By: Abu-Bakaar Sheriff Esq
The Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) launched their ‘New Direction Manifesto’ otherwise known as the ‘People’s Manifesto’ in February 2018 in the Northwestern city of Port Loko, ahead of presidential and general elections in March of the same year. Speaking at the launching ceremony, then aspirant Brigadier Retired Julius Maada Bio said: “I promise a New Direction for Sierra Leone as a united, peaceful, progressive, dynamic, confident, enterprising and happy nation where people have unlimited access to jobs, food, education and health services and where there is equal justice and equal opportunity for all.”
He said his immediate priorities, if voted as president, would be development of human capital through the provision of free education and diversification of the economy, prudent management of state resources and respect for the rule of law.
The 96-page manifesto has five key thematic components: transforming the economy, human development, improving governance, improving infrastructure and financing the New Direction.
In this edition, we have set ourselves the task of assessing the gains made during five years of President Bio’s administration and to also look into the future in the premise of “Consolidating Gains and Accelerating Transformation” as espoused in the People’s Manifesto 2023.
Human Development
Human development was the key manifesto promise of aspirant Bio in 2018. According to the 2018 Manifesto, “Human capital development covers improving education and developing skills, improving health care, protecting the poor and vulnerable population groups.” It envisioned sustainable investment in quality education from primary to secondary through tertiary education. To achieve this lofty but achievable goal, the SLPP said it would revert from 6-3-4-4 to 6-3-3-4; implement the free quality education from primary to secondary level, thereby increasing access to education, develop a new National Education Policy and Action Plan. It further promised to increase government budgetary allocation and disbursement to education from below 15% to 20% of GDP in line with the Education for All (EFA) target; improving condition of teachers and increasing the number of qualified teachers, among a host of targets and deliverables.
In the area of health, the New Direction Manifesto promise was anchored on improving health to serve as a catalyst for “increasing productivity in agriculture, improving learning and teaching, child survival and development and reducing maternal mortality, increasing investment and savings.” It lamented that “Government expenditure on health as a percentage of total expenditure has never exceeded the 15% threshold under the Abuja Declaration. It was 11.4% in 2015 and was even less than 10% in 2016.” To overturn this, the manifesto promised to enhance governance in the health sector by improving capacity for health planning, management, monitoring and coordination, while increasing budgetary allocation to the sector “from its current level of less than 10% to 15% as required by the Abuja Declaration”. It further promised to expand coverage for free health care to not only children under-five years, pregnant women and lactating mothers but to include all school going children.
Another key manifesto promise was to empower youths, women and the disadvantaged. The document outlined how the youth would be empowered through technical and vocational skills training, the review and consolidation of the National Youth Service Scheme, and increased support to music and performing arts and sports, etc.
Furthermore, the manifesto promised to empower women, who constitute approximately 51 percent of the population, by consolidating legal reforms championed by the past SLPP administration by way of enacting laws such as the Domestic Violence Act, 2005 and the Devolution of Estate Act, 2007. This could be achieved by providing training and educational opportunities for women, free education to women pursuing the sciences, engineering and medical disciplines at university, and reviewing and enacting the minimum 30% Quota Bill which creates the chance for women to hold 30% of positions in elective and appointive positions, among others.
Verdict
This is unarguably the highest scoring area of the Bio administration. There are reportedly no fewer than two million beneficiaries of the free quality education; no fewer than 4,753 girls and women pursuing Science, Technology, Engineering, Agriculture and Mathematics (STEAM) in colleges and universities do not pay tuition fees.
The Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, under the astute leadership of Dr. Moinina Sengeh, has enunciated a new Education Policy, Action Plan and a National Policy on Radical Inclusion in Schools, the latter ensures pregnant girls are allowed to complete their education. The government expended 22% of the budget on the flagship Free Quality School Education in the last four years, paid school and exam fees for pupils in government and government assisted schools, provided core textbooks, teaching, and learning materials for children in 12,000 schools, provided sanitary pads to teenage girls in schools to enable them attend while on their menstrual cycle with dignity.
The government currently operates school buses which ferry pupils in public schools across the country at a cost-recovery rate, while school feeding programmes are operative in selected schools across the country. The positive strides in the education sector have significantly improved pass rate in public examinations and the concomitant increase in number of qualified candidates for admission into colleges and universities.
