By Mabinty M. Kamara
Sierra Leone will have to wait until December this year to know whether it will receive US$600 million as support under the compact programme for its recent successful performance in the Millennium Challenge Cooperation (MCC) scorecard.
Ndeye Fatu Koroma, Chief Executive Office of the MCC Unit, said despite the country’s success, the board of the corporation will have to decide whether it has done enough to win the compact. She said passing the score card just makes the country eligible for consideration in the award of the compact.
“The MCC can choose whether to give Sierra Leone a compact fund or not to give Sierra Leone a compact fund and that decision is made by a board that meets in December. You know that these are grant funds and they are paid with US tax payer’s money, so they need to justify why they need to work with Sierra Leone and if Sierra Leone is a credible partner for the US government to work with,” she said.
She added that the first thing that the board will have to consider is to know what Sierra Leone has implemented with the money given to it under the threshold support programme, if Sierra Leone will continue to pass the scorecard, and what necessary reforms and policies the government is putting in place to ensure that the country is dedicated to promoting democracy, rule of law and the promotion of human capital development.
Out of 77 countries enlisted by the World Bank as low-income countries, which were scored in the MCC, only 25 of them passed the score card for 2020. This means that Sierra Leone will be competing with 24 other countries for the compact fund. These countries include Western African neighbors Gambia, Guinea, Senegal and Togo.
Mrs. Koroma went on to say that even if the board’s decision is positive about Sierra Leone’s selection, they will still not know what’s in the compact envelope for the country. She noted that at this stage, the government of Sierra Leone will have to engage with relevant parties to know the constraints of the country based on evidence supported by data.
The MCC is a US foreign aid agency that provides support to developing countries as reward for meeting key indicators that are geared towards fighting widespread poverty through economic growth. Created in 2004, the MCC Scorecard consists of 20 indicators, grouped under three broad categories: Economic Freedom, Ruling Justly, and Investing in People.
The control of corruption indicator falls under the category of ruling justly. There are three categories of support (grants) for candidate countries – Compact, Threshold Programme, and Concurrent Compact for Regional Investments.
Countries eligible for these supports are graded every year based on these policy indicators used to determine eligibility for an assistance program.
Sierra Leone in 2015 qualified for the threshold programme and won 44.4 Million Dollars. The country is currently implementing that programme through provision of financially viable electricity and water services in Freetown.
The 2020 scorecard marked the first time Sierra Leone passed all three major hurdles: Fighting Corruption, Democratic Freedoms and passing half of the total indicators. In all, the country passed 11 indicators.
The country notably performed well in trade policy, scoring 70%. It is also did remarkably well in girls’ Primary education completion rate, where it scored 68%, health expenditure 68%, rule of law 58%, and freedom of information 85%.
The compact fund will have a transformative impact on Sierra Leone by unlocking private sector investment which is expected to drive a sustainable economic development.
© 2019 Politico Online
