THE COURIER
By: Mohamed M. Sesay (Lucky)
Divided political sentiments have been the perennial tug of war among our elected representatives especially when it comes to people centered bills such as the Mid Term Census Bill, the Cybercrime Bill, and the current 2022 Public Elections Bill. However, the generality of the Sierra Leonean population was not only dumbfounded but equally bemused, realizing that such a cat and rat alike relationship in our House of Parliament, could be firmly united over a Private Member Bill entitled Parliamentary Welfare Act of 2022.
This unprecedented unification among our elected Members of Parliament over the 2022 Parliamentary Welfare Bill, taking into cognizance of the current global economic stagnation, got the public in their pensive mood whether the Fifth Session of the Fifth Parliament of the Second Republic of Sierra Leone is indeed the people’s Parliament. Over the years under different governments, boycotts and walking out of Parliamentary Proceedings have become a common phenomenon, particularly over bills they perceived to be against their political credos.
The most recent is the decision of the main opposition to stand aloof from taking part in the debate of the 2022 Public Elections Bill with a phobia that the Proportional Representation (PR System) in the aforesaid bill is politically disadvantageous to them.
For the edification of the public as to what gratified and united our seemingly divided Parliament, the Courier would love to bring some content to the 2022 Parliamentary Welfare Bill. The Fifth Parliament justifying the Welfare Bill, premised their unified decision on section 74 subsection (4) of the 19991 constitutions, that the bill determines the salaries and other conditions of service for the speakership, Leadership, clerkship, Members of Parliament and other related matters.
Sections 2 subsection (1) of the Welfare Bill provides that the salary and conditions of service for the Speaker shall be the same as the Vice President of Sierra Leone. Subsection (2) of section 2 also provides that the salary of the Deputy Speaker shall be the same as that of the Chief Justice. Section 2 of subsection 3 equally provides that the salaries and conditions of Service for Members of Parliament shall be the same as Government Ministers. And subsection 4 of section 2 also provides that the salary of the Clerk of Parliament shall be the same as that of the Solicitor General.
Section 3 subsection (1) of the same bill provides $15,000 (Fifteen thousand United States Dollars) as Medical Allowance for Members of Parliament. Fascinatingly enough, the aforementioned Medical allowance shall also cover the Spouse of any Member of Parliament and three children under the age of eighteen years.
Section 5 subsection (1) provides for vehicle allowance for Members of Parliament for $25,000 (twenty-five thousand United States Dollars for every Member of Parliament. And section 5 subsection 2 made provision for 45 liters of fuel to be given to Members of Parliament weekly and shall be accumulatively payable quarterly. These are the major areas in the Parliamentary Welfare Bill. Nobody expects a sitting Member of the Fifth Session of the Fifth Parliament to go against this bill hence it seeks to address their ballooned welfare. But equally so, constituents may want to see their elected representatives in a lavishly comfortable living conditions but lip service was paid to due consideration of the current economic strangulation of the country.
It has ever been the wish of the people to see that kind of undying unification among Members of Parliament towards the welfare bill, be replicated in other people-centered bills such as the Mid-Term Population and Housing Census and the current 2022 Public Elections bill. That unification became even deeper and cordial when the Leader of Government Business Hon. Mathew S. Nyuma sounded that they owe no apology to the public for enacting a law that seeks to address their welfare. That no apology syndrome to the public was equally re-echoed by the Deputy Leader of the Main Opposition Hon. Ibrahim Ben Kargbo. What a fine parliament on Parliamentary Welfare Bill.
This spirit was absconded when a Presidential Proclamation was made for the conduct of the Mid-Term Housing and Population Census. The Bintumani Parliamentary Session was merged with a dishonorable debate coupled with atavistic fisticuff among Members of Parliament. The next adjourned date for the debate left the opposition with no alternative but to boycott and walk out of the proceedings. Now the same divided approach towards national bills has resurfaced during the current debate of the 2022 Public Elections Bill just to gratify one’s political interest ignoring the national interest.
The bone of contention in the 2022 Public Elections Act is Proportional Representation otherwise known as the PR System. The main opposition All People’s Congress Party is vehemently against the PR System with a perceived credo that the PR System could be very disadvantageous to their political party. On the other side of the pendulum, the Sierra Leone People’s Party is in a celebratory mood for the PR System with justifiable reasons that the PR System is cost effectively in terms of election financing.
J.H. Nagel’s Social and behavioral Science defines Proportional Representation (PR) as an electoral system designed to approximate the ideal of proportionality in converting citizens’ votes into legislative seats adding that, All PR systems require multimember constituencies. The degree to which a PR scheme approaches proportionality increases with the number of representatives elected per constituency.
Benjamin Forest also in his International Encyclopedia of Human Geography refers to the PR System as the most common electoral system in the world. He said the PR System attempts to translate the proportion of votes for a particular party into the same proportion of seats in the elected assembly. Typically, parties establish a list of candidates who win seats in proportion to the number of votes the party receives. For example, in a parliament with 200 open seats, a party receiving 50% of the vote would place the first 100 candidates on its list in the assembly. All proportional systems, however, have limitations. The total number of contested seats determines the minimum percentage of votes required to elect a representative. So in brief, this is what Proportional Representation means as defined above by J.H. Nagel and Benjamin Forest.
It is fascinating to note that the PR System is the major tug of war among our elected representatives. Other articles or clauses in the bill such as the 30% safe seat for women and dual citizenship are issues that are harmoniously debated by all sides in the house. Just after the second reading of the bill by the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, the unanimous voice was echoed by Members of Parliament that they will not allow dual citizens to come and contest elections with them. They even went further to say that if they are to allow dual citizens to contest parliamentary elections, then the same right must be given to them to contest Presidential elections because the same qualification to run for Presidency is the same qualification provided in the 1991 constitution to run for Parliamentary Elections.
The crux of this antecedent Paragraph means that, whenever there is an uncontrollable controversy on a particular bill, depicts that such bill has been internally
Interpreted and digested to have favored one political party and disadvantaged another. In the same vein, whenever there is admirable unification among our elected Members of Parliament over a bill means that personal aggrandizement is attached to such bill. This is evident in the Welfare Bill, Mid Term Census Bill, and the 2022 Public Elections Act among others.
To avoid a skewed interpretation of this edition, I would like to reiterate that nobody is against better conditions of Service for our elected Representatives. What is not right here is the untimeliness of the bill taking into consideration of the country’s economic instability. Even worse when this leaked Parliamentary Welfare Bill came out days after teachers threatened to strike for better conditions of service.
The excuse from Members of Parliament that their salary is abysmal to that of other lawmakers in the sub-region is true and is a cause for concern. However, also salaries for teachers, nurses, doctors, and other public and private sector workers are also appalling to those in other jurisdictions.
The question now is, does the Bio Government financially stable to increase salaries and provide better conditions of service across all board amidst this economic global predicament? Thus, the leaked Parliamentary Welfare Bill has been perceived by the public that the bill just incited other sectors to also demand better conditions of service. It is complete sabotage it has also created grounds for Medical Doctors to issue a notice of strike if the government fails to improve their conditions of service.
