By Asmieu Bah
Like years gone by, the 2012 parliamentary debate by our law makers has ended. It has been packaged and is now in the library of the House for future reference. It is a part of laws that the new president should open parliament after it has been prorogued and after its dissolution and elections.
Like in previous years, this time was no exception. Members from both sides of the isle made known their party’s interpretation of the president’s speech that set them in motion: one saying “thank you”, the other asking whether the President deserves their accolade and thumbs-up.
For the new comers it was a learning process. Seniority demands that they allow the reelected ones to first speak.
The debate lasted for five days and was shown live on national television for citizens to follow it and assess their representatives.
The Speaker presided over the debate and ensured that decorum was maintained to have quietness and serenity. In all fairness to him, Mr Speaker sat on the fence throughout the debate, making sure the legislators went by the Standing Order.
I remember hosting two civil society activists on television on the second day of the debate. It was to get their views on the debate, to know if the lawmakers had really done justice to the speech. Like the debaters in Parliament, Mathias Bendu and Alhaji Warisay had divergent views on the debate. Whiles the former was of the opinion that the MPs should critically look at the President’s speech and forget about thanking him as that would make the President unconcerned and complacent, the latter believed that “thank you” was something worthy of saying to no less a person than the President who he said had done a lot for the country.
For five days, our law makers spent their time arguing, apportioning blame to one party or the other, bringing in issues that had no relevance in the discourse. Since 2007 members of the APC and SLPP representatives have been arguing over who started and who ended projects like the Masiaka-Bo Road, Kenema-Pendembu and the Bumbuna yydroelectric.
Are they going to spend tax payers’ money on trivial issues forgetting or neglecting important state matters that are to be discussed? For instance electricity and water systems are in peril, the city is experiencing its worst power cut since President Koroma came to power. The communication system is facing serious challenges. What about the bread-and-butter issue? Prices are skyrocketing on a daily basis. Inflation is having a toll on the masses. Even palm oil which is locally produced costs more than vegetable imported oil. These are the issues the people want to see and hear their lawmakers debate. Whether somebody started or ended a project, a government is elected to change the lives of its citizens and not to ask who started or who ended what.
US president Barrack Obama inherited the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. He took the tough decision to get American troops out of Iraq, and has begun withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. What is not being done right should be corrected and not all the time spent talking about it. Someone just has to begin and maybe another person to complete. The blame game and the dogged position-taking were their hallmarks.
The MPs played politics with the lives of those who elected them. One of them stood up and had nothing to say other than that the President’s speech was spiritual. Even to the dismay of other MP even from the same party. It sounds to be like sycophancy at its highest. Even the Speaker couldn’t make sense of what the Member of Parliament was saying.
Leaders are elected to ameliorate the sufferings of the people, which is why politicians prepare manifestoes as reason they should be voted into office. If he is elected he automatically signs what the British philosopher Thomas Hobbes called ‘’Social contract’’.
At the end of the debate many citizens were doubtful as to whether the lawmakers debated the key national issues contained in the president’s speech or whether they chose to hold their grounds sweeping issues under the carpet. All our post-independence era, except for the 5-year rule of NPRC and AFRC military juntas, only the APC and SLPP have ruled this country. 47 years. They have shaped and built Sierra Leone to their own liking.
Party loyalty, instead of love of country, was visible in the House. Neither party wanted to recognise the efforts of the other. Whiles APC were saying that the recent 11 years of SLPP rule were nothing but a misrule and corruption, the SLPP also claimed that the APC reign had been and continues to be mired by corruption and ineptitude in governance. The political divide is just deepening. One can count with one’s fingers the Members of Parliament from the two parties who spoke with their conscience rather than their party in mind.
As we wait to see future parliamentary debates, Sierra Leoneans want to see an honest and frank debate, not praise-singing simply because your party is at the helm. Or criticism just because your party lost. Once that is done we will have a parliament that checks the excesses of other government institutions.
Asmieu Bah is a broadcast journalist working for the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation.