Teachers’ conditions of service have improved significantly in the past five years: salary increases have been effected three times in five years – 10% in 2019; 30% in 2020; and another 45% planned for in 2023-2025. Also, over 12,000 new teachers have been recruited and 25,000 trained, while 4,000 have been reassessed and placed on deserving pay grades.
In the area of policies, laws and regulations, the government enacted the Basic and Senior Secondary Education Act, 2023, Education Act, 2023, introduced the radical inclusion policy to allow pregnant girls, the disabled, and learners in remote areas to access education, and provided Grant-in Aid for sons and daughters of public school teachers who have served for at least ten years.
The gains made in education are manifold: enrolment rate across board is over one million new learners – a 37% increase between 2018 and 2022. Sierra Leone currently has the highest rate of girls completing primary education in West Africa, more students now take public exams – 79% increase between 2018 and 2022 – with an increased pass rate in public exams from 55% in 2018 to over 77% in 2022 in WASSCE, 81% in 2022 for NPSE, 87% in 2022 for BECE.
The successes in education have received international recognition and praise, the highpoint of which saw the United Nations Secretary-General requesting President Dr. Julius Maada Bio to co-chair a UN Education session, and the World Government Summit awarding the Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary Education as “Best Minister in the World”.
In addition to the myriad of achievements in human capital development is the appointment of Justice Miatta Samba to the International Criminal Court and the First Lady, Mrs. Fatima Maada Bio, to the Advisory Board of the Division for Multilateral Diplomacy of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).
Meanwhile, the Gender Empowerment Act, 2022 gives a ray of hope to women’s representation in all spheres of political and economic life.
Improving Governance
Under this rubric, the New Direction promised to building and enhancing national cohesion, fighting corruption and improving accountability, advancing rule of law, promoting justice and human rights, strengthening democratic institutions, constitutional reform and promoting press freedom.
Verdict
The current administration performed reasonably well by establishing institutions and strengthening existing ones: the Independent Commission for Peace and National Cohesion has been created to help foster peace and national cohesion by uniting the country’s myriad ethnic groups and diffusing ethno-regional tensions caused by political differences. Also, the National Council for Civic Education and Development educates the citizenry on civic duties and responsibilities. Civics is again part of the national schools’ curriculum.
The Anti-Corruption Commission, headed by Lawyer Francis Ben Kaifala, has grown in leaps and bounds. An amendment to the Anti-Corruption Act, 2019 gives the Commission more powers, including indicting in absentia persons alleged to have committed corruption offences, granting power to the High Court to order convicted persons pay full amount of monies misappropriated into the Consolidated Fund. Since June 2018, the Commission has recovered “over Thirty-four Billion Leones (Le34, 000,000,000),” says a source at the commission. The commission has also recorded more convictions than any time prior to 2018. As a result, Sierra Leone scored very highly in the ‘Control of Corruption’ Indicator in the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Scorecard: in 2022, the MCC awarded SL 79%, up from 49% under the previous APC regime. According to Afro Barometer in 2022, public perception of corruption in Sierra Leone has declined to 40 percent from 70 percent few years ago.
Under promoting justice and human rights, more judges and magistrates have been appointed and assigned to courts established in hitherto inaccessible areas such as Falaba, Karene and Kailahun.
In the area of press freedom, the obnoxious 1965 criminal libel law has been repealed, with the national journalist association receiving significant annual financial grant to support its administrative recurrent expenses.
Improving Infrastructure
The first issue to tackle here is energy poverty. In 2018, it was noted that, power generation and supply was below 100MW with less than 50 MW coming from the Bumbuna Hydro Electric Power Station in the North, 6MW from Dodo in the East and 2 MW from Charlotte in the West. Electricity was either erratic or unavailable in district headquarter towns in the country, except Makeni and Port Loko, in the north and northwest, respectively, which enjoyed almost 24 hours electricity daily. In a bid to ameliorate this energy malaise, the New Direction manifesto promised to restore electricity supply to all district headquarter towns, initiate a rural electrification programme, and connect towns and villages via off-grid stand-alone solar or mini-hydro schemes.
