Governance At Micro Macro Levels

Long time ago in 1976, a literature lecturer said that nature was transient and Art was permanent, I felt very uncomfortable because I thought it was the other way round. Of course in those times you could not easily contest what your lecturer said because they were all seen as larger than life and more than icons. Even the cars they used were seen as too intelligent to joke with. Well here we are today with climate change and all its family members of green house gases, ozone layers, volcanic ash, hurricanes, Tsunamis and all signs that Nature is really now against us.
With the preponderance of natural disasters all over the place, can we afford as humans to be creating our own disasters through wars, the depletion of our forests causing erosions. No it can only be foolhardy… we need to survive as human beings.
In all human endeavours, governance plays a very pivotal role. Back in Sierra Leone, Local Governance was reinstituted and is being taking shape gradually. It is now clear that people are coming to terms slowly but surely with the inadequacies and lapses that normally is characterised with politics any way. A Sierra Leone government from nineteen orugbor (to borrow from Emerson) has been riding on the back of Western Donors. Perhaps this is not that shameful after all other African countries are, and even some East European countries. Look, do not talk here about poverty, as Angelique Kidjo points out let us don’t use poverty to allow people to manipulate you.
It is quite interesting to read what the Statement of economic and financial Policies say. The document itself, a seemingly well-written one has the theme Confronting the Future. Well don’t blame me… I almost always quarrel with themes. Like this one. We have so much to confront just now…let the future wait. There are so many livelihood issues to address…infact it has always been like this whether it is government G, government R or government M, if you see what I mean!
The finance minister clearly says: despite such progress on implementation of the agenda for change, significant challenges still remain. Income per capita, life expectancy at birth, adult literacy rates, and the proportion of population with access to safe drinking water…are still low even by developing country standards. Current poverty levels…are still high and poverty remains widespread. High youth unemployment remains a major concern to government…
Current Economic and Financial policies as contained in the budget document that also stresses on good governance, peace and security as preconditions for achieving the strategic policies of the Agenda For Change.
The 2010 budget allocates Le9.5 Billion to the house of Parliament including Le5.4 Billion for constituency facilitation. This is quite remarkable for Parliament to have this whooping dough for constituency facilitation. But the question really is whether they really are in real touch with their constituencies with all the work they have to do in Freetown. This issue has really been a big one with constituents complaining that their MPs do not visit them, while the MPs for their part say that they don’t have the resources to frequently traverse the terrible roads.
Well this year, they have Le5.4 billion allocated for Constituency facilitation.
The expression itself needs to be explained to see whether it is developmental and empowering. We need perhaps to look at the local governance angle with all the talk about decentralization. Lest I forget as we talk about decentralization we should also be talking about deconcentration. I must say that a lot of functions are being devolved to Councils. Over the years we have seen quite a lot of progress in improving the district headquarter towns. A major issue to this end is roads within the cities and towns.
This involves building bridges and culverts. This brings to mind the ugly incidence in Goderich of flooding allegedly caused by the diversion made to allow for bridge work. The other angle is that a lot of people have build houses on very low lands even close to bridges. With climate change giving no notice to anybody, this spells potential disaster.
Talking about bridges in towns like Kabala is making very good strides to the admiration of all.
Like someone says, life is not about waiting for the storm to pass…it is about learning how to dance in the rain. Battles are for human beings and everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle. This is why we need to support each other in order to lessen the burdens of these battles.
The choices we make every day form part of how ready we are to face life’s battles. In this whole scenario, the human being seems firmly placed ahead of other animals. That is why the frowning of a goat does not prevent it from being taken to the market for sale.
Governance at the micro level in Sierra Leone is quite complex in the sense that different laws obtain. We have the customary laws which do not necessarily go in line with Western laws handed down to us at independence. This explains why we are bound to continue experiencing impasses among the various players. At the macro level devolving functions to the Local councils is a bitter pill to chew especially if a council is dominated by another party other than the one in power. The dynamics here is clearly not healthy for a young democracy.
As a nation to have a balanced economy we have to save, invest and export. Now do we save? The Creoles say that ee dae, ee nor do, ee do, ee nor oba. Do we invest? Well some people do not like taking the risk to invest. Well may be their fears are genuine. The playing field needs to be made even first. For export, that is the hardest angle. Recent trade policies though understandable, they have the potential of slowing growth in the area of export trade. Take the case of the timber export. We understand huge amounts of timber ready for export got caught up in the new regulations.
In the midst of all the seeming push and pull between the micro and macro levels of governance mutual complementarity and respectability becomes a very critical ingredient. The Central government’s devolution schedule should be clearly understood. Government needs to discuss whatever challenges exist so that councils at the micro level can adequately plan and estimate with precision. The councils have been in existence for some six years now and indeed challenges perhaps increase as progress gets in sight. But as they say, to get something you never had, you have to do something you never did.
Well the more the councils perform, the more we believe in this whole issue of decentralization. Obviously we are seeing great strides in some localities, although we still see some councils struggling to make a mark. In some cases the problem has been their sour relationship with the central government. Whichever way our compatriots look at their governance tasks they should remember that they should love people and use things… and not love things and use people.
By S. Beney SAM