When President Obama said that Africa did not need great Leaders, but rather great institutions, he actually put his finger squarely on the biggest of bane of African governance. What he was saying was that no matter how astute the leadership, you need structures that are effective and functional enough to realize the brightest of ideas or visions. We are yet to get our governance issues straight. Good governance is a set of values, policies and institutions by which society manages its economic, political and social processes at all levels through interactions among government, civil society and private sector. Good governance ensures that political, social and economic priorities are based on broad consensus in society and that the voices of the poorest and the most vulnerable are heard in decision making over the allocation of resources. Good governance should be able to widen people’s choices and their wellbeing, rendering three key elements of a healthy life, the acquisition of knowledge and access to resources. How close we are getting to doing this is anybody’s guess.
If you check on our budgets you will see moneys allocated to commissions you do not even hear of what they do. I sometimes wonder whether it is deliberate that government wastes state funds or not. Yes brilliant guys around the Presidency will tell you that a lot of monitoring mechanisms are put in place to minimize wastage. But we all know this is not the case. Are you surprised that the UDM Leader was on radio last week criticizing to bloated cabinet of our government and the many people kept around the Presidency doing God knows what. Do not just tell me that they have something to do. What are we talking about? Some of those people have served as ministers and have been removed from those positions probably because they did so well that they now deserve to be advisers to the Presidency. No, my brother, you cannot definitely talk about poverty reduction and prosperity except of course it is a reserved zone for the political elite at the moment in power.
Sometimes it is good to ask to what extent are our structures aligned with our strategy. Most of our reasons for failure in governance have been systemic. Sometimes they deliberately flout compliance principles. I listened to a radio last week which was analyzing the effect of the tens of billions Leone loan issue to one single entity. The radio station was telling us that since the Bank in question made over 20 Billion Leone profit, the said loan did not affect it. Start stupid I say. Not surprised since they say the very rich and the Very Stupid have one thing in common. That is the twist the facts to fit their warped thinking. Plain and simple some bank officials connived with certain individuals to bye-pass laid down procedures and somebody is saying that nothing was lost. Sometimes when you think you are on top of you trade that is the time you blunder big time. What a pity?
We can’t continue to do business as usual and expect to achieve prosperity. At the moment there is no evidence that we can live up to the expectations of the lofty ideas enshrined in the Agenda for prosperity. Like I said elsewhere I will start soon to analyze the Agenda for Prosperity. Right now I can recommend that some dysfunctional Offices be scrapped and replaced by others that are relevant. One new area that is relevant could be Nutrition as this is so vital to the growth and intellectual formation of the child. What is the use of having children that we cannot take care of? Africa is reported to have the highest number of young population and if the trend continues we will continue to have food crises. The free Health Care does not cover food. So is it wise for people to give birth if there is no food to feed the children? Is this not some kind of paradox? The free Health care is supposed to keep more children alive.
The monkey and the chimpanzee may claim lineage, but at the end of the day the monkey remains monkey and the chimpanzee, chimpanzee. I sometimes get really confused when I hear my compatriots discuss burning issues affect ting us. It seems in most cases each one of them makes very strong points but then we hardly reach the solution. Perhaps you cannot blame them; it could be that some of our problems seem kind of intractable. They are intractable because some people placed in positions of responsibility do not care a hook what happens to the nation as long as their pots keep boiling. Tell me one project as a nation we have embarked on, finished and the work is satisfactory and is worth the money we paid the contractors?
An IMF report by the close of 2011 clearly states that there have been significant concessions to African minerals Limited compared to current legislation for taxation of mining activities. This tax concession includes: lower corporate income tax of 25% versus 30% in Current Legislation; 100% carry forward of loses as against 50%.; Lower withholding Tax at 5% versus 10% and many others depriving the country of huge sums of Foreign currency. When one considers that the estimated mining life given is over 60 years, then we have every reason to be worried. How can we lift the poverty yolk from our already grossly impoverished populace? What needs explaining now it how these anomalies have been corrected or do we expect business as usual?
They tell us that the poverty and hunger goal in the MDGs will not be met. We need to lift 20% of the population from hunger by 2015, something that is virtually impossible. The report points out that the employment to population ratio has remained constant at 40 to 45 %, indicating that the absorptive capacity of the Labour market in Sierra Leone is very limited. I think we will remain stock on this for a long time. This is worrying since the most productive sector the youth may not be adequately absorbed as many of them lack the relevant education and or skills. It’s a big dilemma. We can set all the structures at the ministry of youth and sports but our greatest problem will remain the lack of relevant qualifications for most of our youth, many of whom loath manual work but will prefer to stay in the big cities to battle. Can you blame them? Don’t you know that we all like honey but we are not prepared to handle the bees?
By Ben Cambayma
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