APC: four years on!
The ruling All Peoples Congress (APC) party has just celebrated four years of ruling a country with a chequered history, a war battered economy, weak infrastructure, including a poor energy sector, but a relatively stable foreign exchange base with a low inflationary rate, etc.
Upon assumption of office in 2007, President Ernest Bai Koroma (photo) excitedly lavished promises on his people, saying he will turn this country round so that Sierra Leoneans of diverse background would seize of the opportunity in order to realize their fullest potential.
More job opportunities were to be provided for all and sundry, the quality of health and education revamped while ordinary Sierra Leoneans would go about their daily businesses undisturbed and unmolested.
This was in 2007. Four years on, individual Sierra Leoneans inside and outside the country have been given their personal assessment of Ernest Koroma’s rule in four years. Some have rated his government high in the governance index while others have dismissed his rule as dismally poor, depending on which side of the political divide one belongs.
We at Sierra Express Media have never compromised our objectivity and fairness as we remain firmly independent without being answerable to a political class.
In the giving circumstance, therefore, we cannot wholly condemn the four-year rule of the APC as being dismal, neither are we obliged to rate the government higher than the ordinary.
In other words, we are safe to say that President Koroma has his low and high while steering the ship of state through troubled waters.
Indeed, we totally agree with the view that in four years President Koroma has succeeded in maintaining the peace that former President Kabbah and his SLPP government gave to the people of this country when the ex-president officially declared the rebel war over in 2002.
There might have been violent clashes here and there during these four years, mainly between supporters of the ruling APC and the main opposition SLPP, but the fact there has been no outbreak of an outright war or a resumption of hostilities, the magnitude of the eleven year war that tore this country apart, the president deserves a pat on the back.
Take the issue of energy or electricity in particular; the supply in the capital could not have been regular as expected but the current supply is a marked improvement from what obtained before 2007. Politics aside, there is some encouraging signs of improvement in this sector.
Much has been said about the President’s free health care initiative. It seems the government has been basking in public approval of the initiative but one year on the main beneficiaries are beginning to register their frustration over the absence of essential drugs in government hospitals across the country.
We are constrained to mention any improvement in agriculture, giving the unprecedented cost of locally produced foodstuffs in the market, notwithstanding the much talked about 300 tractors brought into the country to boost farming.
As a matter of fact, it came as a shock to many Sierra Leoneans when they heard that in the midst of 300 tractors and after four years in office, the APC government has to go cap in hand to a neighbouring country, Guinea to shamelessly request or rather beg a few bags of rice to replenish the home stock.
Like the Agriculture minister keep boasting, we don’t expect this government to beg another poor neighbour for its survival.
We cannot say much for education; the less we comment on our dwindling educational standards the better. So are other infrastructures such as roads which the government keeps saying it has scored high grade in that sector.
But the road users have their own opinion on the self-proclaimed success in the road sector. However, depending on who one talks to, the president has scored high and low points in the governance of this country after four years in office.
This leaves the question whether the president deserves a second term or not?
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babsonkolleh
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ADE, Your articles are always worth reading. I wish I could sit with. you and disccuss about the few questions you have asked.
23rd September 2011Very brief -1) Drugs for pregnant women and under 5’s children in Sierra Leone. Few months ago some unscruplous Sierra leoneans were arrested smuglling our meagre drugs accross our waters to neighbouring countries- Is that not total sabotage and enemies of progress.
2)Electricity- Bumbuna is a seasonal thing- it is more effective during the rainy season. Plans are underway for generators to be commissioned as back -up.
3) 300 tractors for agriculture but alas! Saboteurs are at work. these machines are mis-used, manhandled at the detriment of the poor farmers who borrowed these tractors for a period and at the end no effective work is carried and the poor farmers will have to back to their local farming skills. then who cares. This is the typical Sierra leonean at work and at the end no good or bumper harvest gained.(back to zero).
3)Infrasructure- As you can see the roads and other consructions projects are still underway. We have to be patience.There has never been a thought of regenerating those roads by any Govt, though I overheard about pipeline projects that was in parliament by 2006. Back to your concluding question- DOES OUR PRESIDENT DESERVE A SECOND TERM? It is a “BIG YESS”. 4 or 5 years is not enough for this great leader to accomplish his mission, he even deserves a three term. lET’S BE PATIENCE. and WHO THE CAP FIT MUST WEAR IT.