Weekly message from Mohamed K Mansaray
February 15, 2014. – This movement is built on the willingness of fellow citizens to take ownership of our nation and make a difference for the betterment of Sierra Leone. This campaign is about you and our country. Anything great and worthwhile takes time to build — whether a house, a career, or a nation. In exchange for commitment, sacrifice, dedication and patience, you will be part of something larger than yourself, something that matters for our people and country.
Right now, if you go to the market and just look, the absurdity of our situation is bound to hit you. We allow our fruits to rot and import fruit juice. With my government, God willing, will give new impetus to value-addition. My message to the youth of today, is, if we start preparing now, by transforming our education, our skill-sets and our economy, we will transform forever your lives and that of generations yet to come.
We have to modernise our agriculture and process our agricultural products. A major plan of our agricultural policy will be to achieve food self-sufficiency. Both commercial and small-scale farmers will be supported to improve their output and develop their business.
I believe that, beyond a competent, incorruptible leadership, the best instrument for achieving economic transformation is the private sector. We shall vigorously assist all our enterprises, especially small and medium scale ones, both in the formal and informal sectors, to grow – by helping them gain access to credit, technology and markets. Much greater attention will be paid to indigenous and local businesses to expand and create jobs for our young men and women. Sierra Leone businesses will play the lead role in public procurement. The tax systems will be restructured to promote growth in the private sector. Policies will be introduced that will encourage banks to support the transformation & prosperity agenda. We will strengthen the regulatory bodies to do the job of protecting consumers and improving standards. We will empower Sierra Leoneans to do the job of transforming Sierra Leone. We will make Sierra Leone the place to do business, and make businesses in Sierra Leone globally competitive. We shall forge a strong partnership with organized labour to achieve this. This is how we will create the hundreds of thousands of jobs for which the young people of our country are yearning. This is the only way to break the hand to mouth existence and free our people to aspire to greater heights. We can do it.
All of this requires a support infrastructure. Power cuts, lack of water, poor transportation, bad drainage and poor sanitation all affect business, frustrate lives and hold us back.
We will do this by managing government resources and projects efficiently and attracting substantial capital from the private sector – in public-private partnership initiatives. Our infrastructure programme includes to build on President Koroma’s development of roads and airports. We will also improve our water supplies, sanitation, railways, ports and our plan to triple the irrigation of arable land and to complete a nationwide fibre optic backbone to facilitate effective and efficient access. Critical to all this will be a dramatic expansion and supply of reliable power to support the transformation agenda.
Effective leadership is about having a vision and the knack to create a dynamic, innovative and competent team, to implement plans designed to transform the lives of the people.
I have a clear vision of where I want to take Sierra Leone and a detailed road map of how to get there. But in order to make the journey I, humbly, need you, fellow Sierra Leoneans to make a decisive choice and join this movement to develop our country.
Together, we will transform Sierra Leone and use all the blessings that the Almighty has bestowed on us to bring prosperity to our people and nation.
God bless you.
May God continue to bless and protect the land that we love our country Sierra Leone.
Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!
© 2014, https:. All rights reserved.