The manifesto further promised to improve transportation and safety of users of road, air and sea transportation. Under road transportation, it promised to construct sustainable roads and to help ease traffic in Freetown and cities across the country.
In addition, the document promised to water and sanitation across the county, through urban and rural interventions in water supply and sanitation.
Further, promises were made improve on information, communications and technology, land reform and environmental management.
Verdict
During past five years, significant gains have been made in fulfilling promises articulated under this head. Although there are still power outage and load shedding in Freetown, more communities have been joined to the national grid, while solar power has been installed in more rural communities. Accordingly, under the New Direction, Government has increased installed generation capacity from 105 MW in 2018 to 160 MW in 2023, increased renewable energy generation capacity to 35% from 10% in 2018, while 9 out of 16 district capitals have been connected to the national grid. Thus, the proportion of households with access to
electricity has increased to 31%, with electricity generation per capita now at 55 KWH, and transmission lines expanded to 740 km.
During the past five years, roads and bridges have been constructed and launched by President Bio, including the dual-carriage road linking west and east of Freetown, Bo-Jendema highway, Mabang Bridge, Gbere Bridge and pedestrian crossings at Wilberforce and Lumley in Freetown. Meanwhile, more township roads have been constructed and under construction in the provinces. In total, 46 Km of trunk roads and 250 Km of asphalt roads paved.
A brand new international airport has been built at Lungi as part of a public-private partnership agreement with Turkish group Summa, costing US$270 million.
Transforming the Economy
Prior to assuming the mantle of state governance in May 2018, the Ernest Bai Koroma administration declared a raft of austerity measures aimed at stabilizing the economy. Economic growth had slowed to 3.5% in 2018 from 3.8% in 2017.
According to the Economic Bulletin, published by the Ministry of Finance in 2018, “After almost two years of global economic expansion, reaching its peak of 4 percent in 2017, global growth lost some of its expansionary momentum in 2018, falling from 3.8 percent in the first half to 3.2 percent in the second half of 2018. This slow-down in global economic activity was associated with the weakening of international trade and investment, the escalation of trade tensions between the US and China, and the tightening of global financial conditions.” Economic growth at the time was “subdued slightly below the global economic growth of 3.6 percent but higher than the Sub-Saharan average of 3.0 percent.” The slow economic growth of 3.5 percent was attributed to weak performance in the mining sector as well as contraction of construction sub-sector. However, there was growth in the non-iron ore economy at 5.4% due to the increase in non-iron ore mining activities, normalisation of agricultural activities and expansion in the service sector, according to the Economic Bulletin. Inflation rose from 14.5 percent in January to a peak of 19.3 percent in October, before moderating to 17.5 percent in December 2018. This was blamed on the effect of depreciation of the Leone, liberalisation of domestic fuel prices and food-related supply shocks. Annual inflation averaged at an estimated 16.6 percent, lower though, compared to 18.2 percent recorded in 2017. The budget deficit was said to have shrunk from 8.8 percent of GDP in 2017 to 5.8 percent of GDP in 2018, while domestic revenues increased to 13.7 percent of GDP in 2018 from 12.3 percent of GDP in 2017, as Government expenditures were contained at 21.5 percent of GDP compared to the budgeted amount of 23.5 percent of GDP. The trade deficit, though, widened to 14.6 percent of GDP in 2018 from 14.5 percent of GDP in 2017 mainly due to significant drop in exports, especially iron ore, following halt in mining activities. Concomitantly, gross international reserves decreased from US$501 million (equivalent to 3.7 months of imports) in 2017 to US$ 483 million (3.6 months of imports) in 2018.
The official exchange rate of the Leone to the US Dollar depreciated by 11.9 percent, from Le7,537 per USD at the end of December 2017 to Le 8,396 per USD at the end of December 2018. The total public debt (external plus domestic) stood at Le19.01 trillion (USD2.24 billion) at the end of December 2018, representing 58.7 percent of GDP compared to 53.7 percent of GDP in 2017. External debt amounted to Le13.35 trillion (US$1.57 billion), accounting for 70.3 percent of total public debt and 38.6 percent of GDP. Domestic debt amounted to Le 5.66 trillion (US$665.57 million), accounting for 29.8 percent of total public debt and 22.2 percent of GDP.
