By: Aaron Bundu Lahai.
On Friday 25th November, 2022 the Honourable Vice President Dr Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh engaged the media and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) at the Kenema City Council Hall in Kenema City. The purpose of the engagement was to explain the achievements recorded by President Julius Maada Bioโs New Direction Government during the Ministry of Information and Communications 2022 Annual Retreat on the theme: โConsolidating Democracy: Our Collective, Share and Patriotic Responsibilityโ.
In his keynote remarks, Vice President Juldeh Jalloh commended the Minister of Information and Communications Mohamed Swarray for the convergence of State and Non-State actors to discuss the pathway of bridging the gap between the Government and Non-State Actors. He said that building a democratic State involves many things such as a functional State. He explained that a State is an institutional trajectory that looks after the lives of its citizens including CSOs. Therefore, he noted that having a democratic discussion means having a functional State that has the capacity to deliver development and create a vital democratic space.
The Vice President Jalloh said that the building block of President Bioโs New Direction Manifesto was cleverly laid on human capital development which later became a guiding principle of the present Government. This, he explains, was because President Bio believes in human capital development as the right path to sustainable development. He named education, health, and agriculture as key areas of the human capital development agenda required to change the development narratives in Sierra Leone.
He informed the Non-State Actors about the New Direction Government allocation of 22% budget to the education sector in 2022. This, he again explains is the reason Sierra Leone is now third position with Iceland in the current educational ranking according to the Economic Magazine. The Vice President narrated the recruitment of more teachers, increase in the enrolment of pupils and the huge passes in the 2022 WASSCE (West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination) as some of the achievements in the educational sector scored by the Bioโs Administration.
Dr Jalloh opined about the progressive increased of health budget from 6% in 2018 to 11.7% in 2022, despite the countryโs short fall of over 2% of meeting the Abuja Declaration of 15% benchmark on health budget per country.
He attributed the horizontal increased in Government wage bill as a result of the recruitment of public sector workers like teachers and health workers. โThe combine recruitment of over 15000 public sector workers in the health and education makes the wage bill hugeโ he averred.
On food self-sufficiency, Vice President Jalloh explained that Government has increased local food production through increased in mechanization aspect of agriculture with machines. He said that the New Direction Government decided to decentralize the machines chain across the districts to support farmers rather than centralizing the machines in Freetown where there are no farms. He told the CSOs and the media that the decentralization of the machine chain in the districts is making huge impact.
Vice President Jalloh stated that the productive sector is the bridge between the Bioโs human capital development vision and the future. He maintained that the provision of education and health opportunities is followed by the creation of jobs by the Government, noting that one key sector of the productive sector is energy.
He disclosed there were few towns enjoying electricity when the Bioโs Administration came to power in 2018, but through the vision of President Bio, the energy sector has been transformed from utility to productive sector. He further explained that the countryโs energy has increased from 6% in 2018 to 34% in 2022 with over 50 towns now enjoying electricity with the small scale solar up grid electricity. Dr Jalloh emphasized about the extra ordinary step taken by the Bioโs Presidency to increase electricity generation, transmission, and generation to 50% by mid-2023.
Vice President Jalloh revealed road construction projects and bridges to increase connectivity of people from one community to the other and surrounding countries to enable businesses grow in Sierra Leone.
Vice President Jalloh further revealed the numerous challenges the Government is facing, including, the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian-Ukraine war and climate change. He stressed on the steps taken by the Government to cushion the burden on the citizens.
Mohamed Rahman Swaray, Sierra Leone Minister of Information and Communication stated that the rationale for organizing the engagement was to have a trusted partner to tell the story. He told the audience that the Ministryโs responsibility is to bridge the communication gaps between the Government and the citizens, therefore the engagement was a way of achieving such.
The President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) Ahmed Nasralla noted that the collaboration between Government and CSOs/media is productive pointing out that no single journalist is in jail at the moment. He assured that the partnership is not a way to influence the work of the press, rather a means of achieving the collaborative role of the media.
The days conference lasted from the 24th to 27th November, 2022.
