Sierra Leone Archives | Africa Research Institute

Omaru Badara Sisay on Ownership, Trust and Decentralisation in responding to Ebola in Sierra Leone

Niki Wolfe — Mon, 05 Feb 2018 11:29:41 +0000

As Director of the Situation Room at Sierra Leone’s National Ebola Response Centre (NERC), OB Sisay played an important role in countering the outbreak of Ebola that afflicted Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone in 2014 and 2015.

President Ernest Bai Koroma established NERC on 18 October 2014, in an attempt to bring greater coherence to the response to the Ebola crisis. The centre progressively put in place systems and measures to support those striving to stem the rate of infection and end the outbreak.

In this interview with Jamie Hitchen, policy researcher at Africa Research Institute, Sisay reflects on Sierra Leone’s handling of the emergency. At the outset, citizens’ lack of trust in the government and poor coordination of international assistance severely hindered the efficacy of the response. But lessons were quickly learned.

Sisay stresses the importance of local ownership and decentralising decision-making; and hopes that structures and approaches used to tackle Ebola will be replicated more widely in Sierra Leone to good effect.

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INTRODUCTION
ON LOCAL OWNERSHIP
ON BUILDING TRUST
ON THE INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE
ON DECENTRALISING CONTROL
ON LEARNING FOR THE FUTURE
ON LEARNING ON THE JOB
ON CAPACITY AND LEGACY
NOTES

INTRODUCTION

By Jamie Hitchen

The Ebola virus arrived in Sierra Leone in 2014 through the porous borders with neighbouring Guinea. The first official case was recorded on 24 May in Kailahun district, in the south-east of the country. By July, it had reached the capital city Freetown. The following month, and with infections increasing significantly by the week in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak an international health emergency. In the fifteen months before Sierra Leone was pronounced Ebola-free, 14,124 cases were recorded (suspected, probable and confirmed), with a mortality rate of 28%.¹

Initial responsibility for coordinating the response in Sierra Leone rested with the Ministry of Health and Sanitation. Widespread criticism of its ability and capacity led to the sacking of the health minister, Miatta Kargbo, in August 2014. In October, as the number of cases threatened to spiral out of control, President Ernest Bai Koroma announced the creation of the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC). Funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), with additional support from the US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the United Nations Missions for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), NERC was tasked with collecting and analysing real-time data to inform decision-making.²

NERC’s role in getting a grip on the situation was significant. It enabled the gradual emergence of a degree of trust in local communities, the decentralisation of aspects of the response and the affirmation of national ownership of a crisis that, towards the end of 2014, was taking on a global dimension. International assistance, and human and financial resources, played a vital part in defeating Ebola, but their impact was greatest when deployed in collaboration with local agencies and communities. Local health care workers were the unsung heroes. Despite huge personal risks, they persisted in attending to their fellow citizens. Eleven of Sierra Leone’s 123 medical doctors died. Across the region more than 500 health care workers perished.

Sierra Leoneans rejoiced on 7 November 2015 when the country was declared free of the virus. However, the crisis exacerbated many pre-existing problems: the inability to provide functional and decent public services; a lack of accountability and trust between state and citizens; and poor coordination of government. These remain unaddressed. Learning how an institution like NERC was able to excel is important if Sierra Leone is to build more responsive, transparent and effective systems for delivering public services.

February 2018

ON LOCAL OWNERSHIP

You have spoken frequently about the importance of local ownership of the response. Why was this so important? How did you go about ensuring Sierra Leoneans were to the fore?

Until the creation of NERC, the Ebola response suffered from a lack of national ownership and coordination. In the first few months, it might be the case that in one district there would be six different outfits, predominantly international organisations, working on social mobilisation messaging and in the neighbouring district there would be none. In addition, two-thirds of those organisations would be using messages that had not been approved by government. These messages, which highlighted the deadly nature of the disease and the absence of a cure, intended to promote protective behaviours, but had the opposite effect. With the understanding that death was inevitable, many chose to eschew hospitals and receive care at home from friends and family, who then themselves were infected. The whole social messaging exercise was happening without clear direction from government about what the messages should be, who should deliver them, how – and whether – it was altering public attitudes and behaviour. The lack of strategic national leadership was glaring.

After the creation of NERC (see Figure 1), a daily morning briefing was instituted, but problems persisted. Everybody involved in the response, from civil society to NGOs to journalists, attended. Meetings went on for several hours while people pontificated and held forth with speeches. This was supposed to be an incident management centre that provided brief updates on the current situation. NERC was not an expert Ebola-fighting organisation. Its function was to provide command, control and direction so that the Ebola fighters, the experts, could do their job most effectively. These elongated meetings were not helping it do this. But there was a more fundamental problem.

At that time, the Operation Gritrock people – the British-led military taskforce sent to assist the Ebola response, the UK’s DFID, and the local British High Commission officials – convened their own meetings, where they got their own data and reports from the field and decided what they would do next. As the government’s primary partner, both during the crisis and in development assistance, the UK view had a great deal of clout, but it was not being conveyed in a very transparent way. There was also a regular donor partners’ meeting where a common position was discussed. In fact, the only group that were not having separate meetings to discuss their position were Sierra Leoneans. Following internal discussions at NERC, I took the advice of my team to Maj. (Rtd) Paolo Conteh, the chief executive officer of NERC, and suggested replacing the daily morning briefings with twice-weekly Command Group meetings and follow-up Coordination Group meetings.

By owning the management of the response, Sierra Leoneans demonstrated their commitment to tackling Ebola; and by allowing them to do so, the donors demonstrated confidence in the ability of nationals to own it

The Command Group meeting would comprise Sierra Leoneans only.³ The Coordination Group would comprise members of the Command Group plus international partners.⁴ Purely Sierra Leonean matters would be discussed in the Command Group meetings and the following day, once a position had been agreed, the donor partners would be involved. Everyone was allowed to offer their opinion, but the final decision was to be taken by Maj. Conteh.

In the beginning, we got a lot of pushback from international partners who felt that we were locking them out of the decision-making process. This was not the intention and quickly this became obvious, but not before we had to make a few points about sovereignty and the importance of Sierra Leone having its ducks in a row before engaging with others. In fact, this system gave partners a formal mechanism to influence decision-making, whereas previously they had to rely on the strength of their bilateral relationships. Even recalcitrant NGOs gradually came round to seeing the benefits of having a central body they could direct questions to, raise concerns with and demand answers from.

The approach created a more inclusive environment, which allowed all those involved to have their say on the direction of the response; and it placed the ultimate decision-making in the hands of national, not international, leaders. The collegiate approach adopted – one that allowed everyone to have their input, share their concerns and outline their capabilities – gradually transformed the way the response was discussed. From “the British government will do this” and “WHO will do this”, it became “NERC will do this”. This singular voice was very important. By owning the management of the response, Sierra Leoneans demonstrated their commitment to tackling Ebola; and by allowing them to do so, the donors demonstrated confidence in the ability of nationals to own it.

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ON BUILDING TRUST

A lack of trust between citizens and the government in Sierra Leone, combined with unhelpful messaging about Ebola at the beginning of the outbreak, made it very difficult to contain the virus. How did NERC attempt to build trust with communities across Sierra Leone?

