By Ezekiel Nabieu
Each new calendar year brings with it the onus of doing new things or doing old things in a new way. 2014 is no exception. An apt biblical quote in Ecclesiastes 1:9 states: “There is no new thing under the sun”. Indeed if there is, someone will write about it and disabuse our minds.
A nation of approximately six million people should not be the most difficult to govern when it is considered that nations like Ghana with over 20 million are plodding along and conforming to MCC requirements not to mention the mega nation of Nigeria with over 150 million. But what’s gone wrong?
Our elected/selected politicians have been falling over one another proffering all sorts of excuses. Led by their boss, spokesman after spokesman has come on stream to spin an excuse or two. Running out of cogent excuses they have stated inter alia that all of us are responsible. Cute, did you say? But who is government? It is very easy to pass the buck but the people are beginning to see through the ruse. The wrong-headed platitude put about that government consists of the whole populace does not hold when it is considered that they are not participants of the squandering and wasting of government funds by the people selected/elected to represent them.
The problem is that enormous cronyism persists indelibly and the authorities are eating their own words. The rhetoric reminds me of John Plowman’s saying that “if wishes were horses beggars would ride”. For the umpteenth time we are hearing that they are serious this round. But when are they not serious? No sacred cows but some cows are just fit to be slaughtered. The distance between intention and action is so great that it could scarcely be covered before 2017/18.
How can we explain the squandering of over Le 82 billion, according to the Auditor General’s Report, for the period 1 January - 31 December 2012? The report said monthly bank reconciliations were not carried out in most MDAs which amounted to a fundamental failure of internal control over cash and banking procedures etc. Le 82 billion is more than enough to have been used in the fight against corruption which is our Achilles heel, in infrastructure, in creating jobs, in increasing access to healthcare, in enrolling more children in schools, in enhancing agricultural productivity, etc. Rather it has gone into the private pockets of the “government” this time not including the people at large. Indeed this ill-gotten gain has been used in building more mansions, acquiring 4 x 4 jeeps and fat bank accounts “fiti fata” with no one caring because they are all in the thing. One wonders where the Campaign for Good Governance has been in all this. We seem to be nearing a Campaign for Bad Governance (CBG).
THE WAY FORWARD
One aspect of our country’s governance that should now be regarded as the Fifth Estate of the Realm is religion. Unlike Karl Marx’s statement that “Religion is the opium of the people”, religion in Sierra Leone has proved to be a sine qua non of our existence. Unfortunately there has been a shocking indifference by the Inter-Religious Council and the Body of Christ to burning issues in the state. It will be recalled that the Inter-Religious Council was one of the institutions that played a key role in ending our civil war. It would appear that with the change of personnel those at the helm now align themselves with the ruling party and see nothing wrong in their governance. With the majority of Sierra Leoneans being either Christians or Muslims the people are more disposed to listen to their various religious leader even if they do not regard their secular leaders with due reverence. They should realise that even the Pope is not infallible. The leader of these institutions are indifferent because of two reasons. The first reason is that they misinterpret the Bible’s diction that says in Romans 13:1 “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God”.
Obedience to the state is an ordinance of God. The opening words of the verse define the obligation of the Christian. The phraseology stresses on both the office holder and the office. The passage emphasises government itself and its administrators when these function properly. Not those that rely on fetish. I have to be convinced by religious formalities whether leaders like Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein etc had their powers from God.
The second reason is that the leaders of these institutions seem to have been brought with a price and so they are constrained by guilty conscience to stay mum. Even Health Alert and some youth organisations raise their voices in protest but not so with the so-called Body of Christ or the Inter-Religious Council. These institutions should cease from their irrelevance to the state.
PENSIONERS AND THE ROLL OF HONOUR
But for NASSIT instituted at the initiative of former President Tejan Kabbah where would the majority of pensioners have been? They would have been left in the lurch.
The scheme however had no consideration for those who retired before it was inaugurated. It was not considered that they rendered the same loyal service. In the name of justice it is not fair when the state officials can squander billions of Leones while former public servants beg for bread. Some sort of bridging the gap could have been done and could still be done. Here is a government that prides itself on being grassroots-oriented, paying some pensioners Le 6 million a month while paying others Le 29,000 a month for the same length of service. That was not Siaka Stevens way. He strove to bridge the gap between the extremes of income. Therefore the lower rungs of the income ladder had higher percentages of increase than the higher ones. Not only that salary revisions were made for all beneficiaries serving or retired simultaneously. What the present class-conscious government is doing is base ingratitude. A pension is awarded for loyal service and so pensions deserve to be placed on a roll of honour. President Joseph Saidu Momoh admitted failure but it would appear that President Koroma is in no mood to do so.
To him I say: Tell us something new. We have heard that tale of tough action before and it failed woefully. What is the guarantee that it will succeed this time round? None!
(C) Politico 15/01/14
