Sierra Leone: The Parliamentary Caucus Leader of the National Grand Coalition, Honourable Kandeh Kolleh Yumkella has said that government is continuity as no one government can transform this country without token cosmetic changes, without tribulation of efforts as indeed development is a cumulative process.
He said this while making his contribution on the final day on the debate of President Julius Maada Bio’s speech on Friday 2nd July 2021. “Our country is very under developed. It lacks so many things and so many critical institutions,” he maintained, stating that his suspicion is, that might be the reason President Bio in his speech in Parliament was asking everyone to redesign the pathway…”For this 60th anniversary of our nation’s independence, I propose that we re-design the pathway of our endeavor to build a Sierra Leone that works for all of us”.
The National Grand Coalition Caucus Leader further cited the President’s speech in paragraph four, second line…”We cannot forever be blinded by cosmetic and short term infrastructural and other tokens”.
This he explained is more the reason why they as politicians should help their people understand the fact that government is continuity as no one government can transform this country without token cosmetic changes, without tribulation of efforts as indeed development is a cumulative process.
Supporting his position that government is continuity, he cited the Mabang bridge project that was heavily negotiated by late President Kabba’s government and former President Ernest Bai Koroma sourced the funds and started the construction of the bridge which is still ongoing under the current SLPP government.
Hon. Kandeh Yumkella said that late President Kabba left blueprint on infrastructural development, which the government of former President Koroma endeavored to execute all of them, maintaining that “it is in the same spirit we would have loved President Maada Bio if at the moment now he is also accelerating the investment and implementation of infrastructure projects that were started and designed by the APC government of former President Koroma.”
He maintained that development is difficult and infrastructural development takes time to complete considering the processes involved from conception to visibility study, environmental impact assessment and until one does financial engineering for him to understand that the incubation period is sometimes very long.
Based on this he condemned the act of the Bio administration for throwing away most of the infrastructure projects started and designed by the previous government, this according to him is very wrong as they as politicians should educate the public that government is continuity.
According to him, it is true that the country is borrowing a lot as he had requested for officials from the Finance Ministry to come and explain to Parliament how much the country has borrowed and where the resources are going, adding that Parliament needs to check as the country have to repay the debt.
“The country’s debt burden is high. You can check with the Ministry of Finance, the World Bank and IMF,” he said, accepting that there is significant growth in the area of finance, “but you are growing fast you are not creating jobs, you are growing fast but your basic social services are appalling, it is still in this country that infant mortality rate is high, people can die in the hospital due to lack of clean drinking water and lack of enough oxygen.”
According to him the FAO and WFP are warning that Sierra Leone is one of the hungriest countries in the world, citing the 2020 IGR survey report that also said the number one problem in the country is hunger, maintaining it is incumbent upon them as politicians to work with the government to improve on the lives of the people.
On the area of education, he encouraged the government to do an in-depth and thorough review of the free quality education to know where to put more emphasis, disclosing that enrollment of more people into classrooms is one of the greatest achievement but if the quality is missing it will be a problem.’
Hon Kandeh disclosed that the trees are missing across the country due to serious timber logging, advising the government not to place an industrial investment in one of the country’s best tourism site, stating that the proposed fishing harbor should be relocated to another site and not Black Johnson beach. AMK/05/07/2021
