Your Excellency Mr. President,
As you prepare to be inaugurated as the fifth democratically elected
President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, I wish to hand over this
written statement which I will term as my Handing-Over
Notes. It is
my hope that these Notes I have prepared, may be of assistance as
you take up the mantle of providing leadership for Sierra Leoneans
of all tribes, all regions, all religions, all political beliefs, all ages, all
gender and all other demographics which sometimes seem to divide
citizens who share a common destiny within one Nation. Let me upfront state that for more detailed information especially
covering aspects not directly mentioned in these written Notes
today, Your Excellency may kindly wish to turn your attention to
the two comprehensive addresses I presented at the Dissolutions of
Parliament in 2012 and 2017 respectively as well as to the
constitutionally mandated addresses presenting the State of our
Nation at the start of every Session of Parliament, throughout my
two terms as President. All my Addresses to the duly elected
representatives of the People comprehensively outlined collective
achievements and challenges we faced as Sierra Leoneans.
Furthermore, many members of my Government including Cabinet
Ministers have prepared their comprehensive Handing Over Notes
which they have already given to your new team. You may also wish
to find the time to read those.
Your Excellency, as we celebrate this third constitutional transfer of
power from one democratically elected President to another; the
event underscores our nation’s commitment to and
preference for
the Rule of Law and Democracy. These Notes therefore take full
cognizance of the need to continue to deepen our democratic
credentials and smooth then the ongoing transition process; especially
in view of some prevailing circumstances which have unfolded
amongst us after the recent, keenly contested Elections.
EBOLA & IRON ORE PRICE COLLAPSE
Your Excellency, I want to commence my Notes with reference to
the Ebola outbreak and concomitant collapse in price of
our exports
like Iron Ore. The Presidency under normal circumstances, come
with so many challenges. However, it is difficult to find the words to
describe the depths of despair I faced as President of Sierra Leone
during the Ebola Crisis from 2014 to 2016. As compatriots, we went
through unquantifiable human pains with massive socio-economic
losses in all spheres. An evil virus devastated the three countries in
our sub-regional basin at a time Sierra Leone had been
described
as amongst the fastest growing Economies in the World. Accordingly, Sierra Leone was the worst hit economically. Official
World Bank data informs that the total impact of the Ebola crisis on
Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone was 2.8 billion dollars but Sierra
Leone alone lost almost 2 billion dollars. Guinea lost
$600million
and Liberia lost $300million. The comparatively huge loss of almost
$2,000million by Sierra Leone is because we had attracted much
foreign direct investments which all dissipated when the Ebola
outbreak coincided with global fall in prices of our export commodities like Iron Ore. The World Bank thus reported a massive
contraction of our economic growth from an unprecedented high of
20.8% at one point prior to Ebola down to a negative of minus
- % by the year 2015. This contraction in economic activities
resulted in a massive decline in domestic revenue collection and
alongside the un-budgeted costs of imperative Ebola-
related
expenditure, the situation created significant fiscal pressure.
The drop in exports affected the exchange rate which depreciated massively as we were not exporting. Our inability to export as expected caused serious depreciation in the Leone exchange rates of up to a massive 30% in 2016.
Your Excellency, as we managed a depressed Economy in a country
totally brought down to its knees, with HOPE being our only
commodity, it was our responsibility to not only fight Ebola but to
also fight the additional burden of poverty it brought on our people.
We had to take strategic decisions in the interest of lessening the
burden of poverty on a citizenry confused by an attack on
everything we held dear. One such decision was to maintain all
employees on the Government Payroll including those whose tasks
may have seemed to be redundant to shortsighted persons. For
example, throughout the Ebola Crisis when all schools were closed
down for over a year, my Government ensured every single teacher
inside Sierra Leone continued to receive their salary –
and on time.
However, whilst we were able to pay the Take-Home salaries, the
reality is that because of the severely depressed revenue collection,
Government was simply unable to as well pay the social security
monthly payments to NASSIT for all government employees. So a
decision was taken for Government to undertake to owe to NASSIT
the sums which were regularly calculated as Debts owed to NASSIT.
So it was that during, and as a result of the Ebola Crisis, significant
Arrears became owed by Government to NASSIT.
I am however very proud to state that as the Economy stabilized, we
commenced to repay to NASSIT all arrears owed by Government as
a result of the Ebola Crisis. This year of 2018 alone, prior to Your
Excellency taking up office, several billions of leones had already
been paid to NASSIT. The financial systems you have
inherited was
already settling those arrears and I am sure they will continue to
smoothly settle them until all arrears built up from the period of the
Ebola Crisis are cleared.
Your Excellency, I have recalled the Ebola Crisis to remind of the
sheer depths of economic and emotional despair which Sierra Leone
went through from 2014 to 2016 when we were hit by two major
shocks of Commodities Prices Falling and the Ebola Outbreak. As
you are aware, the Ebola outbreak resulted in the deaths of
thousands of our compatriots and caused considerable socioeconomic damage. It stopped our people from providing the usual
family support to their loved ones, prevented them from paying last
respects to deceased persons, barred us from even shaking hands
and from doing many other things our culture and traditions taught
us. On top of this, our schools closed down, our farmers abandoned
their fields, the public faith in our hospitals was
undermined, many
local businesses folded up and foreign investors simply ran away.
Your Excellency, in the midst of such a depressed Economy, my
Government had to keep the country running and most of all, we
had the tremendous responsibility to keep the mental psyche of the
nation hopeful and uplifted in the midst of social depression. This
means throughout the Ebola Crisis, our pro-Poor and Social Welfare
initiatives had to take priority over all else. At the same
time, we
had to continue with our wide-ranging reforms so as to keep the
country competitive. It has been tough; very tough and I have
nothing but deep appreciation for my Governance Team and the
many hours of Hard Work put in to pull Sierra Leone out of the
crisis and then rebuild in the post-Ebola period. Your Excellency, as you can see from the above narrative, Sierra
Leone was shaken to its very core by Ebola but as at the time of
your assuming office, I am proud to state that prudent management
of our Economy has yielded results. The real economy has now
recovered strongly, growing by 6.3 percent. This recovery was as a
result of improved activities in agriculture, manufacturing, tourism,
mining, construction and other services such as our continued
investments in development infrastructure. Despite some remaining
vulnerabilities, we have been able to stabilize the exchange rate
which depreciated by only 5% last year 2017. This also helped to
moderate inflation. Sierra Leone is a resilient Nation, and under my
Leadership, we have pulled through.
Your Excellency, at this point, let me mention your Statesman role
when you left your important Ph.D studies in the United Kingdom
to come and join us towards the tail end of the fight against Ebola.
Many Sierra Leoneans, including myself, appreciated the personal
efforts you made to help combat Ebola; an enemy so
vicious that it
brought Sierra Leone to its knees. May God bless you for your
patriotism you showed during those very low points for our Nation.
