By-Frederick V. Kanneh
Bo City, Sierra Leone – Sierra Leone’s Vice President Dr Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh continued a series of nationwide consultations on local governance and decentralisation, taking the exercise to Bo City in the Southern Region after launching it in Kenema the day before. The outreach is part of the government’s efforts to bring its reform agenda closer to the local authorities, traditional leaders and ordinary communities in the country.
The Vice President led the Bo meeting, which brought together Paramount Chiefs, local council representatives, ministers and other key stakeholders to discuss anticipated national reforms and their local impacts. The participants had the opportunity to identify governance challenges at the community level and recommend practical solutions to improve service delivery.
“The consultations are intended to be inclusive and two-way. We are here to listen to the challenges of local governance,” Dr Jalloh said. “This is not a meeting where we come to tell you what to do. “It’s a learning process,” he said, stressing the administration’s aim of making sure national policies reflect realities on the ground.
The consultations are aimed, among other things, at improving the coordination of local governance actors. In the course of that, the Vice President, during the Bo engagement, launched the Regional Coordination Committee for the Southern Region. The committee is expected to enhance collaboration between chiefdoms, local councils and other bodies at the regional level and to ensure follow-up of commitments made during the consultations.
“We have ongoing reform programs in several areas, including land governance and administration; health and social welfare, and it is important to ensure that local authorities and traditional institutions understand and are involved in implementation,” Dr Jalloh mentioned. He announced plans to take the consultations further down to district level and said he would spend two days in each district to engage directly with interested parties about the specific challenges they face – most notably the often-complex relationship between chiefdoms and local councils.
The Vice President said the World Bank had demonstrated its support for the decentralisation agenda and the lender had indicated its readiness to offer more assistance. He said that an Inter-Ministerial Committee on local governance and decentralisation is still committed to taking the consultation process across all regions of Sierra Leone.
The wider exercise, officials say, is meant to foster cooperation between national and local institutions, enhance delivery of public services and advance the government’s pledge to move governance closer to the people.
