Mohamed ‘Orman’ Bangura was in 2018 appointed Minister of Youth Affairs by President-elect at the time, Retired Brigadier Julius Maada Bio. Bangura is in charge of a ministry that handles matters related to the youth who make up a greater percentage of Sierra Leone’s population.
Four years on, our Editor Mabinty M Kamara sits with the Minister as he takes us through the activities of his ministry, the challenges and plans, whilst also reacting to newspaper corruption allegations against his ministry.
Politico: Briefly tell us about the mandate of your institution.
Minister: The Ministry of Youth Affairs is the ministry charged with the responsibility of getting and implementing government policies that have to do with young people and at the same time, it serves as auxiliary to certain ministries. It is also responsible for implementing programmes, projects, and supervises the sectors of the National Youth Service and National Youth Commission to ensure that we create an enabling environment for every young Sierra Leonean, devoid of tribe or region or which political party you belong to. In 2021, even the university had made a provision for the ministry to sit in their senate. In a nutshell, those are the mandates of the ministry representing young people in the cabinet or every facet of the society.
Politico: What value would that add to the young people or to the work of the university?
Minister: In actual fact, His Excellency the President so believes that, as a young man and a young population, when working for young people, you should work with them. In this sense, they should be on the table to make decisions. There are hundreds of advantages of having young people sitting in the senate. In most of these institutions, we are board members simply because the representation and interest of the young people should stand out as it is in the Medium Term National Development Plan because we have a whole cluster that speaks to the empowerment of young people, like sports and other key areas. So what we are saying here is that we believe working for young people, you need to work with them. Like for the university Act, you know most times when they have decisions to rusticate, they find themselves dealing with 99% of young people who fall within the mandate of the ministry, so they thought it fit that the ministry should be represented in those decision-making bodies.
Politico: What are the projects that you are currently implementing as a ministry?
Minister: We have done a lot. I always tell people that we are operating on the basis of three principles. For anything His Excellency the President guides me. Everything that we are doing as a ministry should be visible; secondly, the legacy aspect of what we are doing; thirdly, it has to do with the impact, because we realize that a lot of things have gone wrong, and we have been celebrating a lot of things that are not worth celebrating. So if I say I name the projects that I have done for the past three years, we would spend almost an hour or two, but to name a few, you have heard about the National Youth Service Commission which I started; you heard about the Car Wash Project, the Youths in Fishery, giving grants to between 500 to 600 young people. Now you see young people being trained on how to drive heavy equipment, tractors, spending three months and given government stipends. Then at the end of the day, they receive certificates that will enhance them to get jobs in society, because most times we want to give jobs but young people themselves are not trained. The National Youth Service, deal with graduates. Last year, you have about a thousand recruited, and this year we have more, but the challenge is that young people do not apply, and they do not just want to go through that application process. And if you are a graduate but you do not endure to go through the application process, we will find it difficult to accept you. Almost everybody or all those who applied this year will be camped in the next couple of days at Hastings to ensure that they go through the required training that has to do with empowerment.
Politico: It is no secret that you inherited a ‘challenging Youth Farm’. Can we know the current status of the Youth Farm?