ON COURSE FOR 2030 ASPIRATION
Your Excellency, contrary to negative electioneering and post elections propaganda, the truth is that you have assumed the
highest office in the land at a time when our country is already on
course towards achieving our national aspiration of becoming a
socially-stable, middle income country by the year 2030.
This is
owing to deliberate steps undertaken by my Government to counter
Ebola, minimize the burden of poverty on the populace and
implement wide-ranging reforms to ensure Sierra Leone remained
very competitive on the global front. My Government was unique in
that it was intensely pro-Poor and at the same time,
Transformative
in its outlook, policies and activities; all implemented with efforts on
promoting good governance and respect for human
rights.
PEACE, GOOD GOVERNANCE & FREEDOMS
Mr. President, when I was elected President in 2007, our nation was
still reeling from the effects of the war and was still categorized as a
fragile state. The biggest challenges included the need to sustain
the peace, build on our democracy and to hold the country together.
This required a delicate balancing act given the high expectations of
the populace. Today, you have inherited a country that is rated the
most peaceful in our region and one reckoned to be a nation in
Africa where democracy has taken root. This is in addition to our
notable progress in ‘Safety & Rule of Law, Participation
and Human
Rights’. Our army and police officers, who are widely acclaimed for
their professionalism, now participate in international peace
keeping. There should therefore be no doubt in the professional
capacity of our security forces to execute their constitutional
responsibilities.
As you are aware, Sierra Leone is a small country but with distinct
regions and ethnicities and with high public expectations. While it
is true that tribal and regional tensions always flare up during
political processes, it is helpful to accept that the tribal undercurrent in our body politic requires deliberate and consistent
affirmative actions and policies to hold the country in one piece and
in harmony. In this regard, I resisted tremendous pressures for me
to remove from key positions in the Civil and Public Service, certain
citizens perceived to be supporters of your now-ruling SLPP party.
Even at the Office of the President, perceived sympathizers of the
SLPP, which was then in opposition, were allowed to be a part of the
governance team. This was my style of inclusive governance so that
the social and political fabric of the country could be woven in
harmony as the Government served citizens.
Civil liberties and democratic freedoms enjoyed by Sierra
Leoneans
under my leadership are unprecedented. Though constitutionally
guaranteed, it is a fact that so far, it is only under my leadership
that Sierra Leoneans of all categories enjoyed the highest levels of
freedoms and human rights ever. I will give two examples.
A very loudly vocal member of the then-Opposition SLPP who lived
in America, would make weekly video broadcasts which he shared
all over the world through the social media. His
broadcasts were full
of horrendous, seditious and libelous attacks on my person and on
my Government which had not an iota of truth to them.
He
eventually returned to Sierra Leone last year and quickly continued
to engage in the same conduct which he now expanded to having
appearances on radio, television and in print publications. Many
concerned citizens contacted me and demanded for the said
member of SLPP to be arrested and charged to court as
the evidence
against his libelous and seditious activities were so overwhelming.
Some citizens said jailing the said SLPP member was one way of
getting the said person to be silenced as we approached elections.
Your Excellency, I declined the calls for Government to arrest and
charge the said man to court because I believed in his right to
express himself no matter how wrong his opinions were.
His
utterances were not a threat to my life so I let him be;
even as he
spread terrible lies against my person and my Government.
The second example is again of a member of the SLPP Opposition in
London who was recorded on video publicly threatening of plans to
wage war inside the city of Freetown during the 2018 elections. The
alarming threats recorded on the video were brought to my
attention with a request for Government to arrest him when he
arrived on our shores. Indeed, on his arrival in the
country some
months back, his presence was brought to my attention with a
demand from some quarters for the man to be arrested.
Again, I
refused for Government to do anything which may have been
interpreted as intimidating him from his rights. Rather, the
intelligence and security agencies were urged to scale up monitoring
of all such concerned persons suspected of having plans to derail
the peace.
Throughout my tenure, we did not hold any political prisoners or
prisoners of conscience and my government put a moratorium on
capital punishment. In spite of their shortcomings, we encouraged a
very free press and a vibrant civil society because I believe these are
fundamental in promoting transparency and accountability and in
deepening good governance and democracy. Currently, our collective challenge under Your Excellency’s
leadership, is to assert special efforts to continue to
build on the
above state of affairs of our peace, democracy, freedoms, rights, the
rule of law and national unity which you have inherited.
JUSTICE & UPHOLDING THE LAW
Your Excellency, we have gotten to a point in the governance of the
State where firmness has become an important ingredient in law
enforcement and in addressing the challenges of indiscipline and
impunity. My government has effected significant reforms in the
justice sector; restored judicial administration to all
districts with
resident magistrates and provided legal safety net for all citizens
through the formation of the Legal Aid Board. A more comprehensive report on our strides in this sector can be found in
my various addresses to Parliament.
SUBSIDIES & POVERTY ALLEVATION
Although we have become more liberal as the world modernizes, the
All Peoples Congress (APC), the party on whose ticket I got elected
in 2007 and 2012, was founded on a platform of Socialism.
Therefore, upon my election in 2007, I did not abandon
the APC’s
core belief that Governance must be predicated on the importance
of efforts to minimize the burden of poverty on the population,
expand access for the common man and woman and do everything
possible to leave no-one behind.
Against the above foundation and much to the displeasure of some
of our valued development partners, my Government refused to end
Government’s subsidies in various sectors. The
subsidies cushioned
the effects of poverty in a prompt manner that can be likened to
your own ‘Prompt Action On Poverty Alleviation’
(PAOPA). This
means my Government had already been on a pathway which you
may now be comfortable to emulate as far as poverty alleviation is
concerned. For my Government, we were willing to incur the wrath
of some of our key partners than compromise on our obligations to
help reduce the state of poverty we inherited our citizens
to be in.
Some of these subsidies indeed created a burden on the Budget. So
in addition to the critical financial obligations required to maintain
the peace and stability such as recruiting and maintaining the
officers and men of the Police, Military, Prisons, Fire Services and of
course, the civil service including teachers and health care workers,
we had to as well absorb the financial costs of subsidizing Tuition
Fees at all levels from Primary School through to
University;
subsidizing our farmers with cash grants, seedlings and fertilizers;
subsidizing health care services including my successful flagship
Free Health Care for Pregnant Women, Lactating Mothers and
Children Under 5 years; subsidizing Electricity so that it was not
only the rich and affluent who could enjoy reliable electricity but
those in lower social brackets as well; subsidizing participation in
national and international sporting events so as to uplift
the psyche
of citizens; subsidizing the cost of fuel so as to keep the cost of
living within reasonable levels for citizens already struggling in a
country that was firstly post-war and now lately, post- Ebola;
subsidizing Public Transportation in such a manner that government buses could travel to and from all major towns of Sierra
Leone and bus routes within the capital city of Freetown had buses
running at heavily subsidized fares especially for school children.