In November 2014, six months after the first case of Ebola in the country, there was still no Sierra Leonean organisation undertaking comprehensive, nationwide data collection about the spread of the virus. Decision-making at government level was reliant on data provided by external actors. UNMEER and WHO, for example, were reluctant to share what they had with the government and each other. This meant that on any given day the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, CDC and WHO would have different figures for the number of Ebola cases that had been recorded.

To address the coverage, control and quality of information, a working group was established by NERC in November 2014, comprising all domestic and international stakeholders involved in the response and collecting data. In the initial meetings, it was agreed to reduce the number of key indicators that we needed to collect data on from 150 to 40. These included everything from the number of people dead to the number of social mobilisation messages disseminated. We agreed to have core indicators around infections, deaths and so forth, and who was to collect what. This was driven by a belief that “the only chain that matters is the chain of transmission”, so any data collected had to be shared with others on the ground before being disseminated to Geneva, London or anywhere else these agencies had their headquarters. Of course, we didn’t achieve this in the fullest sense, but by harmonising collection we managed to establish a “ground truth” on data – everyone was working on the same set of numbers collected by different organisations doing different things. It was important in that it allowed NERC to take evidence-based decisions, using figures that all stakeholders agreed upon.

Establishing the ground truth gave people confidence that reported Ebola case numbers in specific locations were correct. When questions were brought to our attention about a possible mis-diagnosis, we made it a priority to investigate. If it was found that an incorrect blood sample had been used, we would ask the head of the Ministry of Health’s laboratories – to whom all labs in the country, local and foreign, reported – to explain to the public on the radio, TV and in town hall meetings where necessary, that it was a wrong diagnosis and why the error had happened. If a medical explanation was needed, a health professional was asked to explain – in layman’s language – the reasoning for the discrepancy. Our approach was designed to be transparent, honest and not condescending.

NERC tried to overcome this inherent distrust of the centre by committing to transparency and opening itself up to external scrutiny

For many Sierra Leoneans, mistrust of the government is driven by their own experiences and interactions with the state, which often leave them less than satisfied. NERC tried to overcome this inherent distrust of the centre by committing to transparency and opening itself up to external scrutiny. We held a weekly press conference, created a website where all the analysis of the Situation Room briefings and data were published, and provided a room for the press within the NERC campus, with internet and printing facilities. We even started putting our quarterly financial reports online. This allowed people to see who cheques were being issued to, for what reason, and the amounts. We were able to do this by working closely with a team from the Office of the Auditor General, which carried out a real-time audit of our financial operations.⁵

Owning up to your mistakes, being open about the problems you face, and trying to explain how you intend to fix them is important for building trust. This is what NERC tried to do. Except for the initial phase of the response, when people did not trust government at all, we were able to bring the population along with us. Sierra Leone did not experience demonstrations against the government, like in Liberia, or fatal attacks on health care workers, as happened in Guinea.

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ON THE INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE

What would you say to international donors and NGOs that are looking to learn lessons from their response to Ebola in Sierra Leone?

The slow nature of the international response to Ebola has been well documented. When it was underway, a large majority of those working on the ground demonstrated extraordinary commitment and dedication, alongside Sierra Leoneans. However, there was still a lot of “disaster tourism” going on. International NGOs were bringing in people with qualifications that bore no relation to the terms of reference you see when you try and apply for jobs on their websites. These individuals were given astronomical salaries for a six-week period and then left, often without any proper handover to their replacement. The new arrival would then put their hand up in a meeting and be like, “I am from Geneva, I have all of the answers.” They would make you waste an hour of a meeting by bringing up things that had been discussed, examined and dismissed four months ago. I had a problem with that.

I also had a problem with the way donors handled funds that had been committed to the response. They did not behave in a way that suggested the funds were for the countries affected by Ebola. It was as if it was their own largesse, which we had to ask them politely for. In that, there was an implicit questioning of Sierra Leoneans honesty, ability and knowledge, which I found condescending.

The £43m treatment centre built at Kerry Town with British funding was emblematic of some of these problems.6 The idea was that the 100-bed facility would provide confidence to other countries to send their health care workers to support overwhelmed Sierra Leonean and international staff. Incredibly, at the start they considered building a facility that would not accept Sierra Leonean patients. Fortunately, they saw sense on that, but Kerry Town was just an expensive gesture that has done nothing to address long-term, systemic problems in Sierra Leone’s health system. If you go and visit it now, there is nothing but a few abandoned structures, and yet our hospitals and medical facilities remain underequipped to provide basic levels of care. At the same time, the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces converted facilities such as the 34 Military Hospital, in Freetown, into effective treatment centres, at greater speed and a fraction of the cost. In February 2015, less than three months after it opened, over 800 Ebola patients had been treated there.⁷

As both a taxpaying British citizen and a Sierra Leonean, I would really like to understand the reasoning and decision-making behind spending £43 million on a project that appears to have so few long-term benefits. It’s a sum equivalent to our entire government budget for health in 2017.⁸ The money could, and should, have done so much for Sierra Leone’s health sector.

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ON DECENTRALISING CONTROL

You have been quoted as saying “the fight against Ebola was not about building hospitals, but about changing attitudes. The importance of culture, local communities and traditional authorities in responding to Ebola was overlooked for much of the response”. How did NERC seek to adapt to this reality?

At the start, the lock, stock message was that if you had Ebola you were going to die: there was no cure. This drove people away from treatment facilities and into the hands of traditional healers. Even though they had been banned from practising, this was the reality. So we adapted our strategy to bring them on board. Educating traditional healers about the sort of symptoms a patient who has Ebola might show, and encouraging them to share that information with medical personnel and NERC, meant that they became an effective early warning system. Instead of trying to coerce the public, we sought to use these pre-existing local structures to both educate and inform at chiefdom level. To be able to change people’s behaviour, you need to speak to them in a language they understand and see things from their worldview. NERC’s leadership was made up of people who understood these cultural nuances. It was about shifting the onus.

Instead of saying the government is coming to fix the problem for you, we wanted local leaders to resolve the problem with our support. It was not lost on us that the districts that were able to contain Ebola first, places like Pujehun and Kailahun, had been able to do so before NERC was formed. They succeeded by using social structures and networks that were well established in the local community. We very quickly realised that it would be more effective to hand power to the people; we had to decentralise the way NERC operated. In many parts of the country, government only works by the grace and support of traditional powers.

In late 2014, District Ebola Response Centres (DERCs) headed by a coordinator and directly answerable to NERC were created. These were the district-level equivalent of NERC, but designed to be more adaptable to the local context. Up until that point, the entire response was being coordinated from Freetown when the majority of cases were in the eastern districts of Kenema and Kailahun. That was a mistake. A person on the ground in Kenema had a much better sense of how to respond to the outbreak and the DERC enabled them to get on and do it.

It was not lost on us that the districts that were able to contain Ebola first, places like Pujehun and Kailahun, had been able to do so before NERC was formed

The balance we sought was to find a way to decentralise responsibility and power, whilst ensuring accountability was retained – “accountability” in the sense that, if Ebola was getting out of control in a district, NERC could liaise with one person to give them an account of what was going on, what was needed and the support they required. It was not about accountability for the purpose of apportioning blame. Handing power away from the centre made a big difference.

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ON LEARNING FOR THE FUTURE

What are some of the key lessons learned by NERC that you would like to see the government take on board and implement in the future? Has the government been receptive to learning from systems established in responding to Ebola?

