By Zainab Joaque
The United States Ambassador to Sierra Leone, Michael Owen has praised the media for their coverage of the 17 November 2012 presidential, parliamentary and local council elections. He said this at a special press roundtable in response to a question asked by Politico on the local media’s coverage of last year’s polls. “I think the press covered the elections quite well, there were some stories just like my country that you see sometimes and you wonder if that is really correct or off on the one side or the other side, that is something you’re going to see in any country that has a free and active press” the ambassador said, adding that “that is much better than a situation where you can’t say anything negative about the government or you’re in jail. So I am pleased that the press here is doing quite well”. He said that having served in many overseas posts, there are countries where a journalist would be sent to jail or killed if they said something against the president. He said Sierra Leone was open, with a free and vibrant press which he said was excellent. The ambassador expressed satisfaction that he was not aware of a single journalist who is a political prisoner which he said “is really outstanding and it speaks very well for Sierra Leone”. He said the United States government followed the elections with a great deal of interest having spent over US$ 4 million to support the Government of Sierra Leone in holding the elections. The elections, he noted, were the first since the end of the war to be conducted entirely by Sierra Leoneans and Sierra Leonean institutions. “I think that’s a very important milestone because it really demonstrates that Sierra Leone has become a thriving democracy. We were very pleased with the way the elections went, we found them to be peaceful, free and fair. And we think the result was really very credible”. He said that in any election there would always be some issues, as there was even in the US elections. He said the elections in Sierra Leone witnessed some polling stations opening late, confusion about which queues to get into and shortage of result forms, which he said enough to alter the outcome of the election. Sierra Leoneans, he said, should be proud of what they have achieved, in view of how far the country had come and what it had accomplished. He praised President Ernest Bai Koroma for reaching out to the opposition following the announcement of the results saying, “I thought the President was very magnanimous that he reached out to the opposition that he wanted to work with them going forward”. On the developmental front, the Ambassador said Sierra Leone was chosen to be eligible for the Millennium Challenge Cooperation account agreement (MCC), a US government development assistance agency. He said they based their development assistance on 20 key objective criteria that countries must meet. They include governance, investing in people, education, health care and the fight against corruption. He said Sierra Leone passed 12 out of 20, Liberia 10 out of 20 and Guinea 1 out of 20, which he believed was quite a good score. Ambassador Owen concluded by saying that they had had enquiries from US companies such as Chevron and Bechtel whom he said are interested in Sierra Leone, and were in the country a few weeks ago.
