APC Government Needs Reality Check

Following Sierra Leone President’s Town Hall Meeting in New York City, SLPP New York Chapter Says APC Government Needs Reality Check; Urges Less “Spin”

NEW YORK, NY, USA – The New York Chapter of the Sierra Leone’s People’s Party – North America is compelled to issue this press release in the wake of President Koroma’s town hall meeting with Sierra Leoneans in New York City on September 20, 2009. What our Chapter members had anticipated would be an open, honest, and meaningful conversation with the leader of our nation can only be described as a pep rally for the ruling APC party. While we had expected that the Government might use the occasion to roll out a laundry list of “accomplishments” to embellish its record as it celebrates its second anniversary in office, we were utterly dismayed by the President’s silence on a number of critical challenges the country currently faces. Clearly, the Government deliberately steered clear of sensitive issues such as the increasing crime rate and insecurity in the country, gender-based violence, youth unemployment and egregious examples of high-level corruption such as the Income Electrix energy contract and the NASSIT ferry deal, which apparently have escaped the attention of prosecutors despite the Government’s vaunted “zero-tolerance” policy.  

Our Chapter is particularly appalled that in the same week the Commission investigating the recent episode of political and gender-based violence in Freetown submitted findings seriously indicting the police force, the President did not see it fit to mention, let alone address, this important matter during his address at the town hall meeting. This is simply inexcusable given the fact that during the very same week, a police unit on the outskirts of the capital stood accused of firing live ammunition at youths ironically protesting police misconduct, killing at least three of them and wounding many more.

In addition to the President’s shocking failure to address these key issues of concern to Sierra Leoneans during the meeting, there were obvious distortions and blatant manipulation of facts. Among several others, the most glaring in this regard was the President’s glib statement – devoid of any relevant statistics or references – that the Government had reduced infant mortality during its two years in office. Such a cavalier pronouncement is an affront to the countless number of Sierra Leonean women and young girls who must contend with the most inadequate healthcare services anywhere in the world as well as the infant and maternal mortality rates that are among the worst, as corroborated by an Amnesty International report out within days of the town hall meeting, which referred to the situation in Sierra Leone as a “human rights emergency.”

If anything can be deduced from the President’s address at the town hall meeting, surely it’s that the current Government has no qualms about denying reality if in doing it improves the public’s perceptions about its stewardship of the nation; or, worse, the address could simply be seen as another clear sign that the Government truly does have a hard time distinguishing fact from fantasy. Either way, by resorting to pure spin rather than frank talk at the meeting, the Government squandered a golden opportunity to engage the very people it was elected to serve in constructive dialogue on the most pressing issues on their minds.

The SLPP New York Chapter therefore implores the Government to understand that its penchant for spin is eroding its credibility at this crucial time for our country. What a country needs at a time of crisis such as now is a government it can trust: a government that is willing to acknowledge and tackle head-on all of the problems of the day and not a government that merely wishes them away.Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!

SLPP, New York, USA

© 2009, https:. All rights reserved.