NERC tried to start a culture change in the way government business is done and accounted for in the name of citizens in Sierra Leone. Lesson-learning was ingrained into NERC’s DNA. Every time a new operation began, indicators were established against which the success of the project could be measured. For example, when a village was quarantined, data would be gathered on how many people were fed and what medical equipment was needed. Close monitoring of our operations was followed by periods of lesson-learning. It did not stop there.

Mechanisms were introduced to take the lessons learned and apply them to future interventions. For example, we had several instances of people who had been exposed to Ebola victims escaping from quarantine and starting new infection hotspots elsewhere. Whilst we improved security, started tracing mobile phone calls and taking other measures to reduce the chances of escape, we also started to ask ourselves why someone facing the risk of a terminal illness would run from us when the whole reason we were isolating them was to be able to help them if they fell ill. The answer lay in the way we were doing the isolation, in recognising our failure to reassure people about their loved ones we had taken into treatment and other logistical issues around their welfare. We changed quarantine protocols and improved the service. Fewer people ran after those changes.

If we could defeat Ebola, why could we not get the basics of running a country – roads, hospitals and schools – right?

To build resilience in a system, you have expose it to problems. For each problem you find, recalibrate that system so that it prevents it from happening again, or highlight it immediately so you can take direct remedial action. At NERC we hunted problems, whereas the norm in Sierra Leone is to try and cover them up. This is because our political economy is set up to feed patronage networks, and not with continuity and transparency in mind. I would like to think that NERC’s successful approach to fighting Ebola has prompted deep introspection within government circles in Sierra Leone. If we could defeat Ebola, why could we not get the basics of running a country – roads, hospitals and schools – right?

At the end, we oversaw a comprehensive review of NERCs operations.⁹ President Koroma chaired the meeting where the findings were presented and was very keen that this new way of doing business – convergence to excellence, reliance on local structures, decentralisation of power, an open system of accountability and responsibility, a culture of problem-solving and not finger-pointing, and evidence-based policymaking – be adopted into the President’s Recovery Priorities (PRPs).¹⁰ So far, there have been some positive initial signs of continuity.

Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, director of planning at NERC, is now the delivery team lead for implementation of the PRPs. I see this continuity as a conscious and explicit effort by the government to absorb the commitment to evidence-based policymaking and rigorous monitoring and evaluation we championed at NERC. There are very clear timelines put in place for when PRP activities should be complete. People who are accountable for ensuring that happens are known and named; and Sierra Leoneans are informed of what to expect and what role they can play. There are also efforts to ensure greater interaction with, and support for, communities and community-led initiatives, both at the design and implementation stages. The PRP’s creation of chieftaincy engagement officers is one example of an effort to replicate the kind of granular accountability we instilled at NERC.

In October 2016, the country held its first-ever national accountability forum aimed at enforcing improved service delivery. But I am realistic. We did not change the culture with this one initiative, nor can you even say that it has been embedded until two or three similar initiatives emerge and do well. It will be a slow and tortuous process.

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ON LEARNING ON THE JOB

How did you approach the many challenges that you faced at NERC? Were there areas where you could have made improvements? And how much freedom did you allow for innovative responses to unique challenges?

The key thing to remember about NERC is that no one was an Ebola expert. We were all learning as we went along – we never had the attitude that we already had the answers. Instead, the approach was to establish a set of guiding principles, to commit to excellence and to embrace the problems we encountered, not run away from them.

One of the first issues I confronted after joining NERC was concern about management of the fleet of vehicles involved in the response: drivers syphoning fuel from tanks or coming to work drunk, and the fact that many of the vehicles had broken down. When I asked for a list of all vehicles that had been bought or donated to the country to fight Ebola, for their fuel forecasts and maintenance schedules, none were forthcoming because they did not exist.

A fleet management system was established to ensure vehicles were properly maintained. Very strict controls were established about who could drive the vehicles, licensing procedures were tightened up, regular spot checks were introduced and a detailed record of each vehicle’s movements was kept, using their unique engine numbers. This system inspired confidence among international donors and gradually they committed funds to ensure that all vehicles being used to tackle Ebola had free maintenance and fuel.

Government cannot force policies down the throats of people, even when it is for their own good

Some strategies could have been better thought through or executed. We could have organised the payment system for health care workers and burial teams better. Even though NERC has been commended for the way it used IT to quickly solve a major problem, it was not as efficient as it could have been. People still went unpaid for far too long. Our social mobilisation messaging could also have been handled better, especially at the start of the outbreak. We could have dealt with quarantine better. It improved towards the end, but for a time it was not as nuanced as it should have been. We did not identify potential contacts outside the home well enough, and failed to provide sufficient welfare supplies on time to those in quarantine. We tried to learn from our mistakes and improve. We did not hide from them.

We had to innovate a great deal. For example, we faced a problem whenever a chief or someone powerful in a traditional secret society died – especially in the rural areas. These societies have ceremonies and rites they perform, but we were insisting on people being buried with full contamination protection and only by our well-protected and trained burial teams. So, to avoid our surveillance, they started burying at night. The women did the same. Our teams started finding fresh graves in villages, with chiefs swearing they knew nothing. The easy option would have been to arrest them for violating the emergency laws on handling corpses we had put in place. Instead, we took our time to understand why they were doing secret burials. Once we found out, we decided to train members of male and female secret societies into burial teams. That way they could follow their traditions and be safe. Reports of secret burials declined significantly. The innovation here was working with the people. Instead of getting carried away with blindly enforcing the rules, we tried to understand why they were breaking them in the first place. Lesson: government cannot force policies down the throats of people, even when it is for their own good.

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ON CAPACITY AND LEGACY

Did working on the Ebola response make you more or less optimistic about the future of Sierra Leone?

Working at NERC made me more hopeful for the country. The advent of the virus revealed the worst in some Sierra Leoneans, showing us that there were people who were willing to enrich themselves while their fellow citizens died for lack of resources and to shun others in need. It highlighted our lack of leadership, accountability and social responsibility in some areas. At the same time, it revealed things that I had never before seen in my country. I have never seen people come together in the way they did. I have never seen young people take such control in solving a major problem facing their country. I have never seen the level of convergence to excellence that I saw at NERC, because Ebola did not allow people to take shortcuts.

The fact that predominantly young Sierra Leoneans demonstrated they could work collaboratively to such high standards, and generate their own best practice ideas without everything being handed to them on a plate by some foreign “expert”, gives me a huge amount of hope for the future

When I arrived at the Situation Room, my staff included junior Sierra Leonean civil servants, highly trained and professional Sierra Leonean and British military officers, and staff from the UN and a number of NGOs. The most important of these was the African Governance Initiative, which supported us with several highly capable analysts and advisers at no cost to the government. I partnered up all my Sierra Leonean staff with their more experienced international colleagues and started a training programme in the Situation Room – in the middle of the crisis! This programme developed into the Situation Room Academy.

By the time we closed NERC in January 2016, the Academy had trained – at NERC and in the field – over 1,000 people in data analysis and software tools. We established a Situation Room Mapping Service, which produced maps for everyone – including the UN and British military, who had been making maps for us. We supported a mapping course at Njala University. In the beginning, I had relied on foreign staff to do most of the high-level analysis. By the end, we had only one foreign staff member in the Situation Room. We achieved these things because I was lucky to have a group of highly dedicated and hardworking Sierra Leonean staff who were committed to doing their best, and international colleagues who were committed to passing on their skills as they helped us fight. This was not just at NERC. It happened everywhere in the field. Nurses, doctors, disease surveillance officers, social mobilisers, lab technicians, blood sample collectors and others working with NGOs, learned lessons from their own experiences and demonstrated their ability to match the exacting standards required to fight Ebola.