Every single one of these subsidies placed a huge burden on the
Economy and there were Calls for them to be discarded but the
after-effect of ending these subsidies will be a vicious cycle of
poverty which would spiral the poor living conditions of our people
in a downwards manner. Each subsidy we undertook had a distinct
and tangible justification.
Your Excellency now has to take a decision as to whether to
continue to maintain the subsidies on electricity, fuel,
rice, etc. etc.
or whether to remove them and send the citizens deeper into
poverty? For my Government, there was nothing to debate; we saw
no reason to remove the subsidies and we preferred to incur the
wrath of Development Partners than place more burdens on our
poor citizens.
For example, during the Ebola Crisis, one measure to stop spread of
Ebola, was to suspend schools throughout Sierra Leone. We
suspended the schools which meant no school fees were paid.
However, Government never stopped paying salaries to teachers nor
did we stop paying attention to our obligations to support
educational activities. After Ebola, when schools re- opened, we
further subsidized school fees in the immediate post-
Ebola period
because, my Government saw the need to cushion the already
heavy effect of poverty on parents. So we completely removed the
burden of them having to raise funds to pay fees. In this way, our
children continued to get educated and their parents could plough
money for fees into other useful areas of poverty reduction in their
lives.
Sierra Leone is currently the only country in West Africa where the
Government automatically pays 70% of the University Tuition Fees
for all its citizens so as to subsidise the cost of university education.
In addition to subsidizing 70% of Tuition Fees, we also
provide
100% full subsidies for various other categories like students from
very poor families and female students accepted to study Science
subjects.
REFORMS AND TRANSPARENCY
In the midst of our efforts to rebuild and reduce the burden of
poverty on citizens, we continued reforming and continued being
the most Transparent government ever in the entire History of
Sierra Leone.
In 2007 when I took over as President from the late President
Kabbah (may his soul R.I.P.), he publicly lamented in his Handing
Over Statement of how, and I quote: “Making the Auditor General’s Report available” to the public “before it had gone
through Parliamentary scrutiny” was something
“Government
could not tolerate”. According to President Kabbah in 2007,
“Even the President is not entitled to this document
until after
parliamentary scrutiny”. However, I did not share his
views and
as a firm believer in Transparency, I ensured under my dispensation, the legal steps were taken so that as soon as the
Auditor-General handed the Report to Parliament, it was instantly
made available to citizens. Auditor General’s Reports are
no longer
the top secret document they used to be prior to my attaining office.
Now, my Government has ensured the Auditor General’s Report is
not only made freely available on request by anyone but, in
addition, it is permanently published on the website of the Audit
Service.
Indeed, we strengthened the Audit Service Sierra Leone (ASSL) with
enactment of Laws which gave more independence and powers to
the Auditor-General. We also ensured all employees of ASSL were
highly paid. The annual wages for staff of ASSL totaled
- Billion
Leones. To get an idea of what 21.6 Billion Leones means, Your
Excellency may want to find the time to compare it to the
annual
wages paid to staff of other important offices like National Electoral
Commission. Indeed, my Government empowered and strengthened
the Auditor General like never before in Sierra Leone. Ensuring the instant publication of Audit Reports as they are laid in
Parliament, have been very helpful in our multi- dimensional
approach to combating corruption.
The downside to this is that areas of the Auditor-
General’s report
which were later found to be inaccurate by Parliament
will get to be
sensationalized in the media at detriment to the image of my
Government. Despite this significant challenge, I have ensured that
throughout my tenure, the people of Sierra Leone can all now freely
debate the Auditor General’s Report since they now have more
understanding of what it contains. I am leaving office with my head
held high in terms of promoting transparency.
I am also proud to note of how we institutionalized transparent
Performance Contracts across MDAs, universities and colleges, and
ensured the full and active participation of the media and civil
society in analyzing performance of public officials. We also
strengthened the participation of ordinary citizens in the budget
preparation.
Furthermore, we developed an array of public financial management reforms to ensure prudent, efficient, effective and
transparent management of public financial resources. For the first time also, the Mining Sector transparently
reported,
disclosed and disseminated information related to taxes, revenues
and all payments.
COMBATING CORRUPTION
The assertion that our country is listed as the most corrupt in the
world is completely inaccurate. Let me state that my government
recorded considerable progress in the fight against corruption. My
government strengthened independence and effectiveness of the
Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) by repealing the
inadequate
Anti-Corruption Act of 2000 and passing a new Act in 2008. The
new Act broadened the scope of offences and gave prosecutorial
powers to the Commission. A recent review of our
country’s
compliance with U.N. Convention against Corruption shows
significant progress from where we were in 2007.
The mandate of the ACC is not limited to prosecutions and the
Commission has paid sufficient attention to prevention. Sierra
Leone therefore continued to make steady progress in the rankings.
In the Millennium Challenge Cooperation Corruption Control Index,
Sierra Leone has moved from 36 to 52 percent, a 16 point upwards
movement. The Transparency International index also indicates an
overall progress. My Government got a special public commendation
from Transparency International when I requested the Auditor General to undertake an Audit of how funds to combat Ebola were
being managed right in the middle of the fight against
Ebola.
Indeed, never in history of Sierra Leone has such transparency been
exhibited by any other Government prior to mine.
TRANSPARENT GOVERNMENT PAYROLL
There has been a significant improvement in the transparent
management and integrity of the Government Payroll in order to
deal with the previously perennial challenge of ‘ghost workers’ and
addressing Dual Employment. An EU-funded Biometric Data
collection is now well underway. Payment of salaries is
now much
easier, accurate and transparent since employees are all now being
paid into their individual bank accounts. For example,
teachers’
salaries are no longer paid as lump sums into schools bank
accounts. Every teacher now has a bank account. The computerization of Subvented Agencies’ payroll, which was
processed manually, has ensured the existence of a consolidated
Government Payroll and the payment of salaries of staff is done
directly into their individual bank accounts. The payroll database
has also been updated with employees’ NASSIT Numbers as part of
efforts to ensure evidence of the existence of all Government
employees. This is in addition to a Payroll Strategy prepared to
guide future work on the sustainability of the Government wage
Bill.
Mr. President, it is also worthy to note that in spite of the pressures
on the economy, my Government was able to pay
salaries of all
Government workers on time and without any arrears.
The salaries
of public sector workers were also increased several times with the
minimum wage increased to Le500,000 per month from Le21,000 in
2007. In 2007, the minimum wage could not even purchase half a
bag of rice. As I hand over, the minimum wage can now buy two full
bags of rice with change left over.