Minister: We no longer talk about Youth Farm as a particular spot. Last year has been one of the most successful years for young people in Agriculture. There are challenges though. We ploughed over 100 hectares for every chiefdom, and we gave seedlings but unfortunately, we could not provide the harvesters, and you know very well that wherever you have young people working and if you have machines that plough, you definitely need machines to harvest, or else it does not make sense that much. So this year we have got the harvesters and tractors ready, we have trained a lot of people. So now you have Chiefdom Youth Farms. Last year we have Chiefdom Youth Farms and this year we are going to move to agro-entrepreneurs. We have youth-agro-entrepreneurs, you come, you pitch your ideas, and it is not about producing rice but the value chain itself to see how many jobs we can create and we are going to give them that platform. We give them fertilizers, seeds, harvesters and the needful and at the end of the day grants will be given, then next year we will ensure we have that value chain. We realize that young people do not want to see agriculture as a means of doing business. Most times, our communities see agriculture as a means of punishment, so we have succeeded in making agriculture very attractive to young people and we have succeeded in making it a bit funky to ensure that they see it as a business and to see that as a way of becoming billionaires rather than doing things the other way. We have supported a lot of programmes. Innovators through our partners have built youth-connect hubs that can create an enabling environment for young people to meet and share ideas. Like for the innovators, last year we worked with over 100 of them. If they say they want a tractor, “kekeh”, generator, laptop, all what they asked for we gave them. We have also sent young people to universities. Those people who have the skills but do not have certificates in the areas they are specializing in, we ensure that we send them to EBK University, Milton Margai University, at the end of the day they give them certificates for their jobs. They already got the experience but they would just need the certificates. In terms of drugs and substance abuse, we engaged over 45,000 young people in over 400 groups. We did the first national youth conference in Tonkolili where you have for the first time over 800 young people from every tribe and chiefdom in one room together with the presidency for two days and together with all partners, and that on its own brings a lot of national cohesion, it gives a lot of hope that gone are those days that you put young people and do things on your own. And that is what we believe in.
Politico: Do you currently have any data on youth in agro-business?
Minister: Yes. They sent the data a few minutes ago before asking this question. Last year, we targeted 10,000 people, 50 per chiefdom, and this year we want to see how we can put 20 per group for agro-entrepreneur. We are still finalizing it for this year to ensure that we go back to the field and do that.
Politico: Back to the Car Wash Project. We learnt that there was a plan to extend the project to the regions, how far has that gone?
Minister: That has been done 90 percent plus. And every district has got a car a wash. Some have two, others three or four. It all depends because the challenge we face is that, there should be government land available (it should not be owned by the private sector) as far as the laws in this country are concerned. What basically happens is that we have got the equipment already, we have all the equipment for the car wash right across the country in cargo containers; we are just waiting for the contractors to complete it in the next couple of weeks. And we have also got bikes for every chiefdom youth leader across the country. We are just waiting for Sierra Leone Road Safety Authority to give us number plates because we need to put them in our Asset Register for us to distribute them accordingly.
What is the essence of the motorbikes?
It is to create the leadership representation at the chiefdom level because one thing we believe is that community ownership in what we are doing is also key, and the leadership is already there at the community level and chiefdom level. So we want to see how we can empower those young leaders in their communities to ensure that they monitor our free flagship programmes, they report in a whole lot of things we are doing.
Politico: Any data also on the beneficiaries of this youth in car wash project?
Yes. We have over 1,260 right across the country because they have profiled them already, and we believe that we definitely going to get that done. And when we talk about car wash here, people just think it is just the washing of the cars that is important, but at the end of the day, do you realize that ninety percent of those “okada bike” riders, keep their bikes for safekeeping at night in those car wash centres and when you go there at night, you will meet them there. You have a common place where you have light and music that ease up young people, they have a meeting point. It is not about them just washing cars but at the same time, it is about them having a meeting place or meeting ground.
Politico: What is the sustainability plan for this project [Youth in Car Wash]?
Minister: It is very sustainable. So what we have done is to get a component or percentage of what they are getting. They save it. That is why you are seeing most times they renovate the car wash centres, do painting and maintenance of the equipment. It is today-for-today empowerment but at the same time it would be sustainable and it should continue, so the best bet we did was for them to reserve five percent or ten percent of earnings for them to do the necessary renovation and other things.
Politico: Today, most of them involved or engaged in those activities are youths but within the next two or three years some may not be youth anymore, what does life hold for them?
Minister: It is like a transiting point. It is like you saying being a youth; it has an age bracket that is not permanent. So what we are saying, is now that you do not have a job, you do not have things to do, you will find yourself there. That is why we are making agriculture very attractive, engaging them; they will see a reason why they should move to agriculture. We make access to finance, you heard about the grant we gave with support from UNDP. So it is just like a transiting point, but if you are there, for as long as you have your living, it will reduce a whole lot of stuff.