In a bid to transform this poor economic outlook, the New Direction Manifesto promised to prioritised revenue mobilization and increase it from the 2018 figures of “11.1% of GDP to 20% of GDP within 3 years and to build a fair,
transparent and accountable tax system that promotes investment and growth;” improve on public expenditure management; public debt management; and exchange rate management.
Private sector growth and development was also promised together with a policy of Sierra Leone first in job creation and support to businesses via increased access to finance, reduction on costs and risk of doing business, promoting local entrepreneurship and capacity building and developing infrastructure.
The 2018 manifesto further promised to strength the financial sector. The sector has 14 local banks, with a 75 percent foreign ownership. Emphasis was placed on capacitating the central bank – which regulates and supervises commercial banks – to enhance their capacity and ensure commercial banks are well regulated.
Boosting local agriculture was identified as trigger for economic growth. The 2018 manifesto recognised agriculture as “a mainstay of the economy” contributing to half of the country’s GDP and employing 60 percent of the population. To actualise this, it promised to increase investment in agriculture by allocating 10 percent of the budget to the sector, in accordance with the Maputu Declaration. It also promised to increase food and cash crop production, improve livestock production, water and land management, and governance and research in the agriculture sector.
The 2018 manifesto strived to improve management of mineral resources. The sector reported contributes “about 24% to GDP and over 80% to export earnings” but performs below its potential, on average of 15% of total revenue, it noted. The SLPP in opposition vowed to review the Mines and Minerals Act, 2009 and re-align it with the Mining Policy and international best practice. It again promised to ensure transparency in the sector known for murky deals that have perennially shortchanged the country and kept resource-rich communities deprived.
Other areas under the economy the 2018 manifesto sought to improve are: oil and gas exploration, management of marine resources, and tourism sector.
Verdict
The New Direction administration initially recorded gains in this sector, but the tripartite effects of an underperforming global economy, Covid-19 and its impact of global supply chain, and the Russo-Ukrainian war upended those gains.
According to the World Bank, “Sierra Leone’s post-pandemic recovery was disrupted by concurrent domestic and external shocks, exacerbating existing macro-fiscal vulnerabilities. Inflation and exchange rate depreciation reached record levels, depressing economic activity, and triggering a severe cost-of-living crisis. Fiscal accounts have deteriorated due to macroeconomic headwinds and policy slippages, and risks to debt sustainability have intensified.”
The Bank noted that: “Estimated GDP growth for 2022 has been revised downwards to nearly 3%, marking a reversal of the encouraging rebound observed in 2021, when GDP grew by 4.1% following a 2% contraction in 2020. Headline inflation averaged 27% in 2022 compared to 12% the previous year. Despite a decrease in global food and fuel prices, inflation worsened due to the depreciation of the Leone (60% during 2022) and loose fiscal policies. The redenomination of the Leone has not helped ameliorate a rather dire economic situation.”
However, the Bank projects that the economy would “grow at 3.8% on average during 2023–25, below its long-term average” but in the hope that results would be achieved in the government’s efforts to restore macro stability through fiscal discipline and prudent monetary policy; continued expansion of iron-ore mining operations; and some modest easing of inflationary pressures. The answer to restoring the economy back to its pre-pandemic state is ‘fiscal discipline”.
Future Prospect
The future looks is bright, evidenced by the trajectory this current administration has carved under five years, notwithstanding tough economic conditions globally and local ramifications. According to respected local civil society organisation Institute for Governance Reform, the Bio-led administration was able to complete 79.9 percent of 536 manifesto promises made in 2018.
No doubt buoyed by this impressive pass mark, the governing SLPP has launched another manifesto ahead of the 24 June elections, dubbed: “The New Direction: Consolidating Gains and Accelerating Transformation”. The 118 document catalogues the achievements of the governing party during five years, following what it refers to as “A Steep Climb from Eleven Years of Mismanagement”.
In the next five years post June 24, the party envisions significant improvement in human capital development, massive infrastructure development, improved governance, and transformed economy, while leading through external shocks. The road to success in the next five years would be anchored on five main initiatives: Feed Salone, Human Capital Development, Youth Employment Scheme, Revamping the Public Service and Tech and Infrastructure.