PUBLIC FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
Still on TRANSPARENCY, in addition to the Public
Procurement Act,
2016 which brought Sierra Leone’s public procurement
in line with
international best practice, we have also enacted the Public
Financial Management (PFM) Act, 2016 which replaced the
Government Budgeting and Accountability Act (GBAA) 2005. The
PFM Act, makes provisions for improving the credibility of the
Budget by restricting extra-budgetary spending, clarifying the use of
contingency funds and laying a framework for the
effective
management of extractive industry revenues.
The PFM act ensured very high transparency in how our finances
were handled. For example, Section 66 of the PFM Act, mandates
the Accountant General to publish on a monthly basis, all revenues
and all expenditures in both the Gazette and on the website of the
Ministry of Finance. What this means Your Excellency is that
Government in Sierra Leone is now so transparent that anyone from
anywhere in the World can go freely check as to how much money
was raised and how much money was spent by Government of
Sierra Leone every single month.
Your Excellency, this level of transparency means any one can now
cross-check and disprove the recent false claim from some quarters,
that for the past two years, my Government could not pay the
salaries of Government employees unless money was first borrowed.
It is absolutely incorrect for anyone to say monthly
revenues raised
were less than the Wage Bill so salaries could not be paid unless
Government first borrowed money. All monthly revenues raised and
transparently published every month for the past two years, were in
excess of monthly Wage Bill (total salaries to be paid).
Throughout
my two terms as President, my Government always placed priority
on settling the wage bill before any other monthly expenditure was
undertaken. As President, whilst I trusted the staff at
the Ministry
of Finance, I double-checked whatever was stated. Your Excellency I
want to humbly recommend that you may want to also do so;
especially prior to making public statements on financial issues.
Once again, the claim that my Government could not pay salaries
without resorting to borrowing is absolutely not true.
Any borrowing
that was done may have been for other expenditure and certainly
not for the Wage Bill which always took priority and
always got paid
from the more than enough revenue we generated every month.
TREASURY SINGLE ACCOUNT
Another key reform has been the initiation of the Treasury Single
Account (TSA) to unify and link accounts through which the
government receives all revenues and transacts all payments. A
comprehensive inventory of Government’s bank
accounts at the
commercial banks therefore gave a consolidated view of government
cash resources. The TSA became operational in August 2017, with a
pilot implementation on 10 Subvented Agencies and Ministries.
However, we soon realized we had issues of legality around our
implementation of the TSA. The urgent need to enact another Law
to enhance the TSA, became apparent. To that end, my Government
ensured that one of the final Acts passed through Parliament in
2017 was the Fiscal Management and Control Act which I assented
to shortly before my tenure ended this year. This action of my
Government now fully compelled MDAs to immediately deposit all
collected revenues in to the Consolidated Revenue Fund; all in
furtherance of the implementation of the TSA.
Your Excellency, let me here commend your Executive Order which
sought to follow my implicit directives after I assented to the Fiscal
Management and Control Act. Your Excellency is able to make that
Order legally because I had just assented to the Fiscal
Management
and Control Act. Your Excellency may now wish to further enhance
the legal atmosphere within which your Orders are carried out by
ensuring the strengthening of the relevant legal frameworks.
EXTERNAL DEBTS
I have noted the concerns relating to external debts.
Insofar as we
have made considerable progress in increasing internal revenue
generation, the reality is that Sierra Leone still needs external
support for its national development agenda while we continue to
strengthen and grow the economy. Importantly, there has been
unprecedented development in the country in every region, every
district and in every sector. This comes on the back of prudent
management of our external debt through the conduct of Annual
Debt Sustainability Analysis and the development and implementation of a Medium-Term Debt Management Strategy. As a
result, Sierra Leone’s debt has remained without any
high risk of
debt distress throughout my tenure as President.
BIGGER ECONOMY
My Government’s unprecedented development strides
are reflected
in Sierra Leone now having a much bigger economy than when I
took over in 2007. Back then, the monetary value of
Sierra Leone’s
economic and business activities was estimated at five trillion
Leones. By 2017, this is now estimated at 30 trillion Leones. In
2007, the Annual Revenue generated within Sierra Leone
was 500
billion Leones; today it is 4 trillion (4,000 billion) Leones. Foreign
Direct Investment has grown tremendously from 288 billion Leones
to five trillion (5,000 billion) Leones. We have also increased our
international reserves from dollar equivalent of less than 600 billion
Leones to the current amount which is the dollar equivalent of 4
trillion (4,000 billion) Leones.
Your Excellency, the last ten years have seen a remarkable overall
growth in spite of the major exogenous shocks including the global
financial crisis of 2008-09, the food and fuel price crisis during the
same period, the collapse of international commodity prices,
including our major export, iron ore, and the outbreak of the
terrible Ebola epidemic. Over this last ten years, we have used this
unprecedented growth in resources to invest in social services and
infrastructure more than at any other time in our
country’s history.
My Government’s direct development expenditure on
roads, energy,
health, education, tourism, communication, information technology
and other areas has been way above what it was in 2007. In 2007,
the expenditure on direct development was 60 million dollars; By
2013, we were now able to spend 280 million dollars on direct
development projects. Last year, the sum of 274 million dollars was
spent on direct development projects. This is an 357% increase over
the last ten years and has resulted in a visible and tangible increase
in access to health services, education, electricity, clean drinking
water, roads, agricultural services and information communication
technologies. The transformation cuts across and has been
remarkable and through it all, Sierra Leone’s debt has
remained
without any high risk of debt distress. Rather, the outcome of our
efforts is a bigger and bigger Economy.
SEA & AIR PORTS TRANSFORMED
Your Excellency, I am informed that your Vice President has already
visited our sea port at Cline Town and has seen for himself the
remarkable transformation that is ongoing to position our natural
harbor to a major transhipment hub in the region. This has the
potential to bring considerable economic benefits to our country.
The Container Terminal Ports Extension Project is wholly financed
by the private sector at a cost of $120million. The TIDFORE 4 Berth
port extension project is also financed by the private sector. The
Kissy Ferry Terminal Development Project upon completion will
convert the Kissy waterfront to a luxurious touristic spot with
sailing boats and beautiful hotels. It is now 40% completed.
In 2007 when I took up office, we barely had international airlines
using the Lungi Airport because of many challenges including poor
marketing of Sierra Leone and low civil aviation security standards.
Ten years on, we have transformed Lungi Airport which is now a
destination spot for twelve international airlines including some of
the World’s most famous airlines; and with arrangements in place
for more flights coming including the Qatari airlines.
