ANOTHER CENSUS BOMSHELL: THE APC MANAGEMENT OF STATISTICS SIERRA LEONE (SSL)? “ In this section, the audit tried to explore the rational for the malfunction in the census process. We saw it logical to believe that there is some convergence of interest between some politicians who want to consolidate power and the technocrats who want to maintain their jobs for obvious reasons. We explain this coincidence of interest as follows: The investigation, by Dr. Pepper (a consultant fielded by DFID in 2012) concluded that the Statistician General (SG) and his management team lack the basic qualifications and experience in performing their functions and hence the core functions of the office have been totally neglected. His recommendations on the qualifications and experience of senior management staff at SSL are contained in pages 12 to 19 of his report. Dr. Pepper recommended that the whole of SSL Management be restructured. The SSL team has since battled against the Pepper report because it is not in their interest for the recommendations to be implemented. Following Dr. Pepper’s enquiry SSL had a very bad publicity on the local media and this attracted the attention of President Koroma who decided to intervene. The President appointed an Interim Committee to look into the management structure of SSL, review the findings of the Pepper Report and make recommendations. The Interim Committee, made up of Mr. Claudius J. Thomas (Chairman), Dr. Lansana Nyallay (Representing Eastern Province), Alhaji Olu Alghali (Representing Western Area), Mr. S. K. Foyoh (Representing Southern province), and Mr. Mohamed Adarqua Koroma (Representing Northern Province) was established. The committee produced a report that largely agreed with the recommendations of Dr. Pepper’s Report. They were retained to continue their job after vetting and approval by Parliament and became members of the Statistics Sierra Leone Council. The newly constituted SSL Council instituted an audit that discovered among other things (Page 3 and 4 of the audit report) that: a) Unjustifiably, personnel cost increased unprecedentedly by over One Billion Leones (over 35% increase) per annum from 2011 to 2013 (Paragraph 14, page 3 of the Report) b) There was an exponential increase in audit fees from 5,500,000.00 in 2012 to 68,305,000.00 in 2013. (Paragraph 15 of Report). With these audit findings and other activities of the new Council, it became clear that they were determined to re-establish SSL to become an effective technical Institution that may not entertain the conduct of partisan census. The Council was therefore bound to create powerful enemies in planning the Census. As noted earlier, the Council had uncovered the unprofessional way the cartographic map updating was carried out and was insisting on a review of the process. FOUR OF THE FIVE COUNCIL MEMBERS WHO INSISTED ON THE REVIEW PROCESS WERE DISMISSED. Without sharing with the public the reasons for dismissing these Council members it will be safe to conclude that the offense committed by Chairman C. J. Thomas and his three colleagues from the East, South and West was the intent to implement Dr. Pepper’s report, infuse professionalism into SSL and rid the institution of financial loss and the incompetence they inherited. What is also worthy of special notices is that of the four core members (the Chairman, representatives from the East, South and the Western Area), the only Representative not dismissed was from the North. He was the only member to stay on and join a new team appointed to replace the dismissed members. The audit was left to question the unceremonious dismissal of a vibrant council that has been appointed by His Excellency the President and endorsed by Parliament for a period of three (3) years, within the first year of their taking office!” (Pages 9 -10) My Questions: 1) Why were the following members - Mr. Claudius J. Thomas (Chairman), Dr. Lansana Nyallay (Representing Eastern Province), Alhaji Olu Alghali (Representing Western Area) and Mr. S. K. Foyoh (Representing Southern province) unceremoniously dismissed from the Statistics Sierra Leone Council within one year after they have uncovered financial improprieties? 2) Were the FOUR aforementioned members also dismissed from the council because they had uncovered the unprofessional way the cartographic map updating had been carried out and insisted on a review of the crooked process? 3) Why was Mr. Mohamed Adarqua Koroma (Representing Northern Province) not dismissed from the Council together with Mr C.J Thomas, Dr Lansana Nyallay, Alhaji Olu Alghali and S.K Foyoh? Was Mr. Mohamed Adarqua Koroma left in the council because he was representing the North and could protect the interest of the APC? 4) Did President Koroma order for the unceremonious dismissal or had knowledge of the dismissal of C.J Thomas, Dr. Lansana Nyallay, Alhaji O. Alghali and Mr. S.K Foyoh so that they can be replaced APC party loyalists in the Statistics Sierra Leone Council? 5) Since the cartographic map updating process has been deeply flawed why do we want to undertake a census in which every household will not be accounted for? 6) How credible will anyone take a national census when the District Census Officers who are responsible for implementation of the census in the districts comprise former APC Parliamentary Candidates, an APC Chairman, an APC Propaganda Secretary, a former APC District Chairman, a Senior APC Party Official, an APC Deputy Organising Secretary and everything APC, APC and APC? WE NEED A NATIONAL CENSUS NOT AN APC CENSUS. SOURCE: Institute for Governance Reform: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES OF GOVERNANCE VOLUME 3, January 2015 – “THE CREDIBILITY OF THE 2015 CENSUS IN SIERRA LEONE: Will All Heads be Counted?”
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 05:19:09 +0000