Novermber 3, 2021
The Honorable Vice President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh has on Tuesday October 26, 2021 engaged the Liberia House of Senate on governance systems and operations in Sierra Leone.
Addressing the members of the Liberia Senate, VP Juldeh Jalloh thanked His Excellency Dr. George Manneh Weah and his Vice President Mrs. Jewel Taylor, the government and the people of Liberia for the reception accorded him and his delegation since their arrival in Monrovia on the 22nd October, 2021. “During this period, I was able to meet with the Vice President Dr. Taylor and discussed a range of issues and also met with President Weah and had a very thorough discussion,” VP Juldeh Jalloh disclosed.
The purpose of the visit according to Vice President Jalloh is to demonstrate the renewed relationship between Liberia and Sierra Leone. He described the two presidents as young leaders that have delivered systematically and progressively and reiterated their commitments to strengthen the bilateral relationship between the two countries.
He highlighted some of the good governance strides government has made since President Bio took power in April 2018. VP Juldeh Jalloh said President Julius Maada Bio put together a team to help him deliver on his mandate as President of Sierra Leone.
He emphasized that in the New Direction manifesto, President Julius Maada Bio focused on human capital development, adding that the president believes that the right path to moving Sierra Leone out of poverty is to focus on the development of the human being. “As a government, we have dedicated 22% of our budget to education and today we have around 2.6 million kids in schools, fully supported by the government with school fees, teaching and learning materials, transportation and in some communities, food in order for them to acquire basic education,” he explained.
He added that President Bio separated the education ministries, with one responsible for basic and secondary education, and the other for technical and higher education. This, he furthered, was done to ensure they focus more on basic education to increase quality and access for the children of Sierra Leone. VP Jalloh stated that all Sierra Leonean children, devoid of their region, tribe or social or economic status of their families should have the right and access to quality basic education.
Dr. Jalloh explained that in the higher education ministry, government continues to progressively depoliticize university administrations so that these universities will be competitive, and meet the demands of the time, adding that they have created more technical universities. He divulged that the aim of these universities is to meet the requirements to provide for the socio- economic needs of the country.
“More importantly we are doing this to allow the universities themselves to see how technical education can perch into the development of the country,” he noted.
He said government met budgetary allocation to the health sector at 6% and raised it to 8% and now it is at 11.4%, noting however that this is below the Abuja declaration which states that African countries should dedicate 15% of their budget to health. “Yet still we have been able to make massive gains within that sector,” he averred.
Dr. Juldeh Jalloh disclosed that government has been able to recruit over four thousand health care workers to improve the human resource capacity. “In the last two years we have been focusing on maternal and infant health and the indicators clearly show that we are making progress,” VP Juldeh affirmed.
Vice President Jalloh said his office houses a unit that deals with health, which enables him to play a key role in how government monitors health inputs and outcomes. He maintained that it gives him clear insight of the health sector so that they can be able to address issues of governance and accountability systems in the health sector.
He revealed that government is undergoing reforms with hospital management and appealed for exchange training programs on hospital management with the Liberian government to enhance an effective hospital management in the health sector in Sierra Leone.
The Vice President said that government is making efforts in agriculture to reduce importation of food items by establishing the rice value chain in which the private sector is given the opportunity to play a key role in agriculture by establishing he agriculture transformation program 2020-2023.
He said government has provided four hundred agricultural machineries that are spread across all regions of the country to enhance mechanized farming. The management of these machineries, he went on, has been depoliticized to ensure that farmers get access to them in their various regions. He further explained that government has created a $50 million loan with the central bank with a lending rate of 6 to 7 percent to allow people in the food production, processing and supply business to access cash to improve their businesses.
In the productive sector, he mentioned that government identified key ministries and made very strategic choices in managing those ministries.
In that light, he continued, government has progressively reduced subsidy in the energy sector by bargaining for a reduced cost from 26 US cents per kilowatt to 16 US cents, and creating alternative energy sources for the country. Government is focused on taking the energy to a stage wherein they transition from utility energy to productive energy in order to encourage more investment in the country.
He mentioned that government now owns equities in mining companies, which was not the case before. He emphasized on the need for trade relationship between the two countries, encourage cultural exchange, create business corridor so that these two countries will benefit from exchange of goods and services in order to reduce dependency on outside importations.
Prior to the Senate engagement, the Vice President of the Republic of Liberia Dr. Jewel Taylor thanked the Honorable Vice President Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh for taking his time to bring knowledge of good governance strides of his country to the Liberian Senate and expressed hope that as a government and a country they will be able to replicate these measure to ensure they are able to address similar governance issues in Liberia.
The Liberia Senate presented a special gift of what they called a “tree of life” to Vice President Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh at the well of the Senate in Monrovia.