By Nasratu Kargbo
The Vice President Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh has called on Local Councils to be creative and innovative in the generation of revenue. Speaking on Friday 29th October 2021 in Port Loko during the 2nd government and civil society dialogue, he admitted that the government cannot provide for councils all they needed.
The VP was impressed that the Makeni City Council recently increased their revenue by 3 Billion Leones. He added that the council which is predominately APC performed very well in an SLPP government which he said clearly indicates that “councils have the capacity to generate revenue”. He explained that government transfers are not enough for councils to carry out all they want to do, hence the need for other forms of income generation .
Dr. Jalloh said districts such as Bo, Kenema, Freetown, Port Loko amongst others are expected to generate more revenue due to their population dynamics.
“I believe one of the incentives for devolution is effective revenue generation”, noting that if power is devolved to them, the councils should be able to generate money for themselves.
He called on CSOs to build partnership with government to help in devising how local councils can generate revenue and perform just as the Makeni City Council, so they could move beyond the councils depending solely on the central government for all their activities.
Speaking on health in connection with theme for this year’s dialogue “Decentralization for effective service delivery” the VP stated that in he has been traveling to different hospitals across the country to see what has been done in terms of service delivery, and said the only indicator to measure the increase in revenue would be to monitor whether there is effective service delivery.
In addition, he noted that there are so many challenges in the hospitals most of which according to the VP are due to lapses in management. He said these challenges raise questions as to whether the councils can manage the hospitals or whether central government should take them back. He stated that the whole idea is to enable effective service delivery. He spoke about the health budget which has seen a significant increase from 6% to 8%, and then 11.4% at present.
He explained that the government is putting resources together and signed contracts for the expansion of pipe-borne water distribution in the country.
The VP said Sierra Leone stands as one of the top five countries in the world that invests heavily in education, accounting for 22% of the country’s budget, citing the Free Quality Education which pays fees and buys core textbooks for pupils and in some vulnerable communities, feed the kids.
He also stated government has recruited additional teachers, expanding and building additional classrooms.
He spoke on the increase of food production, noting that any country that does not invest in food production will be at the mercy of international prices. He added that the hike in transportation has led to the drastic increase in prices of food commodities all over the world. He explained how there are no taxes in rice, flour amongst many others, yet still the prices keep going up. He said government has already purchased over 400 equipment including tractors to invest in the agricultural sector.
The Executive Director for Actionaid Foday Bassie Swaray who represented the civil society highlighted few issues such as late disbursement of funds from central government to councils and differences between political and administrative heads at some councils that affect the effectiveness of service delivery. He said such disputes should be looked into, in order for the citizens not to miss out.
He noted that the devolved functions are still fraught with challenges as some functions are heavily centralized and made example of Salwaco operating in Kambia that depends on SALWACO headquarter in Freetown for approval for fuel before they could operate.
He also highlighted the disparity in the allocation of trained and qualified teachers all over the country. He also spoke about the problem of WASH facility in schools and the delay in subvention for schools with special needs in the country .
The Actionaid head talked about the increasing national debt, rise in the prices of commodities including rice, even when there is no levying of import duty..
Sawray also talked about political violence and the integrity of the electoral process, making reference to the incident that happened in Koinadugu which he said should not be ignored.
Copyright © Politico Online 01/11/21
