The Minister of Health and Sanitation and the Chief Medical Officer are at each other’s throats over what has been described as supremacy of administrative authority in the Ministry.
In a leaked letter dated 12th October, 2021, the Chief Medical Officer, Rev. Canon Dr. Thomas T. Samba insisted that the postings done on the 6th October, 2021 “were extensively consultative”.
The Minister of Health and Sanitation, Dr. Austin Demby has insisted that the CMO had no authority to effect postings of Medical Doctors without his assent.
The Chief Medical Officer has also insisted that he is the head of the technical team and he knows the good and professional players. He insisted in his letter of 12th October, 2021 that the postings were approved by the Acting Minister before they were officially released. He accused the Minister, Dr. Demby of delaying the postings which created “a very embarrassing situation” not only for him as CMO but “for the entire Ministry of Health and Sanitation”.
The CMO continued, in his letter to the Minister, “As the professional head of the MoHS, I firmly believe that leadership such as the one manifested by you, if not modified, has a high propensity to render the MoHS inefficient and unproductive. I am quite indignant and troubled by the fact that the professional Ministry which we have struggled to build over the years could be in jeopardy of crumbling under the malignant and abstract leadership superimposed on flamboyant fabrications, falsehood and grandiloquence”.
The CMO concluded, “Lastly, I will want you to recognize the fact that by the Constitution of Sierra Leone, I am currently the legitimate Principal Adviser to His Excellency, the President and the sovereign state of The Republic of Sierra Leone on all Health and Public Health matters”.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Health and Sanitation has rescinded the postings done without his assent and has convinced State House to get the HRMO (Human Resource Management Office) headed by the level-headed Ansu Tucker to send the Chief Medical Officer on terminal leave.
According to HRMO sources, the CMO was due to formally retire in November this year.
Investigations continue.
