When the Millennium Challenge Corporation team visited Sierra Leone last week to deepen the discussion on the country’s compact program, they talked to civil society and other party leaders to sound their views on the country’s progress.
The APC and its allies, the COPPP, thought they had an opportunity to smear the country and convince the MCC to disqualify Sierra Leone. In the meeting, APC’s Acting Secretary General Honourable Abdul Kargbo chronicled a list of woes which to them the President Julius Maada Bio government has done over the last four years. He even went further to say that Sierra Leone under President Bio is a dictatorship and that the country is gradually sliding into a Police State.
Dr. Dennis Bright followed suit and catalogued the so-called failings of President Bio’s government. He brought up human rights issues of the current government and said even the energy which is government’s compact priority was not the most pressing need of the country.
To their shock and dismay, the head of the MCC delegation explained to them how they are an independent body and they have thorough researchers who are dispassionate in their work and cannot be influenced by anybody or government. He added that their research on Sierra Leone and the records they have indicate that the country is making steady progress on many fronts. He highlighted the government’s free quality education efforts, reforms in the health sector especially in the area of reducing infant and maternal mortality.
They were also reminded of President Bio’s repeal Part 5 of the 1965 Public Order act, the abolishment of the death penalty. The group of malcontents and ill motivated politicians where shocked when the head of delegation asked them if there is any political prisoner or journalist in detention for doing their work. They were also embarrassed when they were told of the freedom of speech Sierra Leoneans are enjoying and the government’s protection of its citizens from cyber crimes with the passage of the Cyber Security and Crime Act.
Finally, Dennis Bright and others were admonished to work with government on the many development programs undertaken already such as the free quality education, to them is plausible. The angry politicians were taught how to cooperate with government on positive steps, whilst disagreeing on critical issues without necessarily condescending to hostility and acrimony.
They left the meeting crestfallen and bemused. One of them retorted that MCC and the US government seem to have a fixed opinion and that they had been influenced by the government officials they first held meetings with before meeting with them.
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