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Figure 1: The National Ebola Response Centre, 2015

We are grateful to Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, for permission to reproduce ‘Figure 1: The National Ebola Response Centre, 2015’ from the Chatham House research paper ‘Sierra Leone’s Response to the Ebola Outbreak: Management Strategies and Key Responder Experience(2017), Emma Ross, Gita Honwana Welch and Philip Angelides’.

NOTES

“2014 Ebola Outbreak in West Africa – Case Counts”, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 13 April 2016
Ross, Emma et al “Sierra Leone’s Response to the Ebola Outbreak: Management Strategies and Key Responder Experiences”, Chatham House, 31 March 2017
The permanent members were the CEO of NERC (Major (Rtd.) Paolo Conteh); the President’s special adviser on Ebola (Prof. Monty Jones); National Operations Coordinator (Steven Gaojia); Director of Plans (Mahmood Idriss, followed by Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr); Director of Field Operations (Brigadier General DTO Taluva); NERC Situation Room Director (O B Sisay); the Inspector General of Police (Francis Munu – represented by Assistant Inspector General Al Sheik Kamara); the Chief Medical Officer (Dr Brima Kargbo); and any other person the agenda for that meeting dictated as necessary
US Embassy, British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, DFID, CDC, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, African Union and others
For more on the work of the Auditor General in Sierra Leone see “Lara Taylor-Pearce: On transparency and accountability in public financial management”, Africa Research Institute, October 2016
“Sierra Leone Kerry Town Ebola Treatment Facility”, DFID Development Tracker
Fitzgerald, Felicity, “Ebola Diary: The junior doctors saving Sierra Leone”, The Daily Telegraph, 23 February 2015
Government of Sierra Leone, “Government Budget and Statement of Economic Financial Policies”, 11 November 2016
“Lessons from the Response to the Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak in Sierra Leone, May 2014 to November 2015: Summary Report”, National Ebola Response Centre, 7 November 2015
The President’s Recovery Priorities is a multi-stakeholder programme of investment, led by the Government of Sierra Leone, which focuses on education, energy, governance, health, private sector development, social protection and water. The programme is intended to drive sustainable socio-economic transformation in Sierra Leone, following the twin shocks of Ebola and falling commodity prices

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Omaru Badara (OB) Sisay was Director of the Situation Room at Sierra Leone’s National Emergency Response Centre during the Ebola crisis. He was subsequently awarded a Gold Medal by the President of Sierra Leone and appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by HRH Queen Elizabeth II.

Sisay is a strategic intelligence analyst who advises on political, economic, financial and security risk across sub-Saharan Africa.

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“Kids in a sweet shop”: corruption in post-Ebola Sierra Leone

Yovanka ARI — Thu, 26 May 2016 08:49:24 +0000

“You can tell that Ebola is no longer a constant worry for residents of Freetown,” a friend told me on a recent trip to Sierra Leone’s capital, “just listen to the taxi drivers complain. For a long time they grumbled about the restrictive impact of Ebola, now they are back to complaining about the daily corruption they face”.

The last man still standing

In the week before 27 April 2016 – the day Sierra Leone celebrated 55 years of independence – musician Emmerson Bockarie launched his latest album. “Survivor” reportedly sold 12,000 copies within 24 hours of being released. Emmerson is not someone to shy away from controversy. His self-proclaimed status as “the last man still standing” is a reference to his continued artistic independence and resistance to political interference.

Back in 2007 Emmerson’s album “Borboh Belleh” (meaning “gluttonous boy”) castigated perceived failings of the Sierra Leone People’s Party government. In an election year, it gathered widespread popular support which the All People’s Congress (APC) used to its advantage. After his election as president, Ernest Bai Koroma specifically recognised Emmerson’s outstanding ability to raise public awareness through music. It is fair to say that the APC response has not been so positive this time, not that Emmerson seems perturbed. He told journalist Umaru Fofana “I have made up my mind to do what I am doing and cannot stop now”.

Striking a chord

One track in particular, “Munku boss pan matches, e jus dae krach”, highlights the rampant corruption that – Emmerson charges – has become part of the culture of the APC government. The title translates as “ill-educated people who keep lighting matches one after the other, just to see the fire again, for no other reason than because they can”. What this alludes to – and this was very clearly understood by the people I spoke with in Freetown – is the recent spate of corruption and the mismanagement of state resources by politicians and government officials only interested in advancing their own interests rather than the development of Sierra Leone. An equivalent metaphor in English might be “like kids in a sweet shop”.

With a playtime of 15 minutes, the lyrics of the song prod and probe at length. They question the commitment shown by all government departments to the construction of roads even when it is not within their remit to do so and despite the glaring needs elsewhere: roads are an infamous source of kickbacks. They condemn the empty promises made regarding jobs for youth. They accuse MPs of failing to represent the voters and of being “under the brown envelope payroll” and question the validity of the “more time” agenda that supports an extension of the incumbent governments mandate, due to expire in 2018, to continue mitigating the disruption inflicted by Ebola. As for the president himself, Koroma is accused of accelerating his accumulation of wealth as he nears the end of his time in office and of indulging in a lavish lifestyle starkly at odds with that of most Sierra Leoneans.

Public reaction

“He [Emmerson] sings for us,” Foday Conteh, a taxi driver from the president’s home town of Makeni, told me. From health workers, to university students and staff, to business owners the response of everyone I spoke to about the song was similar: a wry smile followed by a question as to whether I understood the meaning of the lyrics. There was broad agreement that Emmerson was speaking the truth.

Of course, some disagree. Writing in Cocorioko, editor and a diplomat appointed to the UN by President Koroma, Kabs Kanu asserted that “Emmerson’s lyrics did not reflect the true story about what President Koroma has done for our nation. There have been far more than just road construction in Sierra Leone. Every aspect of national development has been touched by the President”. At various locations in Freetown, Airtel billboards depicting the artist were vandalised.

Emmerson’s accusations would be difficult to prove in a court of law, but they have certainly been embraced by a receptive audience. Amid the blare of horns in Freetown’s gridlocked traffic, the song resonates from the shared taxis on which so many commuters rely.

For most Sierra Leoneans water shortages, increases in the cost of living – the Leone has plummeted against the US$ since August 2014, driving up the cost of many foodstuffs – and a lack of formal sector employment are the everyday realities. Beyond new roads and a few token traffic lights, there is little sign of much-needed investment, for example in health care, education or agriculture. For now, citizens continue to endure the hardships with good humour. But if the wealth divide continues to widen, and poorer residents of Freetown are forced to suffer even more while a fortunate few thrive, there will come a point when something will have to give.

Jamie Hitchen is Policy Researcher at ARI. He wishes to extend special thanks to Joseph Macarthy for his invaluable assistance in bringing clarity to the song lyrics where he was unable to do so.

