=Opinion= Sierra Leone: The Vilification of Women in Leadership By Titus Boye-Thompson, Strategic Media & Development Communications, Freetown, Sierra Leone. The issue of gender balance is fast becoming a serious concern for development practitioners, simply because it is just not considered to be right to exclude those who constitute almost half of the world’s population from positions of leadership. It’s a man’s world indeed but those days are far gone when men ruled the roost without recourse. Women in spheres of life usually identified as predominantly male domains are now common. That women can do jobs that men do and sometimes do them better is a very compelling argument for gender equality. Sierra Leone is a post conflict environment and the legacy of the war translates to fewer men with requisite skills to occupy all the top spots. This is simply due to the fact that most men who wielded authority during the war would have been killed or forced into exile. The country is therefore left with an equal and competitive space for leadership at all levels. Liberia, a neighboring country that went through a similar experience as Sierra Leone came out of their conflagration with a woman as leader. Her style has been different and in most cases has been adjudged to have had such a calming effect on the society as a whole that it made the task of nation rebuilding easier. In Sierra Leone, we now have what is referred to as the Women Generals, reflecting women in high office and occupying positions of extreme authority and influence in the development process. These are the Accountant General, The Auditor General, the Solicitor General and the Commissioner General. Of these, the Commissioner General and head of the National Revenue Authority (NRA) wields crucial influence as the collector of revenue and taxes that fuels the development of local projects such as roads and other infrastructure. The mark of the Commissioner General is entrenched in her leadership style that she herself describes as participatory, ensuring that she takes her team along as she strives to undertake what is invariably one of the most arduous tasks in Government. The Institution that she heads is one open to public scrutiny and comes in for much disdain. No one wants to pay taxes, even though the old adage that only two things in life are unavoidable, and those are taxes and death. Haja Kalla Kamara (photo) moved into a position that is the envy of every public servant in this country and at a time when that institution was embroiled in scandal following the indictment of her predecessor. Whether the leadership is a poisoned chalice is undecided but the fact that the head of such an institution would face most daunting pressures is not in contention. As a woman with high integrity and a sound work ethic, Haja Kallah Kamara worked to take the institution to the next level, following on from the efforts of her predecessor to automate the activities of tax collection in this country. The ASYCUUDA System she inherited has been made more user friendly with the assistance of development partners such as DfID who have helped build the capacity of the NRA staff managing the process. Her achievements include increased revenue generation, improved service delivery and increased staff welfare. Her efforts and those of her team culminated in the award of a silver mark at the recent Performance Monitoring assessment carried out by the Office of the Chief of Staff. Notwithstanding achievements in the public domain, women in leadership face challenges and barriers more than their male counterparts. The last Audit report on the Government Accounts made scathing comments on the performance of the NRA as a public body charged with the collection of revenue and as one of the key institutions responsible for public finance management. That the auditor general, also a woman could single out the NRA for censure says a lot of the integrity of women in leadership. A further independent report conducted by a private firm recently questioned the management of the NRA alluding to poor management systems may be responsible for some of the leakages in that institution. These two reports have one thing in common and that is that they tend to hold the leadership accountable and largely ascribe responsibility to the head of Institution for the failures or otherwise leakages permeating the institution. No Public Institution is immune from corruption, no system is failsafe and no management style is without reproach. So to discredit women leaders because their management style is unfamiliar would be tantamount to abasement. Haja Kallah Kamara has come in for a lot of criticisms because of her leadership style. However it may be better to judge her on account of her achievements as head of institution rather than attack her personality in such an unmindful manner. During her tenure, revenue collection increased from 40% to 60 % representing a 20 percent increase in state revenue collection. Her policies have seen increased collection, reduced leakages and a more efficient tax collection mechanism. It is also a matter of public record that businesses have fared better under her tenure. Business transactions at the Quay and other border posts are more efficient leading to shorter turnaround times, shorter time periods for clearing of goods and a more faster service level performance. The separate divisions of the NRA have all registered increased performance in their areas of operations. The tax base has been significantly widened with more scope for further expansion especially in formalizing the significantly high informal sector, non tax revenue collections have gone up whilst taxes and levies are now more readily paid than before due to an improved and more transparent system of assessment and collection. Relationships between NRA Staff and stakeholders have also been responsible for these improvements especially in areas where front desk staff may need to interface with the public. The reduction of staff involvement with revenue collection due to computerization has also played a part in the increased performance of the NRA as a whole. Notwithstanding, the Head of NRA has been one of the first to publicly accept that she faces challenges in bringing that institution to a more modern era. In that acceptance would be the commitment to do more for revenue generation, to improve staff welfare and capacity building and to increase opportunities for supporting Government through a more efficient revenue collection system. On the discharge of such an important function, the NRA would have to continually re-invent itself, undertake periodic performance reviews and work collaboratively with other partners to ensure success in their endeavors. Always mindful that this is an Institution that has a public function to perform and a mandate to guide its affairs, it is expected that the NRA will set systems in place to deal with the issues and challenges they face at this point in time whilst they turn attention to the number one priority – to work towards a country aiming to achieve prosperity and become a middle income nation by 2035. The fact that Haja Kallah Kamara, a woman, is head of the NRA must not cause the NRA as an institution to detract the from its mandate. This brings to mind a favorite essay topic in gender economics, Women perform better than men. Discuss!
Posted on: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 19:53:16 +0000
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