By Kemo Cham
President Ernest Bai Koroma cancelled his trip to South Africa on Wednesday to enable him partake in the long awaited census due to commence on Saturday December 5.
The President, according to a report on Tuesday by state broadcaster SLBC, said he wanted to be counted in the census and hence cancelled his participation at the high profile China-Africa summit, also known as the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). Koroma also ordered all public officials out of the country to endeavor to return to be counted.
The long awaited National Population and Housing Census is scheduled to end on December 18. President Koroma said he wanted to be at home to be counted. He is also scheduled to inaugurate the opening of the 14-day exercise on ‘Census Night’ on Thursday 4 December.
"Because of that cancellation, I have also given instructions to the
head of the civil service to advise all public officials to ensure
that they are here. They need to be counted," the President was heard on SLBC telling a delegation from Statistics Sierra Leone, the institution charged with conducting the census.
The China-Africa Summit is scheduled to start on Thursday, a day before the Census Night.
Cooperation
This is the second census to be conducted in Sierra Leone since after the 1991-2002 civil war. And officials have hailed it as the most comprehensive throughout the country`s history, both in terms of the information being sought from the people and the level of preparation for the conduct of the exercise.
A notable addition are questions seeking to solicit information on the impact of the Ebola epidemic on the people, said Dr Sullay Kamara, chairman of the Statistics Sierra Leone Council, the governing body of Statistics Sierra Leone.
SLBC did not say, however, when Koroma was due to leave for Johannesburg where heads of states of the 53-member African Union countries are due to hobnob with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Mr Xi, who arrived in Johannesburg on Wednesday, was due to co-chair the summit alongside host President Jacob Zuma.
FOCAC is a cooperation mechanism to pursue collective consultation and dialogue among developing countries. It was designed as forum for South-South cooperation and seeks to address development issues of mutual concern between China and African countries.
The forum was first held in 2000 in the Chinese capital Beijing. Since then five gatherings have been held between China and Africa, all but one of them at ministerial level.
The Johannesburg Summit (at the level of heads of state) is the second since the Beijing Summit in 2006, and the first time be held on the continent.
The summit, being held on the theme: ‘Africa-China Progressing Together: Win-Win Cooperation for Common Development’, is expected to adopt the Johannesburg Declaration and Action Plan, which will outline specific measures aimed at consolidating the growing mutual partnership between Africa and China. It will also review the implementation of various agreements signed since the 1st FOCAC Summit, and outline the course of action for development of China-Africa relations over the next few years.
Largest trading partner
A number of deals were also expected to be announced for power plants, infrastructure and agriculture projects.
“The FOCAC Summit, is expected to open new avenues of cooperation and open new opportunities for both China and Africa, which will elevate the relationship to a new level that would have mutual beneficial impact and give impetus to Africa's development, in line with the AU's Agenda 2063, including the First Ten-Year Implementation Plan of Agenda 2063,” said the African Union in a statement.
The Chinese President was himself quoted, on arrival in South Africa on Wednesday, saying that the summit would be "a milestone in advancing China-Africa relations across the board".
China is Africa's largest trading partner with trade amounting to $220 billion in 2014, according to figures sourced from the Chinese news agency Xinhua.
Sierra Leone is central to this trade, providing a huge chunk of China`s annual import in the form of iron ore, among other raw materials.
Interestingly, the summit comes just weeks after a debate erupted over a controversial Chinese funded airport deal with the Sierra Leone government.
Sierra Leone intends to us a Chinese loan of US$320M to build a second airport to replace the Lungi International Airport which has been characterized blamed for frustrating tourism, due to difficulties associated faced by travelers. Lungi is separated from Freetown by a river estuary.
But the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are opposed to the project and have asked Sierra Leone to cancel it, saying the country has far more pressing matters to deal with.
This week China`s ambassador in Freetown insisted Sierra Leone needed a new airport and appeared to rubbish fears by the Bank and Fund around the country`s ability to recover fully from the impact of the Ebola epidemic.
“If Sierra Leone`s economy is not good at the moment, that doesn’t mean that the country`s economy cannot be better in the next seven years,” Ambassador Zhao Yanbo told reporters in Freetown.
(C) Politico 02/12/15
