By Amin Kef
Chairman and Leader of the main opposition All Peoples Congress party, former President Dr Ernest Bai Koroma has at an APC function in Makeni last week severely censured the current President Bio-led ‘New Direction’ Government for not delivering on its 2018 election manifesto promises to the people.
One not known for commenting on the current administration, the APC Chairman and Leader spoke derisively about this administration’s promise on coming into power in April 2018 that within six months, they would repair what they called a badly managed economy that they inherited from the APC.
The evidence so far proves that instead of the economy getting better, Sierra Leone has been badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This coupled with the fact that the Auditor General’s report for 2018 and 2019 showed that this Government is wide open to accusations of grand-scale corruption supports the APC leader’s claim that this Government has not done anything better with the management of the mismanaged economy they said they inherited.
An attempt by the Government recently to silence the Auditor General and one of her deputies clearly has the nation worried that Bio’s administration is not amenable to the scrutiny of how transparent and accountable they are in the management of the nation’s finances and resources.
On the welfare of the people, the APC leader noted in particular that inflation and prices are running out of control.
The APC Leader is joined in his criticism of the Bio administration by the APC Leader in Parliament, Hon. Chernoh Bah who last week told the ECOWAS Parliament that there are early warning signs of danger to the county’s peace and democracy.
He told ECOWAS that the Government insists on going ahead with withholding the mid-term census which he said the majority of the people do not support.
He also pointed to criticism made of the country’s Police and Judiciary by an EU Post 2018 Election Observer Mission.
The European Union’s Election Follow-up Mission to Sierra Leone published a damning statement about Sierra Leone Judiciary’s neutrality in administering electoral laws and the National Electoral Commission’s (NEC) conduct of fair elections.
The Mission was told that there is a significant decrease in trust in the essential bodies which play integral roles in the forthcoming elections. These include the Judiciary, NEC, PPRC, and the Police.
The Mission’s findings were that these institutions’ reputations are less trusted than is needed.
The Mid-Term Census, the EU Mission noted, was unprecedented; the stated reason for it being highly contested, adding that the use of an optional census to provide data which might be used to change electoral boundaries shortly before an election is not conducive to the political atmosphere or good electoral practice.
The Mission repeated its recommendation that the voter register should be automatically produced from the civil register, which would save money and time. The Mission has not seen evidence that sufficient progress has been made on this important issue.