Politico: You started talking about this National Youth Service. You started talking about the challenges, how successful has it been in terms of preparing the young people to suit the job market?
Minister: It has been very successful. I would tell you based on the data we have got. Almost sixty to seventy percent of those graduating from the National Youth Service, are mostly retained; others would go and get jobs for themselves. That is to say, they can be entrepreneurs. They are not more or less trained to be job seekers but they are also trained to create jobs for themselves and provide jobs for others, and it has been very successful because they spent three weeks in the camp where they are trained for different things, and it is good that we prepare them for that because most times people think graduating from university and having your degree, would assure of you getting a job. But that is not the case. You need to be creative and you should get something that would match the current job market otherwise it would be very difficult.
How many batches can you be proud of…?
We started in 2018, 2019, 2020, and now we are moving in 2022, this is the fourth batch. Imagine if we would have started like 20 or 30 years ago because this is a dream of Sir Milton Margai; Nigeria came they snatched it from us, Kenya came they snatched it from us. Ghana, they started theirs something like 30 years ago. It is only during the leadership of His Excellency the President you have the National Youth Service. It is a manifesto commitment that we bring the National Youth Service upon being elected.
Politico: How many graduates have benefited from this and how do you do your recruitment?
Minister: How we do our recruitment is this: The criteria are so simple. You must be a graduate. And you should be between 15 and 35. So at the end of the day, you apply online, you do not interface with anyone, you go through the process, you get a text message, and straight-up they would call you to come for an interview. As it is now they are calling them to be camped and they have been calling them for interviews, they would be attending; they go through training for three months after which we send them for the job market.
Politico: How many have been trained already?
Minister: I can say this is the fourth batch. I am sure this one is a bit above one thousand. The third batch is out.
Politico: Do you have accumulative data?
Minister: No. we have got over three thousand already that have done National Youth Service. By this year or next year, if you are a graduate and you do not know National Youth Service, you will not get any postgraduate scholarship from the government.
Politico: So is it going to be compulsory?
Minister: Yes. And most young people have benefited from the student grant and when they come out from those universities, they should pay back to society.
Politico: Going forward, this is 2022 and we are in February. What plans do you have in terms of expanding your projects or new projects to actually see that the young people of Sierra Leone are better positioned to be self-reliant to defend and speak for themselves?
Minister: This year would be a year that we would be pushing so hard. It is agriculture we want to push more because agriculture on its own can create a shock in the job market because for those in agriculture, entrepreneurship, agro-processing, so if we get all these things done, it will really help. Access to finance is one area that we are going to push this year. I am pleased to inform you that UNDP like quadrupled the money they used to give or support the ministry, which tells you how many more programmes we have now, and we want to scale out the training of farmers on driving and maintenance of tractors equipment. And we are going to have a summit this year, the International Youth Day, hopefully on Youth for Climate Change because we want to see how young people champion climate change, how they can make their own little impact, how they can present these challenges that we are facing as a society. It is not only when you have young people know what is climate change, the effects, those challenges, and then they are able to act. And this year we continue to build trust and confidence with partners, especially the UNDP, IUN, UNFPA, UNICEF, and by the way at the end of this month, we will have our first boot camp on generation unlimited where we will camp like one hundred young people. We are proposing the Canadian University where they would be camped for like two weeks or plus. Innovators, entrepreneurs would be camped, fed and trained so they would come out as ambassadors of our society.
Politico: When would this happen?
Minister: Hopefully, end of this month or the first week of next month.
Politico: Have you already gotten the participants?
Minister: What we normally do, we would get consultants through DSTI and UNICEF; the ministry went right across the country like a pre-summit thing. Young people would pitch their ideas and they did the selection right across the country. That is how we matched up to the 80 or 100 people that would be camped. They would come here and we would camp them in one of these hotels, from there we take them into the boot camps for about two weeks or so. So the selection process went right across the country and young people themselves would have the confidence to come out and pitch their ideas.
Politico: Are there any challenges that you think can militate against all these plans set?
