December 10, 2021
By: Aruna Kamara (BO)
Talking Drum Studio Sierra Leone has held On –Air Town Hall meeting on the theme Strengthening relationships between citizens and local service providers to contribute to participatory and inclusive Governance. The Town Hall meeting will be held in Tonkolili, Bombali, Pujehun and Bo District from the 7-11 December, 2021.
Speaking at a town hall meeting in Bo on Wednesday, residents of Bo lauded the initiative of Talking Drum Studio for ensuring that the service providers including authorities from police, agriculture, education and Health among others to interface with them and to give them update about their action on service delivery.
Susan Tengbeh said “I am concerned about the health sector and it was good that TDS makes sure that other civil society activists engage the Bo Government Hospital to ensure that the reduction in the sale of drugs, particularly the free Health Care Drugs and the attitude of some nurses changed”.
While Janet Kargbo said “I am concerned about the reduction of crime rate in Bo as we are now seeing the police arresting criminals in Bo and we want that to continue and we will continue to engage the police on them”.
Tidankay Brima said that “they ministry of education should ensure that private lessons stop in the schools as teachers should be seen teaching their children during school hours but not engaged in extra classes where parents are asked to pay money, adding we enjoying free and quality education under the talk and do President Bio’s government.”
“The Ministry of Agriculture should ensure that there should not be late delivery of farm implements and areas that have been tilled and not planted rice on, they should ensure that it will not happen, particularly in Bumpeh”, she said.
The Deputy Director of the Ministry of Agricultures, Samuel Palmer said that their ministry has employed more extension workers and their volunteers now to monitor agricultural activities to ensure quality service is delivered.
He said that there has been policy shift now with the involvement of the private sector in agriculture and this will help in achieving food security in the country.
Tommy Macarthy said that this activity is an offshoot of the score cards in four sectors; Security, Education, Agriculture, and the health due to the gap identified in service delivery by the citizens.
Mr. Tommy explained that “duty bearers agreed to have an action plan to deliver on the gaps identified by the citizens and we are here in Bo to do a follow up on those actions set up by the duty bearers to see how far they have worked on their actions”.
According to him, to a large extent especially in the health sector we were pleased with the move taken by a Civil Society Activist Regiana Komba Kajue to ensure that the toilet in one of wards that was closed at the Bo Government Hospital has been opened and also other issues relating to allege sale of the free health care drugs has been stopped through her engagement with the hospital management and the District Health Management Team.
He also said that out of the feedbacks from the CSO and the citizens, there is improvement in the attitude of the nurses to the patients, which according to him is good for the health sector.
Mr. Macarthy said “we want to achieve inclusive governance, accountability at local level and that the voices of citizens are very key in service delivery. They want to see an open door system for the CSOs in for instance the delivery of the free health care drugs. We want to see the involvement of the citizens and CSOs in the delivery of learning materials to the school to ensure that it reaches the beneficiaries”.
He noted that “we will continue to follow up on the action of the duty bearers and we will be back next year to continue with the follow up.”
The Public Relations Officer of Civil Society in the Southern Region, Joseph Blackie, said that they had engaged the security on the bribery at the checkpoint and action has been taken to stop it and that they had the full cooperation of the Anti-Corruption Commission.
Mr. Blackie noted that they also engaged the liquidator of My Coin on the verification of customers to ensure that the money of the people are given back but has not happened.
Some residents including men of Bo who attended the meeting to verify the actions of the duty bearers commended Talking Drum Studio Sierra Leone for their follow up meeting in order to ascertain the implementation of the actions.