February 5, 2021
By: James Kamara-Manneh
President Dr. Julius Maada Bio has awarded the Ministry of Finance headed by Jacob Jusu Saffa as the best Ministry for 2020.
Two other top-performers, Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education and the National COVID 19 Emergency Response Center NaCOVERC were recognized and awarded by the President, 4th February 4 February 2021.
The assessment was done by Chief Minister Professor David John Francis, whose office serves as the delivery unit of the New Direction Government of President Dr. Julius Maada Bio. Essentially, the OCM supports the implementation of government businesses across MDAs and ensures that they deliver results.
The President emphasized that the exercise was meant to motivate and inspire each MDA to go beyond their job details in adding value to their deliverables that impacts the national development agenda.
“This is an annual event and I want to be able to give awards to every Ministry here next year. Your challenge is to make it impossible for me to recognize just a few outstanding performances.
“Let me also congratulate each of us and collectively as a Government for taking the bold step to self-assess. We believe it helps us identify what else we must do to accelerate our pace of development and service delivery as a nation,” the President said.
President Bio noted that the awards were not personal scorecards on ministries or on individual competence, adding that every minister and ministry, by and large, had met the benchmark for performance and delivery.
“These are value-free assessments that recognize three things: That delivery is time-bound and we must each provide the leadership to deliver that accelerated change we have promised; that there is no common parameter for judging all MDAs but there are benchmarks we have promised, and we can meet and achieve; and that the slow starters can be the fastest finishers and the fast starters (those who receive the awards today) be not be the best finishers after all,” he said.
The President added: “2020 was a very difficult and challenging year, with the outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic and the negative economic and financial impact on every country in the world. But the challenges of 2020 brought out the best in us as a government,” he observed.
The Chief Minister further disclosed that the New Direction Government showed that they had made impressive progress with 29 out of the 38 manifesto commitments delivered or at an advanced stage of delivery.
He added that the most recent was the restart of the constitutional review process and the acceptance by President Bio of the Justice Cowan CRC recommendation to abolish the death penalty.
“So, today the Death Penalty is abolished in Sierra Leone. Your Excellency, we ended the difficult year of 2020 with Sierra Leone receiving international recognition and global accolade for the quality of your leadership and the performance of your government. The American Government’s CDC praised Sierra Leone as 1 of 4 countries in Africa that has managed the coronavirus pandemic response well and the American Government’s Millenium Challenge Compact confirmed that Sierra Leone is now eligible for the MCC Compact worth nearly a half a billion dollars,” he said.
