By Alpha R. Jalloh Patriotic Vanguard Freetown Bureau Chief.
A former Governor of the Bank of Sierra Leone, James Sanpha Koroma, has been appointed Secretary to the President.
The post is equivalent to that of Chief of Staff at the White House in the United States .
Koroma(photo)was, up to his appointment,a private entrepreneur, a founder and Executive Director of the Union Trust Bank, the first Sierra Leonean owned bank in the country.
His appointment has been widely perceived as a manifestation of president Ernest Bai koroma’s avowed commitment to minimize corruption that has eating into every fabric of the country over the years. It was also a vice that caused the unpopularity and consequent downfall of the Sierra Leone People’s Party.
Sanpha,who hails from Macrogba town,Yoni chiefdom, Tonkolili district, set up his own business, the Union Trust Bank in partnership with others when he returned to Sierra Leone from Nigeria where he was working as a financial analyst.
He holds a Masters Degree in Financial Administration from the University of Syracuse in USA and another Masters Degree in Development Economics from Birmingham University in the UK .
In the civil service in Sierra Leone , he rose up to the rank of deputy financial secretary and served as Managing Director of the National Development Bank up to 1991. He became Governor of the Bank of Sierra Leone in 1998.
Internationally, he has served as financial analyst at the Industrial Development Bank of Sudan stationed in Khartoum from 1979 to 1990, Financial Analyst at the Reconstruction Mission stationed in Accra in 1985 and Financial Analyst at the Nigerian Investment Promotion Forum stationed in Lagos in 1990.
In the United States he served as Management Trainee at the Western Electric Company in Allentown .
He has held several chairmanships in rural banks and institutions in Sierra Leone. His international recognition has been documented in the international “Who’s Who of Professionals-2000” and the international Who’s who Historical Society in USA .
But is the appointment a surprise to him? He tells The Patriotic Vanguard:
“It is not a surprise. He Ernest Bai Koroma has been seeking my advice all along. I followed his progress right through the years”.
His appointment is expected to enable the government to initiate and implement stringent monetary and financial policies.
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