Author
By Umaru Fofana
It is amazing how people who are not elected have the destiny of the people tucked into their own hands. But those hands are strengthened by the fact that the person who appointed them was directly elected by the people. And those who ratified them, namely parliament, are elected by a universal adult suffrage. Barring, of course, our Paramount Chief Members of Parliament who should really have nothing to do in the House.
Also dubious is the fact that our MPs have shown that they do not do due diligence many a time in vetting people appointed by the president. But that is for another day. What is for today is the power of the executive and how that power can be used for the further advancement of the country and its people. And the year 2013 promises to be an interesting one in our country's body politic especially regarding the workings of the executive.
The opposition Sierra Leone People's Party are still disputing the outcome of the presidential election of 17 November, even if for academic reasons only. They have acknowledged that Ernest Bai Koroma is still president of the country.
Fresh from his re-election victory, Koroma is still working on his cabinet. I know the pressure and considerations are enormous and colossal. His first list, to my mind, is a false start. He has made the same mistake he made in his first term in his choice of a foreign minister. The same mistake made by his predecessor, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.
In the last decade Dr Samura Kamara has spent all his days and nights dealing with economic policies. A brilliant economist who, I think, whatever the problems his stewardship as minister of finance occasioned, they could have been due to more factors than were of his own making. Otherwise who will leave the governor of the central bank in place with all the liquidity challenges and the nosedive value of the Leone witnessed under him.
But Dr Kamara may be an excellent economist that does not necessarily make him a good bet as foreign minister. He has never undergone the rudiments of foreign policy or diplomacy. He is not assertive and persuasive outside the fiscal realm. His presence is more felt in the cold room full of economists than in the hot room filled with foreign policy experts. Clearly he will feel uncomfortable before he gets a proper foothold by which time he may be nearing the end of his political career in the cabinet. I say so because sources that should know have intimated me that his transfer, effectively a demotion in Sierra Leone, is the first step to the exit of this career economist.
His replacement, Dr Karefala Marrah is a much younger man, probably by a generation. He has been the Chief of Staff at State House until recently but he is untried and untested at his new level. Of course that does not necessarily take away from him his due but one of the things he was charged with at State House was the country's accession to the Sierra Leone Extractive Transparency Initiatives. That has been a damp squib and lack lustre with hardly any progress made. We still cannot make it. If it had succeeded he would have taken credit for it. So who else to blame for the failure?
Franklyn Kargbo has been retained in his post as Attorney General. As someone who had held that position before in the 1990s, his knowledge of the workings cannot be questioned. In the new year and beyond, he should ensure justice is dispensed more fairly and opposition members are not harassed or arrested. Or even charges dropped against them for simply declaring for the governing party. It erodes our standing. See article on the justice gap.
But the president has the rest of the body of his cabinet to name. He also has many other appointments awaiting his ballpoint. While he struggles to do that, his attention should shift a bit from political patronage bearing in mind that those who voted for him, and even those who did not, look up to him to have a good team and deliver for the country in all aspects. A good team does not necessarily mean people who are loyal to you. It does not mean those who create the impression or attack your perceived enemies or even lie in your favour. It also means people who can do what their conscience tells them is right even if at the discomfort of the boss.
That may be a long way off. In this country ministers serve the president with their life regardless. That is not loyalty, it is sycophancy and perhaps bigotry. And a president sacks those who do not agree with him regardless of the genuineness of the disagreement. It is called dictatorship.
Ministers are very powerful not least in Sierra Leone. Both in law and outside of it. State institutions, because of their weakness and the pliability of those who occupy them, are almost always under the command and control of the line ministers. So much for Barack Obama's call for strong institutions and not strong men.
The powers our ministers wield also include doing everything that is wrong – employing the wrong people and pilfering the financial resources. These are two key things – jobs and money – that all Sierra Leoneans must benefit from, equally. In the case of the former so long they meet the criteria. Such criteria must not be circumvented to suit those who voted for who.
Our ministers should be lieutenants to help the president achieve his good aims and make him fail in the bad ones. When he wants to detail he be brought back. Not a cabinet that will be divided along the line of internal party wrangling. Or even the line of some seeing others as strangers. This does not in any way imply that I am suggesting a government of national unity. I dislike it. Bringing people into cabinet simply because they belong to a party – governing or opposition – is abhorrent. And in the case of appointing them from the opposition experience has shown that once they get in there they are compromised. Our political class is simply not cut for that.
Additionally, can I repeat my plea that the president should spare us a large government. The wage bill of government in 2012 is hitting one trillion leones. We cannot afford it. Getting rid of most of the useless deputy ministers will help a great deal in achieving this.
By the way did I hear some ministers who have been around for the last five years are asking that they be kept out of the new cabinet? How sweet. But that cannot happen in society such as ours where some want to be in government for reasons other than to serve the nation.. However useless they become or have been.
While I wish all those who will serve in the next cabinet good luck, I pray that they all see themselves and function first as Sierra Leoneans and pay more attention to developing the country and doing justice and being fair to all manner of persons rather than plotting to win the next elections. Some ministers may be eyeing the leadership of the party after its current leader and president. It is the quickest way of unravelling the government and letting the nation down. Serve today and leave tomorrow to posterity. The future of this country rests more in the hand of the executive than any other institution, especially in a country where almost everyone in government catches a cold whenever the executive head sneezes.