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Beyond Ebola

Yovanka ARI — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 08:00:18 +0000

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Increasing attention is being paid to economic recovery in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. The term ‘recovery’ is problematic. It can imply a reversion to the way things were before Ebola. But rapid GDP growth then did not ‘trickle down’ – wealth remained concentrated in the hands of a small minority while poverty rates were among the highest in Africa. Economic diversification was minimal. The informal sector, which bore the brunt of Ebola, remains the dominant source of income in cities and rural areas alike.

Expert panellists Robtel Neajai Pailey (RNP), Ade Daramy (AD) and Biro Diallo (BD) discussed what needs to change in the way Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea manage their economies and how this might be achieved.

On Extractives

AD: Kono district has been the engine of mining in Sierra Leone for forty years yet it is a complete developmental backwater. I do not believe that extractives companies work in the long term interests of the country. Sierra Leone’s rapid GDP growth before 2012 was driven by mining, but where has it got us?

RNP: Liberia has an excellent revenue code. All six concession agreements signed since 2003 have included a requirement for social development funds. Deals cannot be struck without community or civil society involvement and scrutiny. However government oversight of implementation of provisions has been non-existent. We need a radical rethink on extractives. The sector was driving GDP growth of 7-8% but two-thirds of the population is below the poverty line. Agreements with mining giants like ArcelorMittal need to be revisited to ensure that more taxes are paid in-country, that there is greater accountability, and that they follow the rules and regulations set out in the legal code.

BD: I work in the mining sector but I am also a Guinean. I want all the industry’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects to work, but mining companies should not be confused with development agencies. We cannot change the fortunes of an entire nation on our own. Some projects we develop and hand over are then not properly run by the government or local authorities. People need to decide what they can realistically require from miners. If proper structures are laid down, we will have to follow them and we will be happy to do so.

On Agriculture

AD: One always hears about Sierra Leone’s high rainfall and fertile soil, but modern farming techniques are required to make the most of favourable conditions. Government only pays lip service to farmers. More support for small-scale farmers is essential and one way the government could help after Ebola is to provide seed funding. People are beginning to see the potential in agriculture and there is progress. Waitrose will be selling Karma Cola in 200 stores from July; ginger is being exported to Benelux. The potential of our marine resources also needs to be realised. We need to pretend that we never had mining when planning for the future.

RNP: Agriculture accounts for a quarter of Liberia’s GDP and half the workforce. But there is 80% food insecurity, land tenure systems need to change and large-scale land grabs are reducing access to land. The Minister of Agriculture has been very vigilant about seeking capacity building opportunities for young professionals at the Ministry. There are positive policy developments to build on, such as the 2009 Back to the Soil Initiative. The economic empowerment of women is crucial. They are the backbone of agriculture, the informal sector and regional trade.

BD: In the coming lean season, one third of Guineans will be food insecure. Agriculture has not been very highly regarded in Guinea for various reasons. If you had an agriculture degree, people would look at you differently. But more young people are realising there is money in agriculture and the government is promoting it. Land is plentiful, but you also need capital and much better infrastructure. There are undoubtedly opportunities: it was only when regional markets collapsed due to Ebola that Guineans discovered tomatoes were grown in their country.

On Leadership

BD: The government gets blamed for everything in Guinea. If a tree falls down across the road, it’s the government’s fault. This is a negative legacy of the Sekou Touré era. That said, communication has been poor during the epidemic. Mining companies always want good, resolute leadership wherever they operate. Elections in October 2015 will be a judgement of how well President Alpha Condé has led the country.

AD: Ebola exposed the lack of trust between citizens and the state in Sierra Leone and compounded it. In 2013, there were suggestions that President Koroma would seek a constitutional mandate to run for a third term and his party seemed assured of another victory. Now, his handling of Ebola has finished off any prospect of a third term and his party could conceivably lose the election. Corrupt politicians are unconcerned by accusations levelled at them.

RNP: People are completely disillusioned with the government. In December 2014, Liberia held legislative elections for 15 senators. Only two were re-elected. During Ebola, citizens quickly realised that they had to take matters into their own hands. The US$604m draft national budget, if passed, allocates one third of spending to government salaries against US$73m on health and a similar amount on education. A health care officer earns a fraction of a legislator’s pay. This sort of thing cannot continue. We have had a wake-up call.

On the Mano River Union (MRU)

AD: Just as Ebola did not separate the countries of the Union, neither should the response. The interconnectedness of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone can be an advantage. Planning across countries is essential.

BD: The MRU structure is there, it is a good platform to allow for discussion and the pooling of resources.

RNP: There has been some regional solidarity, but we need to do more together, for example in deciding and setting out exactly what we want from foreign direct investment in the region. Harmonisation of legal codes would be helpful and a regional medical centre of excellence would be a good idea for obvious reasons.

On Education

RNP: The government of Liberia needs to pay better salaries to health workers and teachers, give them better incentives, opportunities for learning and see it as a long-term investment in the country’s future.

AD: Ebola has exposed the fact that virtually nothing works in Sierra Leone. Many of the countries’ ills stem from the failure of education and health care. This has nothing to do with the civil war or Ebola. Teaching is no longer regarded as a vocation in Sierra Leone and educational standards have plummeted. Miners earn three times the salary of teachers, so this is one reason why you get teachers who are only half-trained. The government needs to invest in education in order to change attitudes. The private sector must help. Instead of complaining about the low quality of staff larger companies should invest in educational facilities that meet their needs.

On the future

RNP: Liberia’s Agenda for Transformation is a solid document. It can be adapted and used to deliver inclusive growth, decent work, a living wage and basic social services. Profit has been put above people and GDP growth rates ahead of human development. We cannot go back to where we were, we need people-driven and people-centred growth.

AD: It has taken over ten years for people to see Sierra Leone as a ‘post-war’ country, so to become a post-Ebola ‘investment opportunity’ will require a concerted effort. The role for the private sector and diaspora should be to build on the development plans we have already drawn up, like the Agenda for Prosperity.

BD: The government needs to decide what it wants to focus on and then guide the key sectors – no government can do everything. Guineans do not need more plans, they are tired of plans. It is time for action.

Comments attributed to the speakers are not direct quotations

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A Year With Ebola: The Grievous Experience of Health Care Workers in Sierra Leone

Yovanka ARI — Thu, 25 Jun 2015 08:45:40 +0000

Sierra Leone’s health care workers have been confronting Ebola for more than a year – a relentless, shattering endeavour. 11 of the country’s 123 medical doctors have perished. The World Health Organization estimates that, across the region, over 500 health care workers have fallen victim to the virus. Most international volunteers undertook six week stints in emergency treatment centres. Local staff have been in the field almost nine times as long.

Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF) described their feat as “extraordinary” and “parallel to none”. When asked why she had returned to West Africa, Ella Watson-Stryker, a public health expert from New York and MSF volunteer, remarked:

“…most of all I came back for our Guinean, Sierra Leonean and Liberian staff who are fighting the long fight with a level of courage and compassion that exceeds anything I have ever seen. If they can keep going for months on end, then I can come back to help them.”

At the coalfaceThe speed at which the Ebola virus spreads, its devastating effect on victims and the number of medical personnel infected combined to present Sierra Leone with an unprecedented health care crisis. Physical conditions have been particularly challenging: treating patients in stiflingly hot conditions meant that protective suits could only be safely worn for an hour at a time. However, the spread of the virus was not matched by the distribution of protective materials – an inexcusable failure resulting from governmental neglect of duty and petty corruption. “When facilities run by NGOs began to open we had staff moving to these centres because at least they had the protective equipment”, a doctor who worked in Ebola treatment centres in Kenema and Freetown told ARI.