TOURISM & PROMOTING CULTURE
Our transformation of Sierra Leone’s tourism potentials
is simply
unrivalled in the last several decades. Our Lumley Beach has been
enhanced with construction of beautiful hotels and entertainment
spots and can today rival many of the famous beach resorts around
the world with name brands like Radisson Blu. A new Hilton Hotel
is set to be opened shortly. The transformation of the Tourism face
of Sierra Leone is breath-taking. Tax incentives to the hotel industry
and an injection of fresh ideas into the promotion of Tourism have
resulted in the United Nations last year classifying Sierra Leone as
the fastest growing Tourism destination in the world; a far cry from
days when Ebola thwarted our Tourism potentials. In developing
our Tourism and Cultural industry, we nurtured our people to
develop pride in who we are and in what we represent. As encroachment and land disputes made their Aberdeen location
no more ideal, the National Dance Troupe was relocated to an ultramodern cultural centre at Mabala Village (off Six Mile) constructed
by my Government, to house them and also serve as a non-formal
Institute of Arts and Culture. In addition, construction of the first
ever National Arts Gallery is now set to commence with funds from
Action Aid Sierra Leone and from Government available to start the
process. We have also laid the plans for three additional Museums
to be constructed in Bo, Kenema and Makeni.
Indeed, throughout my two terms, Government let Sierra Leoneans
develop pride in our capacity to achieve our own goals within our
cultural beliefs. I found this was a basis for promoting unity in
diversity. Your Excellency may now wish to leverage on
the gains in
the Tourism and Cultural industry to promote the course of
national identity and consciousness.
EMPOWERMENT, EQUALITY & TOLERANCE
Sierra Leone’s youth empowerment, gender equality and
religious
tolerance credentials are highly rated across the continent and the
world over. Our religious tolerance is a source of pride and the
slightest inclination that it may be under threat will usually see a
formidable reaction from all concerned to protect the co-
existence of
Muslims and Christians. Your Excellency will certainly wish to
sustain and continue to strengthen this.
My Government has reviewed and reformed many laws aiming for
gender equality through enhancing rights, improving and expanding
access to services and justice for women. Many of our policies like
the Free Health Care Initiative, were developed against a recognition
of the importance of our Women as Partners in development.
Indeed, Sierra Leone Women, during my tenure, have enjoyed
appointments which broke the glass ceiling previously limiting their
aspirations. With the first ever female Chief Justice appointed by
me, it is a fact that the only positions which a woman is yet to hold
or act within inside Sierra Leone are at the highest seats of the
Presidency. My Government ensured our girls were inspired with
the appointment of capable women in to high offices. There were an
unprecedented high number of women as Ministers or Deputy
Ministers in my Cabinet.
The empowerment of Sierra Leonean women was not only within
the country. My Government fully supported the appointment of
capable Sierra Leonean women like Haja Dr. Zainab Hawa Bangura
as Under Secretary General at the United Nations; like Hon. Dr.
Bernadette Lahai as Vice President to the Pan-African Parliament
and like Madam Finda Koroma as the current Vice
President of the ECOWAS Commission.
In respect of youth empowerment, we have appointed capable
young persons to hold responsible positions. We have also initiated
the Youths Internship programme to provide the hands- on
experience our graduates so badly need to fit in the job market. In
the same vein, we launched the National Youth Service Scheme
which in addition, seeks to promote national cohesion. Other young
persons have been supported through the Youth in Fisheries
Project, public works and agricultural initiatives. The stage for the
implementation of the Youth Villages concept to train our young
people in various vocational skills had also been set to address the
gap in the middle level manpower. You may wish to build on these
programmes as well as expand access to higher education. Already,
my Government has increased from two to five universities and the
ground work has been laid for the establishment of a sixth in the
east part of the country.
EDUCATION
Your Excellency, in view of the need to develop our
country’s
human resource, my Government took Education as a priority so
much so that Budget Allocation to the sector has increased from
low levels of 3.7% which I inherited in 2007 to now be over 15% by
2017. We took deliberate actions to expand access to education at
all levels. For higher education, we have ensured the establishment
of three additional universities including the Limkokwing University
of Creative Technology, which is the first ever public private
partnership in our country’s field of education. At the
same time,
we have secured funding from ECOWAS for the establishment of a
brand new University in Kono which is now well underway.
My government embarked on restoring the dignity of
Sierra Leone’s
oldest institution of higher learning by completely rehabilitating
Fourah Bay College and constructing a massive expansion of the
campus. New lecture rooms and other facilities have also been
constructed on campus. Students and faculty are now poised to
start using these structures.
We have also had challenges relating to the quality of education for
which steps were taken to address as well as to improve on equity
and efficiency of the education system in Sierra Leone.
In this
regard, my Government developed a Teaching Syllabus for Basic
Education; strengthened School Inspection through Recruitment of
School Support Officers; appointed a chairperson, commissioners
and staff to get the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) operational;
developed the first ever Inclusive Education policy; the first ever
Early Childhood Education policy and associated minimum
standards document; and two Education Sector Plans
(ESP),
associated Implementation Plans (IPs) and Global Partnership for
Education (GPE) programmes. We also conducted and published a
comprehensive diagnostic study on education.
We secured funding of US$17.9 million from the World Bank
towards the implementation of a project on Revitalising Education
Development in Sierra Leone (REDi_SL) which lasted for three years
and upon its recent completion, we again qualified for an additional
grant of same amount for which I am informed your new Finance
Minister has confirmed my Government’s efforts have
yielded fruits.
The fight against leakages in the educational sector was central in
how my Government served the citizens. To this end, we conducted
four (4) comprehensive annual school censuses with associated
reports which have aided the completion of the teacher payroll
cleaning exercise and saving of an estimated total of Le432 billion
from the elimination of ‘ghost teachers’ over the last ten
years.
During the immediate post-Ebola period, we provided teaching and
learning materials for all non-private schools and students at a cost
of Le26 billion and paid school fees for all non-private school
students at a cost of Le67 billion. Over the past ten years, we have
regularly paid fees for all school level public examinations. Just for
the past year of 2017, my Government paid a total of Le16.7 billion
as fees for all public examinations by our children. Sierra Leonean students studying in various other countries as a
result of bi-lateral scholarships, have benefitted from an astronomical increase in the amount of financial support they have
been receiving from Government. This includes our full support of
Medical doctors who graduated from COMAHS and then applied for
support to undertake post-graduate medical studies overseas.
Your Excellency, as you can see, Education was a top priority for
me and my out gone Government. Our efforts resulted in increases
in enrolment and number of students completing all levels of
schooling. My government had also recorded yearly increases in
candidates taking NPSE and BECE examinations as well as yearly
increases in pass rates at the BECE and WASSCE examinations.
We have also ensured annual increases in the number of approved
schools enjoying cash grants and other support from Government;
for example, between July 2016 and July 2017, almost 400 more
schools were approved for support. My Government further took
action to address the problem of overcrowding in schools by
constructing 225 classrooms between July 2016 and July 2017.
These were in addition to the construction of 165 wells and 362
WASH facilities in schools.
