Sierra Leone’s Chief Minister, Dr. David Moinina Sengeh, is no stranger to controversy, but his recent utterances on live television have crossed a line from tone-deaf to insulting. When asked a simple, legitimate question by veteran journalist Umaru Fofana, how much he is paid as Chief Minister, Dr. Sengeh replied that he does not know his salary.
For a man who sits at the apex of government, who supervises all Ministries, Departments and Agencies, who co-chairs Cabinet and is the second most powerful official after President Julius Maada Bio, that answer is not just implausible. It is an affront to every taxpayer in this Republic.
In a subsequent attempt to clarify on Radio Democracy 98.1 FM, the Chief Minister doubled down. He explained that he does not manage his own salary account, that an account was opened for him while he was a student at Harvard University at age 19 and has been managed by another person since then. He therefore has no access to the account into which his earnings are paid. He then dismissed the public outcry as “kongosa business” – gossip.
This explanation raises more questions than it answers, and it demands an apology.
First, on transparency. Dr. Sengeh is not a private tech entrepreneur anymore. He is a public servant paid from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Every leone that enters his account comes from market women in Lumley, bike riders in Bo, teachers in Kailahun who go months without pay, and miners in Kono. The salary of the Chief Minister is not personal information. It is public information. The people have a constitutional right to know what their servants earn. To claim ignorance is to mock the very principle of accountability his government preaches.
How can a Chief Minister who says he doesn’t know his own pay credibly oversee public financial management, wage bill reform, or negotiations with the IMF about fiscal discipline? How can he chair meetings on payroll integrity for teachers and nurses when he himself professes not to know what is on his own payroll? As Lawyer Mamoud Bah correctly asked, “How can the Chief Minister, who oversees MDAs, not know how much he is paid each month?”
Third, on leadership and example. Dr. Sengeh’s defence that someone else has managed his account since he was 19 is precisely the kind of elite detachment that fuels public cynicism. It paints a picture of a privileged technocrat so removed from the daily financial struggles of ordinary Sierra Leoneans that his salary is an abstraction. While a teacher in Bombali checks his phone desperately at the end of the month to see if 1.2 million Leones has arrived, the Chief Minister tells the nation he does not even look.
Third, on respect. Calling citizens’ legitimate questions “kongosa” is arrogant and unbefitting of the high office he holds. This was not Facebook gossip. This was a question asked on AYV Television, the country’s largest private broadcaster, by one of its most respected journalists. When Sierra Leoneans ask how much their Chief Minister earns, they are not gossiping. They are exercising their democratic right. To label that as kongosa is to tell the people that their concerns are beneath him.
We have admired Dr. Sengeh for many things. His innovation work, his role in the Free Quality Education program, his intellect as a Harvard- and MIT-trained engineer. But intellect without humility becomes hubris.
The honorable path is clear. The Chief Minister should swallow his pride and apologize.
He should apologize to the teachers, nurses, soldiers and police whose salaries he oversees but whose pain he dismissed. He should apologize to President Bio, whose own message of fiscal transparency he has undermined. And he should apologize to the taxpayers of Sierra Leone for treating a serious accountability question with levity.
An apology alone is not enough. He should then do what every public servant should do: publicly declare his net salary, allowances, and benefits, as is standard practice in open democracies. Let the Human Resource Management Office publish the pay scale for the Office of the Chief Minister. Let the people see.
Great leaders admit when they misspeak. Small leaders hide behind semantics. Dr. Sengeh has a chance to show which one he is.
For eight years, Sierra Leoneans have paid his salary, from Chief Innovation Officer to Education Minister to Chief Minister. The least he can do is know it, respect the source of it, and say sorry for pretending he doesn’t.