By Nasratu Kargbo
The 2023 Citizens’ manifesto is demanding that the next administration should ensure not more than 30% of government appointees should be from one region.
Executive Director for the Institute of Governance Reform (IGR) Andrew Lavali during his presentation at the launch of the citizens manifesto consultative process on 15th March 2023 said: “The next government should evenly distribute appointments to regions, no region should have below 15% of the appoint and none should get above 30% of the appointments”.
He described the people’s attitude this time as unique because they were not just demanding from politicians, but were also making commitments to improve the country.
Highlighting some of the commitments made by the citizens, he explained that they have resolved to promote cleanliness in the country by making sure they do not liter the streets and help the government enforce public sanitation laws.
“We should commit to not building houses at unauthorized locations and stop setting fire on bushes”, said Lavali.
In addition, he said one of the commitments is that citizens should stop putting undue pressure on Judges, Police, Magistrates, and Election Management Bodies (EMBs) and allow the law to take its course. He explained that most times citizens complained that the court system is corrupt, but he pointed out that the citizens are the very ones who corrupt the court when they want to have cases resolved in their favour.
“Whilst we demand justice, we have to support the justice environment in order for the system to work for all of us”, he said.
He said the people committed to stopping bribing public officials such as police, teachers, health workers, and tax officials.
Lavali explained that the commitments made by citizens seemed minor but was quick to state that if citizens were able to achieve all of them it would be a major revolution for the country in the next five years.
He said the main objectives of the citizens’ manifesto included ensuring that their needs were factored in political parties’ manifestos and to ignore personality-based elections for policy-driven ones.
Copyright © 2023 Politico (17/03/23)
