The Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) is said to have left six hundred billion Leones as the country’s foreign reserve before handing over power to the All People’s Congress (APC) in September 2007.
This was disclosed to Awoko by Hon Bernadette Lahai of the SLPP in an exclusive interview at the House of Parliament, Tower hill, Freetown.
According to Hon Lahai of constituency 13 in Kenema, when the SLPP was handing power over to the current government, besides the six hundred billion Leones that were left as foreign reserve, there were also lot of proposals in the pipeline that were developed by them.
She said they also left a renowned document in the form of the PRSP, adding that they had a number of reforms in line with financial regulations and “had freedom of speech and free expression if we are comparatively looking at the past and current government”.
Hon Lahai went further to state that when they were in governance, they never allowed confrontations that led to the deaths of Sierra Leoneans as was the case recently with Koidu Holdings where a confrontation between the company and community people led to the deaths of two people .
Asked to comment on the current political and economic situations in the country, she claimed that when they were in office, government workers were never sacked from their positions because of their linkage with the current party in power and that, “over 60% of our cabinet was made up of northerners and 70% of our ambassadors were from the north. People were appointed based on their qualifications and performance but this is not the case with the current government”.
The SLPP MP alleged that what they “are now seeing is a calculated and deliberate efforts to sack anybody with an SLPP affiliation, particular from one tribe and region”.
On agriculture, the SLPP Honourable said, there was no need for another policy on agriculture since the food security policy of then President Kabbah was enough for the current government to have worked upon.
Asked what he was going to tell President Koroma if she had the opportunity of meeting him, Hon. Bernadette Lahai said she would ask the president to endeavour using the available human resources in the country instead of sacking people as a result of their political linkage with other parties. ‘He should also make pronouncement to stop lawlessness and violence with impunity,” she noted.
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