same story told by people. They said it was only through Politico that they knew money had been given to their councilor for development purposes.
Ward 379 covers Percival Street in central Freetown and part of Siaka Stevens Street down to Krootown Road and up to Adelaide Street to St John. Most streets and households in this community lack water facilities and most people deposit garbage in the Samba Gutter that lies beside houses.
The councilor of the ward, Manteneh Conteh, confirmed she had not informed her ward members about the money, but said she was constructing tap water facilities for them.
“If you tell them about the money right now, everybody will want to eat part of it,” she argued.
Councilor Conteh said she planned to provide three tap water facilities with the money, and she had already done one and was on the second one. After the three facilities, Councilor Conteh said, the Le15, 000, 000 would be finished.
Some of her ward members however said they needed water facility where she said she could not erect such facility because the Guma Valley Water Company had said it could not supply water to those places. And some reported that they needed to do general cleaning of their community during the rainy season, to prevent any outbreak of cholera.
Some councilors are however engaged in implementation of tangible projects with the money and their ward members know what the money is for.
One of such councilors is Percy Nicholson of Ward 392, covering the Lumley community in the west of the capital.
Councilor Nicholson is constructing a bridge between Regent Road and Grassfield, two communities that have been separated by bad road network.
The 2004 Local Government Act introduced decentralization policy in Sierra Leone, and among other things the policy is principled on “creating an environment for participatory democracy that will enable greater involvement of the people and their representatives in planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluation of development projects and local economic development in their localities.”
And one of the objectives of the policy is to “promote transparency and accountability in local governance by making local councils directly accountable for their actions to their citizens and nationally, while adhering to the best practices of open governance.”
Meanwhile, most citizens hardly have an idea of what obtain between their councils and councilors.
© Politico 03/06/15
