APC Government: Focus on Good Governance and Poverty Alleviation not Town Meetings
WASHINGTON, DC: The Sierra Leone People’s Party in North America (SLPPNA) politely rejects the invitation of the representative of the Open Governance Initiative (OGI) to a meeting with the President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma in New York.
The Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) headed by the chairman and leader, John Oponjo Benjamin, has, in several monthly press briefings and other media, been continually raising issues about national reconciliation, bad governance, increasing poverty, and corruption which continue unabated. Impunity, bung contracts, nepotism, and raw corruption are on the increase. The All People’s Congress (APC) government of President Ernest Bai Koroma has consistently refused to deal openly, urgently, and fairly with any of those issues in a way that serves the best interests of all Sierra Leoneans. Unemployment and poverty are pervasive and intractable, according to the September 20, 2010 United Nations (UNIPSIL) report. The latest International Monetary Fund report highlights a gloomy financial forecast as inflation is set to increase while extra-budgetary spending by this APC government increases. The call by a British government official on the mining sector, and the call of international and national civil society organizations on pressing governance issues are ignored. Instead of precipitously prosecuting high profile cases of corruption, the APC government is undermining the integrity of state institutions through discriminatory hiring and firing, and creating kangaroo inquests with the specific intent of targeting the SLPP leadership.
The SLPPNA leadership wishes to restate the SLPP’s position as stated by the chairman and leader, John Benjamin, that open government is not about flowery speeches, half-truths, and a continued refusal to work collaboratively with all Sierra Leoneans. We also wish to re-state internationally recognized tenets of open government that governance must be transparent, participatory, and collaborative. The APC government must immediately, and without preconditions, table the Freedom of Information Bill, relax public disclosure procedures, and work collaboratively with every Sierra Leonean irrespective of tribe and region.
Finally, we believe that instead of a stage-managed talking shop in New York, thousands of miles away from those who are feeling the brunt of the APC’s three years of closed, hegemonic, and bigoted governance, President Koroma should be engaging all stakeholders in Sierra Leone on how to deal with the numerous preventable problems that continue to bedevil the country simply because his government refuses to practice open governance in Sierra Leone. Charity, as the saying goes, must begin at home. Finally, we respectfully request that the share of the funds that will be spent by the APC government to wine and dine after the OGI talk-shop be used to start a micro-credit loan scheme for unemployed and hungry youth in Sierra Leone. Hungry and suffering Sierra Leoneans in Sierra Leone (rather than Sierra Leoneans residing in North America) are the ones who need a frank conversation with the APC government about why they have been suffering for the last three years.
SLPP-NA
Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!
© 2010, https:. All rights reserved.
Foday Bangura
/
All these issues of concern stated in this article could have been raised at the town hall meeting, instead you chose to ignore the invitation and stay at home. Well it’s your loss and for your information, the Open Government Initiative has been going around the country engaging regular Sierra Leoneans in such town hall style meetings.
26th September 2010yankay seisay
/
SHAME ON YOU PIPELINE PARTY. You will surely remain in the wilderness . preaching what you never practiced in the first place . Fool your people because they are the only ones that need’s reminding about your 11 years failure rule . Now you have reduce your party to sabotage party . Losing credibility as an opposition party. This is what am always talking about your arrogance which you show during your failed reign in power . Are you trying to say you lot are so elite that you can not dwell with ordinary folks in north America who are not putting personal interest first to discuss issues of national interest in front of our blessed ruler. Even now that you are busy spinning international institution information for the benefit of your followers the present government of EBK (God bless him)is busy receiving admiration and praises from all corners of the world for the gaint challenges he is taking for his country right now . SLPP looted SL donors money modern any government combined in the history of that country . Shame on you that instead of accepting the deliberate mistake or prejudice practices you implement in the country , you lot are busy fooling your people. Truly I believe not all of them will be fooled by your tribal nemesis anymore . Because they have eyes to tell the different between a spade and a shovel . If SLPP think they can manupilate EBK like they did to Tejan kabba then think again because EBK is a different BREED an our loyalty to his practical development thinking is not negiatable. How many cockroaches did SLPP catch during there campaign for corruption in Sierra Leone ?. Why are so many southerners in all the offices and institution in the country ? what was the motive behind the mendelisation of everywhere and everything in the country? We are sensing the frustration and the reason for sabotaging the EBK regime because there are no new policies in the SLPP agenda. For SLPP 2012 is sacred because they want to unleash the dragon,kamajor and sobels . Well we are not troubled at all. We will contain them and business will be normall believe it or not it will be .
26th September 2010Joe
/
Mariama Sesay, Germany.
Yousuf, sometime is really wrong with Koroma and his APC. A President who dismises people from their jobs because they are from a particular region in the Country is not a person to talk to sorry. Even NPRC did not do half of what APC is during now in power.
26th September 2010Yousuf
/
This article shows just how backward you are as a party. What is wrong with the President meeting with and discussing with his people while he is in New York. It is not like he came here for that specific reason, he came here to attend the UN general assembly and as a forward thinking president decided to use the opportunity to talk to his people residing in the USA. We know you guys never for once in your past 11 year misrule thought about that, but President Koroma is a different president who thinks about the welfare of his people wherever they may be.
25th September 2010