Mr. President, one important initiative in the country’s
education
sector you may wish to build upon is the revitalisation,
extension
and improvement of the school feeding programme to incentivize
and keep the children in school. This may be crucial in your free
education programme.
HEALTH CARE
Regarding the health sector, a mantra of my vision for Sierra Leone
was not only improving on the aforementioned spread and access to
Education but also our realization that Health is Wealth, ensured
we positively transformed access to health care for our
people. To
address challenges in health care, especially Maternal and Child
Health, a breath-taking number of infrastructure and services have
already been implemented with even more to soon be added.
Nine tertiary hospitals are being upgraded as national medical
centres of excellence and over 57 other health facilities are either
being constructed or rehabilitated; with the latest being the newly
constructed Pediatric hospital complex in Kailahun. In
the Western
Area alone, five additional hospitals at Lumley, Kingharman Road,
Macauley Street, Rokupa and in Waterloo – are at advanced stages
of completion and each will have 100 bed space thus adding 500
more bed space to the number currently servicing Western Area.
We have also expanded on the coverage of the Free Health Care
Initiative by establishing the Sierra Leone National Health
Insurance Scheme. Also, a National Ambulance Service
and a
National Blood Bank have been launched. We have merged our
great strides in Energy generation with advancing the development
of our health care services through provision of Fifty four (54)
community health centres with round-the-clock electricity supply
under the DFID funded Rural Renewable Energy Project. Your Excellency, a challenge in Health Care delivery has been a
limited number of available health care personnel. So, in addition to
strengthening of the infrastructure, my Government realized the
absence of trained staff inhibited our vision especially in the area of
women delivering their babies. To this end, there was a MultiDisciplinary Clinical/Foreign Medical Team of 43 medical doctors, 4
radiographers and laboratory scientists to temporarily plug the
human resource gap in the sector.
To combat this shortage of skills, we have further established the
School of Clinical Sciences to train our health workers to become
Physician Assistants able to complement our doctors. In addition,
Teaching Hospitals have been established to provide Specialist and
Postgraduate medical training in-country to our locally- trained
medical doctors in various fields. My Government also instituted a
National Midwives Training School. We believe as we roll out more
trained personnel, we can more speedily combat the dangerous
levels of mortality and morbidity numbers especially for mothers
and children.
There is however a lot of success scored over the past ten years. For
example, the number of women delivering their babies with skilled
birth attendance has increased from very low catchment numbers
to 62% at the last DHS report whilst 87% of all deliveries now
happen in safe institutions. The number of midwives inside Sierra
Leone is now over 600 from below 100 when we took office.
I was amazed to hear some say the Free Health Care
Initiative of my
Government has not been productive. Within just one year of its
implementation, the Free Health Care Initiative resulted in nearly 2
million (2,000,000) additional number of Under-Fives outpatient
consultations and care visits by pregnant women increased threefold. These trends have continued. The immunization coverage for
children increased from an annual 67% as in the year 2006 to 82%
in 2011 and has been steadily leaping upwards apart from the
break during Ebola Crisis.
Completely free Caesarean Section operations and free healthcare
with no fees for young children, are saving countless lives of women
and children. Apart from the nearly 2 million additional under-five
consultations recorded in the first year, 12,000 very serious
maternity complications were managed in health facilities with a
60% drop in the fatality rate in these cases. At the PCMH referral
hospital, the number of maternity admissions grew
exponentially.
The excitement was palpable nationwide as families no longer had
to worry over the cost of producing babies. However, despite visible indications of marked improvements, our
international partners consistently report that there is no
improvement in dire statistics of death and sickness amongst
mothers and children. As a Government, we have tried to understand the reasons behind this disconnect by introducing our
own Maternal Death Surveillance & Response (MDSR)
Strategy
which is now enabling Government to generate its own refined data
and statistics on maternal deaths. This Strategy launched last year
will allow Government to understand real trends in real time and
also take remedial action to end whatever are the reasons behind
the disparity in the services delivered and the dismal indices.
With the introduction of Free Health Care, over 80% of the most
essential drugs are now available at all times, in public
health
facilities, resulting, to the increase of over 60% hospital and PHU
attendance by pregnant and lactating women and children under
five years of age. The Free Health Care Initiative has been a total
and complete success story throughout my tenure since I launched
it. Your Excellency may now wish to ensure it does not get derailed.
ENERGY & ELECTRICITY GENERATION
Mr. President, the lack of electricity has been one of the biggest
hurdles to our nation’s development given that my
Government
inherited the darkest country on the planet. In 2007, the entire
country’s electricity production was 47million kilowatt
hours raised
from a mere 10 megawatts. I am handing over the country with 350
million kilowatt hours produced from over 280 megawatts. We
achieved this monumental success through various efforts
including exploring thermal, hydro and solar potentials; thereby
restoring power, for the first time in over thirty years, to major
towns across the country.
Another reason for our successful efforts has been amendment of
our laws so that National Electricity Generation is now separated
from Sale and Distribution of Electricity. In this way, private
entities are now legally able to invest in the Electricity sector. As a
result, the access to electricity supply is now expanding all over the
country especially in provincial areas. Brand new
electricity
supplies have transformed the social livelihoods of many rural
towns like Makali, Segbwema, Panguma, Gbinti,
Conakrydee whilst
places like Kono got electricity for the first time in 32 years;
Magburaka for the first time in 33 years; Port Loko for the first time
in 32 years and Lumley Beach for the first time after 32 years.
Charlotte village is also set with a brand new hydro- electricity
power supply.
On international cooperation fronts, two electricity interconnection
projects, namely the West African Power Pool (WAPP) and the CLSG
(Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia Sierra Leone & Guinea) are set to contribute
significantly to our national effort of overcoming energy shortfalls.
Nationally, active ongoing projects and other planned projects such
as Bumbuna Phase-2, Betmai, CEC, the Solar Park and various
Solar Farms will soon bring on board an addition of almost 300MW
which are already targeted to be shared nationwide including in
Kailahun, Kenema, Kono, Bo, Pujehun, Bonthe, Moyamba, Mile-91,
Kabala, Kamakwie.
We have further secured a $53 million funding for the complete
overhaul of the Bo/Kenema Power Station to considerably improve
electricity supply to those two major cities as well as several villages
along the power lines. Several other projects are ongoing to generate
more electricity and improve the quality of electricity
supply across the country.
SAFE DRINKING WATER
Your Excellency, during my first term, I realized the importance of
paying special attention to providing safe, clean and accessible
drinking water to our compatriots. So at the start of my second
term, I created a special ministry dedicated to just that.
Many of my
critics including within your political party, did not understand the
importance of this new ministry and criticized me. I want
to thank
you for justifying my decision by also following in my footsteps with
your appointment of a Minister of Water Resources dedicated to
ensuring the continuation of my efforts at providing clean drinking
water to Sierra Leoneans all over our country.
