By Mabinty M.Kamara
After 12 years of trying, Sierra Leone has finally had victory in its effort to pass the US-government funded development scheme - Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and benefit with the huge cash that comes with it.
The latest scorecard of the development assistance agency published on Friday showed that the country passed all three major hurdles – scoring half the average, hitting the corruption benchmark and democratic rights. And for this, it has become eligible for a US government grant of between $ 400 million and $ 600 million depending on certain variables.
Minister of Information, Mohamed Rahman Swaray told Politico that the money had already been ring-fenced. “It will go into the energy and water resources sectors”, he told Politico.
Making the announcement during the launch of the National Innovation and Digitalization Strategy on Friday, President Julius Maada Bio told government dignitaries, development partners and stakeholders in the science, technology and innovation sector that the development was a testimony to his government’s progress in the fight against graft.
In the fight against corruption we were 71% [2019 scorecard] and today we are 79%, so we have done a great job. I want to encourage you all to continue the good work. We have started a good fight and we must fight the good fight and it is a fight that we must win," he said.
Maria Brewer, United States Ambassador to Sierra Leone, personally presented the scorecard to President Bio at State House. In a post on the Facebook account of the US Embassy in Freetown, Ambassador Brewer congratulated the Sierra Leone Government for the feat.
“In many significant areas, including Girls Primary Education Completion Rates and Control of Corruption indicators, Sierra Leone made significant progress. We will continue to work closely and cooperatively with the Government of Sierra Leone on our continued successful partnership, which includes the current US$44 million MCC Threshold Program,” she said.
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 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 scored every year based on these policy indicators used to determine eligibility for an assistance program.
In all, Sierra Leone passed 11 out of 20 total indicators in the 2020 scorecard. It notably performed well in trade policy, scoring 70 percent. It also did remarkably well in girls’ primary education completion rate at 68%, health expenditure 68%, rule of law 58%, and freedom of information 85%.
Sierra Leone particularly performed poorly in the area of the economy, notably for failing to control inflation and access to credit, as well as child health. It scored 38% for Natural Resource protection, 24% for Land Rights and Access, 21% for child health, 19% for access to credit, 16.9 percent for controlling inflation, and 4 percent for fiscal policy, the lowest score for the year.
The biggest news of the day was the gains made in the fight against corruption, which has been a notable obstacle to Sierra Leone’s efforts to achieving a compact status.
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), which has been credited for this accolade, was sure to highlight this.
In a statement, the Commission said this was just one of many indicators that pointed to the progress Sierra Leone was making in the fight against graft, a demonstration of its continued commitment to the cause.
© 2019 Politico Online
