First_Name: Shykh
Last_Name: Tunis
Email_Address: [email protected]
Address: 185 Parkhill ave apt 5q
City: staten island
State: NY
Zip_Code: 10304
Comments:
What can we do?
We can help rebuild Salone…
We have given up on our politicians, because they all have failed us. Their failure had been explained in different ways. Excuses such as the mantle of political leadership was handed over to unprepared and untrained locals, the country was not ripe for political independence, to sabotage by remnant of APC politicians that never seizes to be in any government since it was dismantled in 1992.
These flimsy or inexcusable excuses may have some merits or not, but fact remain constant; deep-rooted disappointment, hate and disgust for politicians. We wake up everyday hopping for a miracle to change our deplorable and miserable conditions. Many have resolved that we are curse nation, some have lost fate, other just don’t know what to expect from Sierra Leone and many more don’t believe we will ever progress. I will say to that all is not lost, “once there is life there is hope”. What we need to do now is to redirect and refocus Sierra Leone to a progressive path. It is still possible to move away from decadence to modernity, we can escape Armageddon by properly shifting our energy to progressive change.
We have focus too much attention on politicians and political solutions to our national problem and forget the other solutions. Politicians are the only one that need to monitor and change. There are other major players who are as responsible as politicians and therefore they also must get our attention. We can redirect our energy to other spheres and solution to resolve and advance our national goal. It is true that politicians are the main custodian and promulgators of our national agenda, just as it is true that they are there for a specific period (now that we are practicing votocracy). Sierra Leone problem is manifold and no single solution is the best and the only.
It is not my intention to explain or defend the ineptness of our political leaders nor am I shifting blame away from them, I am only looking at the other people involve in the quagmire. We have tried time and again to punish our leaders and get result out of them but to no avail; when we change politicians and political situation in the country. I am also not reminding Pa Kaba and his predecessors that they have failed, nor admonishing his successors that they are bound to fail, these people already know they are failures. So what I am trying to do is to awaken some interested friends to reverse the economic, social and political regression. What can we do to stop the retreat?
Exposing the wanton economic and political mismanagement and misconduct is just the first crawl of baby progress, and the press have mastered that, they have been doing that forever. Yet the looting and disgrace condition go unabated. Coup plots was not the mosses or the savior we expected, it also added to our deplorable plight and contributed to our flight away from economic and political development . The civil war did not help either, it plunged us into fifty or more years of hardship and erased whatever little progress we have had since 1961. The war helped to place us at the bottom of world human index.we are the least developed nation in the world.
The amazing thing about us (sierra Leoneas) is We did not learn from any thing that we have gone through.any thing has been identified as a reason for our troubles and problem has continue to progress in our society.tell me what have learned from. colonialism, APC, SLPP, AFRC, NPRC, Rebel war , the country and it people remain the same. poor and destitute. Corruption or any other vice that has been identified as a reason for anything that continue to put us at the end of human ladder continue to develop. So what can we do.
Changing the guard at Tower Hill or Hill Station (state house)will not cure our malady. We don’t need tablet or just any old prescription; we need surgical operation to remove the cancer. We have many times changed our political leaders, and yet nothing changes in the country. Remember Sir Milton, Sir Albert, Siaka Steven, J S Momoh, Strasser, Bio, Tejan Kaba, JP Koroma and Tejan Kabba again? Many of these leaders initiated progressive and inductive programs but they failed. Whether it was anti smuggling program, self-help project, green revolution or structural adjustment program, no matter what the program was it all failed woefully.
I cannot outline the differences in situation that led to the failure of any of these programs nor I am interested in the differences between these leaders. I don’t want to be tied by “pull him down syndrome” that has clouded most analysis of Sierra Leone Problem. All of these leaders came to power with their own specific agendas and programs but they all inherited and shared the same CIVIL SERVICE. The civil service over time has created it own culture (which obviously is a corrupt one) that is derailing progress in service delivery. Everything in Sierra Leone has undergone some major changes or refurbishment except the damn civil service. It is true that most of our politicians has been down cycled but our civil service has remain intact since independence. I think, for any government to succeed in this country, that government needs first to overhaul this archaic bureaucracy, totally recreate a workable bureaucracy.
Government only formulate programs, it is the bureaucracy or agencies that really implement programs. What we have in Sierra Leone is a group of lay low criminals who have escaped scrutiny either because of the inability and negligence of our politicians or prosecutors or because of the shrewdness of the of the low lives (the few distinguish civil servant are excluded) or because of the union in purpose between the civil servants and the politicians. How can we rely on a system that was structured in the 1960s and for the 1960s for the year 2005? Don’t misunderstand me, I have greatest respect for people who have served this nation diligently, without their sacrifice Sierra Leone would have been worst, but the fact tell the story, majority of the people who have held position of responsibility are disgrace to rest of us. There is a need to miseducate this elite class.or else we will continue to go down the drains. The present CS will continue to produce it kind and it kind will continue to produce the same result. Sierra Leone will not o forward with people who believe, trust, and are train by such drained civil service, it has outlive it span, we need to dismantle it.it should continue to lure us backward.
How can we reorganize and recreate our bureaucracy so it can serve the purpose it was created for? It is a tedious and daunting task, but it worth undertaking. By Allah’s grace I will put my proposal forward for others to read.
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