Our visible, tangible successes in provision of safe water are worthy
enough to compensate for all the unfair criticisms. As I hand over to
you today, we have increased access to safe, clean drinking water to
an additional 1,300,000 Sierra Leoneans outside of Freetown by
constructing water stations and pipe borne water in their areas. For
the capital city of Freetown itself, a seamless deployment of our Dry
Season Project has ensured water gets delivered to many citizens
throughout the Dry Season, through innovative efforts. To be more specific, in Bo, Kenema and Makeni, the ‘Three-Towns
Project’ is now fully operational and serving the entirety
of those
regional headquarter towns. Furthermore, in Pujehun,
Magburaka,
Yonibana, Mile-91, Kabala, Kambia, Lungi, Lunsar and Kailahun,
brand new water supply systems are now operational.
Port Loko
water systems which were installed are now due for rehabilitation
whilst Moyamba Town water supply is poised to soon be completed.
In Bonthe Municipality and in Koidu City, pre-feasibility and
Feasibility/Design studies are respectively now completed.
Your Excellency, you have inherited a Government that
is already
addressing the remaining challenges of clean drinking water for
Freetown. I therefore draw your attention to the excellent findings
in the Feasibility Report I commissioned on the potentials of the
River Rokel being a source of water to serve the geographical stretch
of communities from the proposed new city of Mamamah all the way
into Central Freetown. We now know that the flowing waters of
River Rokel can be extracted, purified and subsequently
supplied to
residents. With the diminished capacity of Guma Valley Dam to
service a growing number of inhabitants of the capital city, these
findings on River Rokel are welcomed developments. Meanwhile, my Government has already initiated and secured
funding for several projects which aim at bringing an end to the
persistent problem of water shortages in the capital city and around
Sierra Leone. You may wish to build on these initiatives to scale up
the provision of clean drinking water in the Western Area and
across the country.
ROADS & BRIDGES INFRASTRUCTURE:
Your Excellency, it is common knowledge that my government
embarked on the largest roads infrastructure development
programme in the history of our country. On that score, we have
completed the rehabilitation of the Makeni-Matotoka road in the
North, the Port Loko to Lungi highway, the rehabilitation and
widening of Makeni-Kabala Highway, the rehabilitation of bridges
and widening of the Masiaka-Bo highway and the Matotoka-Yiye
Road phase I in the North East; while the phase II Yiye-
Sefadu
construction is almost completed. The rehabilitation of the BoKenema highway in the South/East and the reconstruction of the
Kenema-Pendembu highway in the East have been completed while
the Pendembu-Kailahun highway is almost completed. Also in the South, the Bo-Bandajuma segment of the international
highway between Liberia and Sierra Leone has been contracted out.
It is to be connected to the ongoing construction of the BandajumaMano River Bridge Highway which, with its 3 expansive bridges, is
now at a very advanced stage. The ground work has been laid for
the rehabilitation of the Taiama-Njala road and the Moyamba
Junction to Moyamba Highway which would link up with the
Moyamba to Shenge Highway that includes several bridges.
In the Western Area, we concluded the reconstruction
and widening
of the Grafton-Regent Highway; Wilkinson Road; the Lumley-Spur
Road-Wilberforce-Hill Station Road and the Lumley- Aberdeen Beach
Road. Phase I of the Hillside Bye Pass Road is also now concluded
as are mitigation works at Tengbeh Town & Moeba. The Lumley Tokeh Road and Phase II of the Hillside Bye Pass Road are both
nearing completion. The complete reconstruction and widening of
the Hill Cut-Jomo Kenyatta-King Harman Roads are in progress.
We have also completed the reconstruction of the Congo Cross-King
Street-Signal Hill Road and the Congo Cross-Main Motor Road Wilberforce road. Similarly, we have also completed the King Street Freetown Road-Lumley Road-Wilberforce down through to enter
into Lumley. A complete rehabilitation of the stretch from Blackhall
Road through Kissy to Calaba Town has occurred on the
‘Old Road’
leading to the provinces. In addition, several kilometers of roads
have been rehabilitated or built in many parts of the Western Area.
In the northern part of the country, we have further completed the
Freetown-Conakry highway while the redesigned reconstruction of
the Wellington-Masiaka highway into four carriage ways on a Toll
System is progressing very well.
In meantime, a successful contractor is now mobilizing after my
Government secured funding from the European Union for the
construction of a dual carriage bridge over the Rogbere River. This
is to happen simultaneously with the construction of the
Mabang
bridge and other bridges.
In addition to all these inter-district networks, the reconstruction of
roads in every single district headquarter town and several other
major towns across the country has been done. Many district
headquarter towns have experienced tarred roads with very good
cement drainage systems for the very first time under my
leadership. The roads and drainages have not only been built but
have been regularly maintained for sustainability and aesthetics.
Your Excellency may wish to ensure these roads continue to be
maintained even as you expand on road developments. For connections with neighbouring countries, we have ensured that
the construction of international highways are completed or now far
advanced. For the gateway leading from the South, I have already
mentioned ongoing construction of the brand new Bo- Bandajuma MRU Bridge international highway which will stretch from Bo
district right into Liberia through Pujehun district and include 3
bridges.
For other international gateways, one of my first priorities on taking
office in 2007 was to clear up the scandalous financial issues
around the EU-funded Rogbere to Guinea road rehabilitation which
the contractor had abandoned because of issues with then SLPP
regime. My government successfully rebuilt the confidence of the
European Union and we now were funded to not just
rehabilitate
the stretch but we received funding to construct a brand new
international highway that led from North-Western Sierra Leone
into Guinea; commencing from Rogbere Junction. That particular
international highway constructed and completed in my first term,
positively changed the face of travelling and trade between Guinea
and Sierra Leone.
Another Northern gateway is the Makeni-Pamlap- Kamakwe-Madina
Oula international highway which leads into neighbouring Guinea
and is in far advanced stages of construction. On completion, it will
lure trading partners from landlocked ECOWAS countries who will
then use it to drive down to access our sea ports since our ports will
then be nearer for them to access than the ports of other countries.
All these International Highways are of international standards and
are critical in enhancing an increased trading ability not only with
Guinea and Liberia but even beyond within the ECOWAS subregion.
To open up in-country movement and access, my Government has
secured funding and signed Financing Agreement for the reconstruction of the Kambia-Kamakwe Road including a bridge
across the Thomporay River. The procurement process is already in
progress. For the construction and widening of the Mile 91-Robole
Junction Road, all technical studies are at an advanced stage, while
the Mile 88 – 91Road has been contracted.