The task of providing care was as mentally demanding as it was physically exhausting. Psycho-social support for health care workers and others affected by the epidemic will be vitally important. Professor Yuval Neria argues that “a more pro-active, research-informed mental health response is desperately needed to mitigate the magnitude of the mental health consequences [of Ebola]”. Dr Bintu Mansaray, who works at Connaught Hospital in Freetown, described to ARI how colleagues who worked in the treatment centres have told her: “you feel responsible for the death of patients, you see colleagues die. Being in that environment again will be mentally challenging”.

Financial incentives

In September 2014, the government initiated an incentives scheme to pay medical staff working in treatment centres a weekly bonus of 500,000 Leones (Le). The sum almost matched their monthly salaries prior to Ebola. This sizeable commitment has subsequently become one of the clearest failures of the response.

Corruption was a blight, at least initially, with the auditor general’s report finding that Le26 billion of incentive payments was dispersed without proper documentation. Health worker strikes over non-payments of this allowance have been frequent. Noticeable improvements have been observed since UNDP began administering payments using an electronic system in December 2014; but their claims that more than 90% of health workers are being paid on time are exaggerated. Even today, many health workers have only been paid in part, if at all.

The problem with payments was exacerbated by the fact that data was not readily available to compile a list of health workers. With hundreds of millions of dollars being donated to tackle the virus, funds should have been made available to draw up and verify such a list independently. The decision to end payments in March 2015, before the virus was even eradicated, indicates enduring insensitivity and failure to appreciate the risks endured by local health workers.

Recognition and reward

Local health workers were – and remain – the backbone of the effort to eliminate Ebola in Sierra Leone. At the peak of the virus international agencies were desperate for human resources above all else. Yet only 2% of all funds donated during the crisis went to the local nurses, doctors and burial teams.

Looking ahead, President Koroma has promised jobs for those who stepped up to play a role in countering the Ebola threat, but there is no clear plan for providing this employment. If the government really is well-intentioned, it could perhaps start by paying its health care workers better salaries.

Jamie Hitchen is a Policy Researcher at the Africa Research Institute.

Image credit: UN Photo/ Martine Perret

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Mismanagement of Sierra Leone’s Ebola spending

Yovanka ARI — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 06:30:57 +0000

In May-October 2014 the Sierra Leone government spent more than 84 billion Leones (Le) (approx. US$19m) tackling the Ebola epidemic. A damning report by the Auditor-General, Lara Taylor-Pearce, was published on 13 February 2015, examining this expenditure. It found that 30% of the money was disbursed without proper supporting documentation.

Particular criticism was directed at a failure to follow procurement procedures set out in the Public Procurement Act of 2004. The Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) was the major culprit, issuing contracts despite inadequate bidder documentation and without carrying out the necessary due diligence. Government employee justification that procurement procedures could be waived because of the prevailing state of emergency is not supported by legislation, according to the report. In short, incompetently written contracts and poor controls over the disbursement of funds were commonplace.

Here are some inconsistencies outlined in the report:

Incentive payments for frontline health workers totalled Le26 billion, but there was no substantive proof given to the auditors that such payments reached intended recipients.
In Makeni Government Hospital the frontline healthcare workers incentive payment list was found to include 271 ghost names. Payments totalling Le216m remain unaccounted for.
MoHS failed to produce any documentation for contract agreements totalling Le17 billion, including Le12.7 billion for the purchase of 50 vehicles and ambulances and Le2.7 billion for the construction of an Ebola treatment centre in the northern district of Port Loko.
Withholding taxes amounting to Le526 million were not deducted and paid over to the National Revenue Authority from payments made to various suppliers and contractors.
A contract for 20 ambulances was signed between MoHS and Kingdom Security Logistics. However, payment for the ambulances was made to a United Arab Emirates bank account in the name of Uniworld General Trading LLC. Four of the ambulances have still not been supplied.
MoHS required bidders for medical supplies contracts to submit a Pharmacy Board License/Registration with their documentation. A US$4m contract was awarded to Ramesco even though the company did not submit the requisite license.

The Office of the President released a statement responding to the report: “Government notes the ongoing public interest concerning the Auditor-General’s report…..as the law provides, parliament will debate the audit report and make appropriate recommendations on the issues raised therein…..Government attaches paramount importance to the judicious use of the Ebola funds and will ensure proper accountability for the use of these funds……those who are found guilty of misusing Ebola funds will face the full force of the law”.

There is widespread anger at the misuse of funds.

The opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) has called on the Government to launch “a public inquiry into the audit report and the management of the national fight of the Ebola Virus Disease since May 2014 to present and to bring all wrong doers to book”.
A report in the Sierra Leone Telegraph speculates that “the complex web of Ebola corruption in Sierra Leone – presided over by State House in Freetown, may take several years to unravel – if at all”.
Swit Salone provides details of the five biggest Ebola deals and questions the transparency of the contractors.
The Citizens Campaign for Accountability and Justice have called for an urgent probe into the audit by the Anti-Corruption Commission.
Sierra Leonean Alie Kabba, executive director at United African Organization, wrote in an open letter to the President Koroma: “To think that your government presided over such ignoble corruption with money that should have gone to the Ebola response is a depressing day indeed for our country”.

On 17 February, Sierra Leone’s Anti-Corruption Commission issued a public notice calling on 40 named individuals, institutions and companies to report to its offices. All District Medical Officers will be summoned at a later date.

Jamie Hitchen is Policy Researcher at ARI

Image courtesy of Sierra Leone Telegraph

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Old Tricks, Young Guns: Elections and violence in Sierra Leone

Yovanka ARI — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 16:04:28 +0000

April 2011

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Sierra Leone is acclaimed as one of Africa’s most successful post-conflict states. But the country remains fragile. Every election since independence has been attended by violence. Support for political parties is polarised on ethnic and regional lines, and underwritten by patronage. Youth unemployment is endemic. Amid early preparations for the 2012 presidential, parliamentary and local council elections, these notes examine the causes of electoral strife, and suggest measures for mitigating future violence.

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Peaceful transition from civil war, sustained economic growth
Corruption rife, new Anti-Corruption Act implemented
Election violence customary, perpetrated with impunity
Burgeoning youth unemployed, marginalised and manipulated
All party agreement to avert election violence

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Green shoots, deep roots

Sierra Leone’s 11 year civil war is infamous for images of child soldiers and amputees, and for the trade in “blood” diamonds. In January 2002, a peace ceremony marked the official end of the conflict. By 2004, 72,000 fighters from various factions were disarmed and demobilised. The international peacekeeping force – whose peak strength of 17,500 made it the largest ever deployed by the United Nations – was withdrawn in 2005.

Sierra Leone’s army, which had effectively ceased to exist in the latter years of the war, was reformed after a recruitment drive. The new force, comprising 8,500 troops, received extensive training from the UK-led International Military Advisory and Training Team (IMATT). The police service has been restructured and retrained. Despite low salaries, discipline in the army and police has improved.

Also Read: Comparing elections in Sierra Leone and Ghana

Successive post-war presidential and parliamentary elections have been won by different parties. In 2002, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) were the victors. In 2007, Ernest Bai Koroma and the All People’s Congress (APC) carried the vote. Both elections were declared free, fair and credible by international observers. Neither result was seriously contested by the defeated party.

