By Mabinty M. Kamara
Dr. Charles Silver, Executive Chairman of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), has called on the Bio Administration to own up to its short falls and stop blaming others for them.
Silver said politics is all about proffering solutions and not to blame others for causing the problems one inherits.
“You have to really accept your fault. You have to accept that this is the case. But the question is, have you accepted your faults? We are almost always managing crisis. We don’t project into the future,” he said.
Silver was speaking at a seminar with media practitioners organized to appraise them on the APRM processes generally, and specifically on the implementation processes in Sierra Leone and how they could popularize it.
It was the first such engagement of the APRM management since the former Fourah Bay College Political Science lecturer was appointed to head the institution in October 2018.
The APRM is an African Union designed and driven governance monitoring instrument established in 2003. It is a self-monitoring tool acceded to by AU member states and is an offshoot of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), an initiative conceptualized by African leaders earlier in 2001.
Sierra Leone Voluntarily acceded to the APRM on the 8th of July 2004 and in September 2008, an independent National Governing Council (NGC) was inaugurated and provided with functioning secretariat, a major requirement for the APRM continental.
Silver told the forum that the APRM is an instrument that is supposed to be projective and self-assessment. He cited the government’s flagship Free Quality Education (FQE) program as an example of what requires assessing.
“A lot of money has been invested into it. After a year or so after the implementation, we will want to know whether there is value for money. Is it properly managed? Do we have the personnel? So that we take an egoistic approach, rather than dodging the problems [by] saying it is this person or people who are undermining you,” he said.
“We can only move forward when attitudes are changed for the good and that can only happen when there is good governance and good governance is measured,” Silver added.
The engagement was attended by the Minister of Political and Public Affairs, Mohamed Foday Yumkella, who urged journalists to help popularize the work of the APRM in the country, noting that it is a self-assessment tool that will help change the narrative of the country by improving on the standards of life.
“In this assessment process, the press is very key. You [are] calling yourselves the fourth estate, but I think that the media is a key part of government,” Mr Yumkella said, adding that though there are concerns about how the press carries itself, he still believed that the press is responsible in the discharge of its functions.
Officials of APRM highlighted inadequate budgetary allocation, insufficient office space, and a huge financial arrears in the APRM continental annual contributions as limiting their operations. They also lamented lack of vehicles and other logistics.
Like with other state institutions supported by government, there are concerns about the independence of the APRM. However, Dr. Silver assured that under his watch the institution will perform its monitoring role unhindered despite it being supported by the government.
© 2019 Politico Online