Mr. President, in spite of all of these wonderful developments, our
our people still need a lot more of infrastructure development to
grow the Economy. Against this backdrop, I have commissioned the
construction of the Mamammah Airport City and the feasibility
studies for a proposed bridge across the Lungi estuary. Your Excellency may want to explore creative ways of funding new
infrastructural projects so as to allow your Government to redirect
its own revenues on other social services. In this regard,
I wish to
recall Handing Over Statement of President Kabbah to me in 2007
when he advised me to consider “a toll-system arrangement” for
the early construction of a key link road. I want to pass
on that
advise for you to consider toll roads as first advised by President
Kabbah.
I wish to also use this chance to clarify another issue within the
2007 Handing Over Notes of President Kabbah. The
many ‘roads’
which he mentioned were not all highways but the vast majority
had been a mere grading of inaccessible roads by bulldozers to
make them better passable. For example, the Koribondo- Gendema
Ferry Road, the Makeni-Kamakwie Road and the Kurobola-Kabala
Road he cited as completed, were merely having bulldozers grade
and open up these passages after the war ended. It is only under
my Government that each and every axis mentioned, got to benefit
from actual highways being built thereon. Similarly, for the
Kenema-Koindu Road which was cited as already completely
financed and under tender, it was only after I took up office that we
had to complete securing required funds and even when we
succeeded, we could only get for the Kenema-Pendembu segment.
The final Highway from Kenema which my Government has
constructed and is now continuing right into Kailahun Town is of
the highest international quality and of a standard much higher
than the original design we had inherited in 2007.
NEW DISTRICTS AND DE-AMALGAMATION
Your Excellency, I consider one of my greatest legacies as President
to be the creation of two new administrative districts and the deamalgamation (separation) of all those super-large chiefdoms which
were formed by forcefully combining chiefdoms during colonial
days. During colonial days, many large chiefdoms were created by
forceful amalgamation of chiefdoms all over the Northern
Province.
Indeed, a great injustice has been the disproportionately low
manner in which social services were delivered to large swathes of
mostly the Northern areas of Sierra Leone; as compared to other
parts of Sierra Leone.
Your Excellency, social services get regularly delivered according to
administrative divisions starting from chiefdom level.
However, this
process ended up being unfair to many residents of Northern Sierra
Leone. For example, an amalgamated chiefdom like Nieni in the
Koinadugu district was larger in geographical size than the whole of
Bonthe district but during colonial days, Bonthe district had been
divided into eleven administrative chiefdoms. So, when social services were being delivered by chiefdom levels, the
residents of Nieni chiefdom, as large as their chiefdom was, will
merely get a single allocation of what the geographically smaller
Bonthe will get eleven allocations of. For example, if
Government
proposes to build one school in every chiefdom, Nieni will get one
school and Bonthe will get eleven schools. If an NGO project is to
deliver a peripheral healthcare unit to all chiefdoms, then Nieni will
get one of such unit and Bonthe will get eleven. The attendant
disparity grew over time and resulted in the marked depression of
places like Nieni all over the Northern part of Sierra Leone.
Studies presented to my Government, found this
disparity resulted
in abysmally low levels of social services delivery and was the
primary reason why the North always had the worst of any index
measuring negative human development; for example, the highest
maternal mortality and the lowest rates of literacy. This clear example of short-changing Nieni, was to be seen all over
the North. To combat patently unfair allocation of social services is
one of the reasons why my Government embarked on a re-division
of administrative boundaries using geographical and population
indices as our guide. In the process, two new districts, Falaba and
Karene, were created, one new Region, the North-
Western Province
was also created and chiefdoms got to be de- amalgamated into their
original smaller boundaries.
With the de-amalgamation of super-large chiefdoms and the
creation of the two new districts, we have been able to reach more
of our people in their communities and get them to
participate in
the governance of the state than ever before.
A similar reason is why we enhanced parliamentary representation
by increasing Ordinary Members of Parliament from 112 to a total
of 132 across the country.
FEW MORE THOUGHTS
Your Excellency, as I end, let me now share with you a few more
thoughts which were relevant to me during my term in office. You
may find them to be of some interest to you:
- I was well guarded in all dealings with international
partners
and investors; For me, the image and the economic interest of
the Nation informed my decisions. After all, the ultimate goal
of international investors is always to promote their interest.
- To boost international cooperation, my Government prepared a
Sierra Leone Foreign Service Transformation Strategy slated to
run from 2014 to 2018. It helped Sierra Leone to effectively
provide leadership in several sub-regional, regional,
continental & global initiatives.
- There is the propensity for many of our compatriots to cut
corners. I had to lead the way by being hardworking and insisting on hard work so as to let our people appreciate that
true success does not come easily but through hardwork.
- I vigorously promoted increased agricultural productivity and
value addition to help address the challenges in food sufficiency and the creation of job opportunities. This called
for a fuller, stricter implementation of the local content
policy
as well as various forms of sustained support to local farmers.
- I strengthened the protection of the drivers of the economy –
ICTs, fisheries/marine and mineral resources. The laying of
the fibre-optic cable across the country is almost complete.
What remains is to connect businesses, learning institutions
and homes. We have already piloted several schools, colleges
and universities to ensure the facility is universally
available,
accessible and affordable; all in order to unleash its massive
social and economic benefits in education and research, in
stimulating innovation, and in revolutionising governance,
health services and businesses. We leveraged on regulatory
framework in the minerals sector to ensure that the country
benefits more from its mineral resources.
- The flood and mudslide disaster sharply brought to the fore
the need to strengthen the enforcement of environmental protection; My government had also commenced to pay special
attention to social housing with a view to relocate our compatriots in disaster prone areas. Already, my Government
had initiated and received very firm commitment from Qatari
Government for over 2,000 social housing units. Finally Your Excellency, my Government, like all Governments, was
not perfect. For a variety of reasons, I did not achieve some of what
I had wanted; especially because of the Ebola
interregnum. I
however wish you all success in your positive plans for our country
as you take over from me. I am now under your leadership. You
are now my national leader. Please be assured I will always be
available should you require my counsel. I am just a
telephone call
away. Meanwhile, let me reiterate that for more detailed information
on what we have achieved over the last ten years and to understand
some of the many challenges we faced, you may find the
texts of my
addresses I delivered at the Annual state opening and closure of
parliament as worthy reference.
As I take a final bow out of governance, let me note my appreciation
to all those who helped and supported me as I served our great
nation; especially my wife, family, close friends, my personal staff
and last but not least, my party; the All Peoples Congress. I also
want to thank citizens for electing me to serve them for two terms.
Your Excellency, May 12th 2018 marks my ceremonial transfer to
you, of the ‘Staff of Office’ which is the symbolic
authority of the
Office of the President of the Republic of Sierra Leone. I understand
May 12th is your birthday so please accept my wishes for a Happy
Birthday and a joyous celebration of your Inauguration. I once
again wish you well and every success during your tenure.
Thank you and God bless the Republic of Sierra Leone.