President Koroma – formerly the managing director of an insurance company – has impressed international donors with bold declarations to “run Sierra Leone as a business concern”, combat corruption and reduce dependence on foreign aid. New laws and regulations, including a more transparent tax code, have been framed to attract private investment. According to financier and philanthropist George Soros, Sierra Leone has “the genuine potential to become a leading African economy” (1).

Source: African Economic Outloook

Commercial agriculture, infrastructure, health and education are pillars of an ambitious “Agenda for Change” launched by President Koroma in 2008. Funding for agriculture increased from 1.7% of the government’s budget in 2007 to 10% in 2010 (2). Free health care for pregnant women, nursing mothers, and children under five was introduced in April 2010. Provincial roads have been rebuilt. A US$92m investment in Bumbuna Hydroelectric Dam, a project initiated in 1970, has created a facility capable of generating 50 megawatts of electricity.

Sierra Leone remains beset by privation which predates the war. Two-thirds of the population subsists on less than US$1.25 per day. Almost half the population is malnourished. Maternal and infant mortality rates are among the highest in the world, and average life expectancy is 48 years. Youth unemployment is entrenched. While Sierra Leone’ s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is forecast to expand by an annual average of 4.7% in 2008-12,3 a sustained growth rate of 10% is required to combat unemployment and poverty effectively (4).

Corruption is rife in Sierra Leone. A 2006 review by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) accused the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) of failing to meet its objectives, and recommended a curtailment of funding for the organisation (5). President Koroma’s government has sought to restore a measure of confidence. The 2008 Anti-Corruption Act sanctioned the ACC to prosecute without prior approval from the attorney-general. By 2011, 11 convictions had ensued, including that of a minister within President Koroma’s inner circle.

Election violence, and accountability

Sierra Leone has held 11 parliamentary and five presidential elections since independence in 1961 (*). All have been accompanied by violence. In the 1967 elections, the ruling SLPP used new public order legislation and rarray boys– thugs – to stymie opposition. A premature announcement by the SLPP-appointed election commissioner that incumbent Prime Minister Albert Margai had won the ballot triggered nationwide riots. A retraction of the announcement in favour of Siaka Stevens and the APC was followed by a coup d’etat. Stevens was reinstated after a counter-coup at the end of 1968.

The 1973 election was boycotted by the SLPP, amid allegations that APC supporters were preventing its candidates from entering nomination centres. SLPP candidates were reportedly kidnapped. In 1977, voting took place under a state of emergency. The APC employed its youth wing and the Internal Security Unit – commonly referred to as “I Shoot U” – to harass SLPP politicians and supporters. In eight constituencies, polls could not be held. In 1982, more than 50 people were killed in an election conducted in a one party state.

[quote align=”center” color=”#999999″]“Years of bad governance, endemic corruption and the denial of basic human rights created deplorable conditions that make conflict inevitable” Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission[/quote]

The 2007 presidential and parliamentary elections were a test of Sierra Leone’s stability. The campaigns became so violent that President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah threatened to suspend the vote and impose a state of emergency. Dozens were injured in clashes in Freetown and in Kono, a major swing district. The SLPP presidential candidate, Solomon Berewa, accused opposition supporters of intimidating his voters. Reports of an assassination attempt on Ernest Koroma, the APC’s candidate, caused riots and the abandonment of his campaign in the south-east.

Perpetrators of violence act without fear of prosecution. While some are party loyalists, others are “hired hands”. The failure to prosecute those responsible exacerbates a lack of respect for the rule of law. It underpins a popular perception that the use of violence is an acceptable – even legitimate – means of securing power.

Misshapen identities

In post-independence Sierra Leone, political loyalties polarised along ethnic and regional lines. The largest ethnic groups, the Mende and Temne, each comprise about 30% of Sierra Leone’s population. The Mende and other smaller tribes in the south and east have traditionally supported the SLPP. The APC is favoured by the Temne, Limba and other tribes in the north, and the Krio community in the west.

Also Read: Diehards and democracy: Elites, inequality and institutions in African elections

Electoral loyalties have not been determined by long-standing ethnic enmity. Beyond the realm of politics, friendships and marriages between ethnic groups are common. But the espousal of particular ethnic and regional groups by candidates for national leadership is ingrained. Ethnic and regional identities have been a convenient – and effective – means of mobilising support during elections.

Within voting blocs, loyalties are not immutable. In the 2002 elections, the SLPP made inroads in the north – traditionally an APC stronghold. As the incumbent government, the SLPP garnered some credit for its role in ending the civil war. The gains were reversed in 2007, when both parties performed badly outside their traditional power bases.

The emergence of a third major political party added dynamism to the 2007 elections. The People’s Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC) was formed by Charles Margai, nephew of Sierra Leone’s first prime minister and son of the second, after his defeat by Solomon Berewa in the SLPP leadership contest. The new party secured a competitive advantage by capitalising on discontent with the indictment of Samuel Hinga Norman by the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the UN-backed tribunal established to try those accused of being most responsible for atrocities committed during the civil war.

The PMDC attracted strong support from the Kamajors, who had formed the backbone of a Mende militia led by Norman and regarded his indictment as a betrayal by the SLPP. The defection of the Kamajors effectively split the Mende vote. In Freetown and the Western Area, where the SLPP had won more than half the seats in the previous election, the APC captured all 21 seats in 2007. The SLPP accused the PMDC of handing victory to Ernest Koroma and the APC.

Patronage and the public purse

Loyalty to political parties in Sierra Leone is sustained by – and sustains – entrenched patronage networks, and corruption. Politicians routinely use office, and state resources, to reward party faithful. Supporters – civilian or military – are provided with money, jobs and services.

Source: Sierra Leone National Electoral Commission

In the decade after independence, Sierra Leone’s premiers sought to consolidate power through preferential appointments. Albert Margai, prime minister from 1964-67 and leader of the SLPP, filled the senior ranks of the army, civil service and judiciary with his supporters – regardless of experience or merit. His cabinet was almost exclusively Mende. Under Siaka Stevens, head of state from 1968-85 and founder of the APC, the process was intensified in favour of supporters from the north.

The use of public funds to secure and reward political loyalty undermined state institutions. Hospitals and schools fell into disrepair. Salaries of junior civil servants often went unpaid. Teachers and nurses demanded illegal payments to supplement their salaries. Those unable to pay were denied access to education and health services. By 1985, when Stevens was succeeded by General Joseph Momoh, the Sierra Leonean state existed only in name.

Also Read: Tanzania and Senegal: Inside the Machine

Local paramount chiefs have reinforced political divisions. In the 1960s, Albert Margai granted chiefs the right to allow – or ban – political meetings. Anyone deemed to have misused this authority was deposed or exiled. Siaka Stevens instructed chiefs not to allow SLPP candidates to campaign in their territories, and to order their people to vote for the APC. In 2007, the Office of National Security reported cases of chiefs seeking to disrupt or curtail campaigning.

Entrenched electoral loyalties and corruption have created a commonly-held belief that elections are ‘winner takes all’ contests. Voters presume that the SLPP will reward the south and east, and the APC will favour the north and west. Defeat at the ballot box will entail exclusion and disadvantage for an electoral term.