Minister: Yes. There is only one challenge I have faced having served as a Youth Minister and that is how do societies change their mindsets towards young people, how our societies accept the efforts young people are making, and how can young people themselves have that passion to succeed in society, feeling that I own this to myself, nobody owns me, and those are just challenges of mindsets. There is a whole lot of opportunities in Sierra Leone that if you just believe in yourself, you have that self-esteem, you can be who you want to be and you can achieve your dreams. It is not like other countries. I know drugs and substance abuse have been a very big challenge but it all boils down to the mindset. Young people should think productively. Those are just a few challenges that I am facing, but it is not about funding, it is not that the opportunities are not there, it is not that the space is not there. We saw 50 or 100 people who came and they said we they are doing this and we have been and we want this now. You have to listen to every one of them. That is it and that is why I am here.
Politico: Talking about this drug and substance abuse, which is a major problem of young people in Africa and globally even, what have you done as a ministry in terms of curtailing or minimizing the effects of drugs on the young people of Sierra Leone?
Minister: One thing we believe is it is a supply chain, you have the drug lords, the wholesalers, so our strategy is to ignore the end-users and go after the drug lords, and it is as a result of that if you go to Water Quay today, we have like two containers of drugs. They seized some drugs a couple of weeks ago, and in September a whole lot of “Kush” and other stuff have been arrested, so we are making tremendous progress that no country within the Mano River Union is making. It is only in Sierra Leone you can see they arrest those containers. Most times the people you think are really addicted to drugs, but I always tell young people to focus on themselves. Today if you check the cost of “tramadol” it is about Le22, 000, the cost of “Kush”, the quantity is really small, it is about Le 5,000 to Le 10,000. You have other drugs. We have about five drugs that are roaming across Africa. I listened to the BBC on one of these days. There is a country that has got cocaine that has been infected, so our fear is for it not to get to this part of the country. We are doing well in that direction. It is just about reinforcing the effort that we are making and knowing very well that young people are very resilient ranging from war, mudslide, Ebola, they have lost a whole lot of opportunities they think they cannot make it. But we always ask that you always have a second chance under the current dispensation. In the current government and the leadership of His Excellency, Rt. Brigadier Julius Maada Bio. We still have an option.
Politico: How far are we with the Youth in the Fishery business?
Minister: It is one of the best projects we are really proud of because I realize that young people are really paying and we have…over billions for that. So we want to do more. It is another virgin ground that we want to explore this year, aqua-culture. If you go to Kenya, Ghana, Rwanda, you have millions of young people being involved in aqua-culture and it creates jobs. Last year we tried about 100 of them and this year we want to see how we can improve on that.
Politico: Talking about that, what do you have to say about allegations in terms of procurement breach in the Youth in Fishery project?
Minister: That is not true! That is not true! The less I talk about that the better. If there is any breach in procurement, you will see that in the Audit Report. I understand, if you don’t know, it’s just a shame. But for you to procure anything in the ministry, there are due procedures to follow. You need to have a certificate from NPPA and secondly have a certificate clearance from Solicitor-General and also a certificate from the Ministry of Finance. None of them would give you those certificates if you do not follow due process. So when once you get those certificates, these are just insinuations and perceptions of what people think, but as a leader, you have people who think they want to distract you, because for almost four years now, we have maintained the balance and we have built our trust and confidence in donors. And it is not about what they believe, it is about what is in the books, and we believe that you do not rule by perception, you rule by the books, and the books state clearance from the NPPA to advertise, you need clearance from NPPA to award contracts, you need clearance from the Auditor-General, you need clearance from the Ministry of Finance, and each and every request you make you send the entire document from the minutes, all those certificates and documents to every sector. So it is about perception, not until come go to the ministry and ask that I want to see this certificate that gives the permission to award this contract. The Ministry of Finance will not pay if they do not see all those approvals, so it is a pity that it is the society we find ourselves in, those are just baseless, dumbfound allegations but like I said, the less I talk about them, the better.
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