Youth, and muscle

Youth groups have become a more potent force in Sierra Leone’s elections than ethnicity or regionalism. The young have been most disadvantaged by endemic corruption, and have suffered most from the disintegration of state services. In the 1980s, Sierra Leone’s literacy rate was just 15% (7). Education suffered further as schools closed during the civil war. Many young men and women joined the various factions – some voluntarily, but many by force.

[quote align=”center” color=”#999999″]“The youth problem has become chronic”. President Ernest Bai Koroma (8)[/quote]

Sierra Leone is beset by a burgeoning generation which has received no formal education and possesses few skills. An estimated 800,000 young people, about 14% of the population, are unemployed or work for no remuneration (9). Those who have jobs are often exploited, enduring abject conditions for negligible pay. A 2010 UN Security Council briefing noted that a growing number of young men are “idle, concentrated in urban areas and frustrated by social marginalisation” (10). Unemployed young men are susceptible to manipulation and exploitation.

Also Read: The more things change… 2012 elections in Sierra Leone

In the 2007 election campaigns, political parties employed high profile ex-combatants from various rebel groups. Ernest Koroma hired Idrissa Kamara, a former Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) commander known as Leatherboot, and mid-ranking former Revolutionary United Front (RUF) fighters to join his personal security unit. Solomon Berewa engaged Hassan Bangura, or Bomblast, also a former AFRC commander who became second-in-command of the West Side Boys. The PMDC was backed by the Kamajors. These alliances were designed to gain political clout, but youth groups – and unemployed young men in particular – were responsible for most of the violence during the 2007 campaigns.

Party “task forces”, established to handle security and protect party property, are a feature of elections in Sierra Leone. Young men are brought into the party youth wings – for token payments or promises of future benefits – to intimidate voters and break up opposition rallies. Their loyalty is not guaranteed. Many hold membership cards of more than one party, and switch allegiances for greater reward. There is profound distrust between politicians and marginalised youth. With few opportunities for betterment, the young pose an escalating threat to post-war stability.

Twenty twelve

The 2012 presidential, parliamentary and local government elections will be won by the APC or the SLPP. The PMDC’s popularity has waned since 2008, and the SLPP appear to have regained the support of the Kamajors. In September 2010, a UN Security Council resolution stressed the “potential for an increase in tensions during the preparations for and the period leading up to the 2012 elections … due to political, security, socio-economic and humanitarian challenges” (11).

Predictions of electoral violence are well-founded. In March 2009, the SLPP headquarters was attacked after five days of clashes between supporters of the two main parties in Freetown, Kenema, Gendema and Pujehun District. A joint communiqué condemning the fighting was issued by all parties, but violent confrontations occurred during other by-elections in 2010. Rumours of negotiations between prominent ex-combatants and the APC and SLPP abound.

A December 2010 local council by-election in Kono was preceded by “incidents of political violence and intolerance” (12). The SLPP office in Koidu City, and buildings associated with APC officials, were vandalised. Senior SLPP officials, including two presidential candidates and the deputy minority leader of parliament, sustained injuries in attacks allegedly carried out by APC supporters. SLPP MPs boycotted parliamentary proceedings in protest.

Distrust between the APC and the SLPP is intense. In December 2010, two SLPP members were given ministerial positions in a cabinet reshuffle. Both appointees were promptly suspended from the SLPP.

Recommendations

In the run-up to Sierra Leone’s 2012 elections:

The joint communiqué signed in April 2009 must be fully implemented. All political parties agreed to co-operate “in preventing all forms of political incitement, provocation and intimidation” that might encourage violence. No one has ever been prosecuted for violent conduct during elections. Donors should exert pressure on the government to ensure that all outbreaks of violence are investigated, and the perpetrators prosecuted. Those who recruit malefactors and those who incite violence should be deemed equally responsible.

The effective and impartial conduct of state institutions will be a prerequisite for free, fair and peaceful polls. Sierra Leone’s National Electoral Commission, Political Parties Registration Commission, Office of National Security, police and electoral offences courts, jointly have the authority to prevent an escalation of illegal and violent behaviour. These institutions must be unequivocally supported by political parties and donors. The UN Secretary-General’s Executive Representative in Sierra Leone has called on the National Electoral Commission to “show greater flexibility in discussing electoral concerns” (13) with all parties, in order to deflect any accusation of bias.

Political parties should demonstrate real support for efforts by the newly-formed All Political Parties Youth Association and All Political Parties Women’s Association to promote peaceful elections. The government should emphasise the legal obligations of paramount chiefs before and during the elections – and the penalties for breaches.

The APC and SLPP have relinquished control of party radio stations. The new, independent Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) should act as a forum for all political parties to debate electoral issues. Radio is a powerful medium in a country with one of the lowest literacy rates in the world. Debates and impartial election coverage by the SLBC can help to inform voters, and encourage voting determined by issues and performance.

Recent prosecutions by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) have been welcomed, in Sierra Leone and abroad. Further prosecutions would help to counter the widespread belief that politicians are not accountable for the use, or misuse, of public funds. The ACC needs to investigate more closely how corruption is used to secure political loyalty.

In the medium term:

Party ‘task forces’ should be disbanded, and outlawed. Special police units should assume responsibility for the protection of political candidates and party property.

Political parties and individual candidates should be required by law to disclose all donations, and account for the use of funds. A limit on donations should be agreed by all parties, after consultation with civil society groups and donors.

Infrastructure and other development projects funded by international donors need to benefit all regions. Increasing government revenues from natural resource extraction must also be deployed in a demonstrably equitable manner. Disbursement of national income and donor funds for the benefit of government and opposition supporters alike will help to counter political divisionism, and the public perception that elections are a “winner takes all” contest.

Enduring peace and stability in Sierra Leone is dependent on a substantial expansion of educational and employment opportunities. In 2010, the World Bank announced a three year US$20 million to develop the practical skills of 18,000 unemployed young people. An additional 30,000 will be employed in public schemes to rehabilitate infrastructure. A new Ministry for Youth Employment and Sport was created in 2010. Much more is needed. Agriculture and agribusiness offer good opportunities for large-scale employment. The development of labour-intensive commercial agriculture in Sierra Leone should be a priority for donors and government.

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Investment International, November 12th 2009
Mohamed Fofanah, “New agriculture plan spouts”, International Press Service, August 13th 2010
Africa Economic Outlook, Sierra Leone
Africa Confidential, “More power for Freetown”, October 8th 2009
Joel Cutting, Gladwell Otieno, “Annual Review 2006 of DFID Support to the Anti-Corruption Commission Phase 2 in Sierra Leone”, January 25th 2007
New York Times, “Sierra Leone voids some election returns”, May 3rd 1982
David Keen, “Greedy elites, dwindling resources, alienated youths: the anatomy of protracted violence in Sierra Leone”, International Politics and Society, 2003
Maya Christensen, Mats Utas, “Mercenaries of democracy: the ‘politricks’ of remobilized combatants in the 2007 general election, Sierra Leone”, African Affairs, September 2008
Fifth report of the secretary-general on the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Sierra Leone, September 17th 2010
UN Department of Public Information, “Youth unemployment poses ‘latent threat’ to Sierra Leone’s stability, top officials warn in Security Council briefing”, March 22nd 2010
UN Security Council, resolution 1941, September 2010
Sixth report of the secretary-general on the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Sierra Leone, March 9th 2011
UN News Centre,“UN at critical juncture in peacebuilding efforts, UN warned”, September 28th 2010

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