But critics say Sierra Leone’s new media law gives the government the powers to shut down media houses and ban individual journalists from practicing their professions. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Jul 30 2020 (IPS)

Last week, Sierra Leone’s parliament voted to repeal the country’s 55-year-old libel law, which criminalised the publication of information that was deemed defamatory or seditious, and which had been used by successive governments to target and imprison media practitioners and silence dissenting views. But not everyone is convinced it was in the best interest of media freedom.

On Jul. 23, in an unanimous vote, Sierra Leone’s parliament repealed Part V of the 1965 Public Order Act (POA), which criminalised  libel. It was replaced with the Independent Media Commission (IMC) Act 2020, which was also approved unanimously.

But critics say the IMC Act 2020 gives the Sierra Leone government the power to shut down media houses and ban journalists from practicing their professions.

Sylvia Blyden, who served as a minister of the main opposition All People’s Congress, and is currently editor of the local newspaper, Awareness Times, told IPS that she was against the repeal of all of the provisions in the POA.

Blyden, a prominent journalist and activist, is presently facing charges brought by the government for defamatory libel, publishing false news and seditious libel — charges that existed under the repealed Part V of the POA.
But Blyden told IPS that there are many protective caveats of that act, which made it not as bad as some people believed it to be. She added that the importance of the criminal libel laws went far beyond the practice of journalism and politics.

“It is sad for poor citizens who cannot afford the money to pay lawyers to institute civil libel litigation to protect their names and good reputations as there is no more punitive deterrent in place.
“I am not speaking of journalists, I am speaking of citizens assaulting other citizen’s reputation. We still have our laws to protect against physical assault on us but we have removed the laws that protect us against assault on our good names. Not much thinking went into this process of repeal,” she argued.

Others have noted that the IMC Act 2020 will serve only to “undermine media pluralism and completely eliminate the registration of newspapers as a ‘Sole Proprietorship’ business, and only provides for registration under the Partnership Act 1890 and the Companies Act 2009”.

Lawrence Williams, writing for the Sierra Leone Telegraph, said, “It’s important to note that many newspapers in Sierra Leone are registered under ‘Sole Proprietorship’ as one among several options provided for under the current IMC Act”.

He said the elimination of newspapers registered under sole proprietorship could lead to the closure of many independent publications, and could therefore “end media scrutiny of government institutions and public officials; and inevitably result to ending governance accountability and transparency in Sierra Leone”.

Amin Kef Sesay, writing in the Calabash Newspaper, said that the IMC Act 2020 would allow the government to “tie the hands of citizens from freely investing in the media and heading those institutions as editors, publishers, etc”.

But Sierra Leone’s information and communication minister Mohamed Rahman Swaray told IPS that the POA had been in violation of 12 international human rights instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and that government had to comply with international standards.

He said that the IMC Act would enable the mitigation against sedition and libel against private citizens. He added that the Independent Media Commission, the regulatory body of the media, had been given quasi-judicial functions under the IMC Act 2020, and had powers of the high court to hear civil matters of sedition and libel.

• When the act is signed into law, the commission will be able to monitor and regulate the media, its content, ensure that a minimum wage $60 is paid to media practitioners, and to ensure that only qualified and trained media personnel are employed as editors/station managers etc.

Swaray also argued that the IMC Act 2020 was not government exercising further rights over the media. “We discussed the draft bill with the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) and they all agreed to the contents of the draft which was then sent to parliament so there was endorsement of the contents of the bill by SLAJ,” he said.

Swaray told IPS that government was very concerned about improving the media landscape in this West African nation as the old law meant the country’s brightest and best brains shied away from the profession because they could face criminal charges. “Women also were refusing to practice,” he added.

He is confident that the recent decriminalisation of the libel law will now see more women taking up the profession.
“Now the best minds and women will come on board and we will make the media and journalism a professional, lucrative and serious institution in the country,” Swaray told IPS.

Speaker of parliament Dr. Abass Bundu said at the time that parliament had restored the dignity of the media and he hoped that, going forward, responsible and professional journalism would hold sway.

Hassan Samba Yarjah, a commissioner of the Human Rights Commission in Sierra Leone, told IPS that the commission had called for Part V of the POA to be repealed every year for the last 10 years in its annual ‘State of Human Rights Report in Sierra Leone’.

He said that as a commission they could not emphasise the importance of the passing of the IMC Act 2020. Yarjah told IPS that the press and citizens would now have greater freedom to express their views, speak out, challenge government on issues affecting them, constructively criticise and speak truth to power without being arrested and branded a criminal.

He said that this return of power to the people was a big development for democracy here, adding that this would change the landscape of journalism and develop the media. “The commission will, however, continue to monitor these freedoms and also ensure that the Media and everyone enjoy this freedom with greater responsibility,” Yarjah told IPS.

Both the repeal of the POA and the passing of the IMC Act 2020 have been sent to President Julius Maada Bio for his signature.

A medical centre at the Bandama checkpoint in Kenema to test people in transit for symptoms of Ebola. Credit: Mohamed Fofanah/IPS

By Mohamed Fofanah
KENEMA, Sierra Leone, Jul 12 2014 (IPS)

Adikali Kamara is a 36-year-old student nurse working in the government hospital in Kenema, a sprawling town on the fringe of the Sierra Leone’s Gola tropical rain forest.

On June 19, he began feeling unwell, complaining of fever and a headache, and went to a chemist near where he lived to buy anti-malaria drugs and antibiotics to treat typhoid fever. “I thought that my symptoms indicated either malaria or typhoid because these are the most common ailments suffered by everybody here,” said Kamara.

However his condition did not change and two days later he decided to seek proper treatment at the hospital. That was when the doctors discovered he was suffering from Ebola, a disease that causes fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhoea and kills up to 90 percent of those infected.

Kamara was admitted immediately and just seven days later he was discharged after receiving supportive treatment.“People are vehemently denying that Ebola exists despite the massive awareness raising that is going on, and those that do believe the illness exists are so afraid that they do not come to the hospital or bring their relatives when they are sick. That is how Ebola spreads in the community” – Michael Vandi, Public Health Education Officer for Sierra Leone’s Eastern Province

Kamara is one the fortunate 51 persons in Sierra Leone who have survived the current Ebola scourge that is also ravaging two other West African neighbours – Guinea and Liberia. So far, 99 have died in Sierra Leone and a further 315 men, women and children have tested positive.

The Public Health Education Officer for Sierra Leone’s Eastern Province, Michael Vandi, who is based in the Kenema hospital which houses the country’s only Supportive Treatment Centre and testing laboratory for Ebola, said that the country is far from winning the fight against the disease, blaming people’s fear and denial of the disease.

Vandi said that “people are vehemently denying that Ebola exists despite the massive awareness raising that is going on, and those that do believe the illness exists are so afraid that they do not come to the hospital or bring their relatives when they are sick. That is how Ebola spreads in the community before we are aware of cases.”

According to Vandi, people are accusing doctors of administering lethal injections to the Ebola patients or removing vital organs for sale in European markets. He said that some even claim that people are being deliberately infected with the virus to reduce the population.

As a result, doctors and nurses in the hospitals have been attacked and many nurses are not wearing their uniforms on the way to work for fear of being attacked in the streets.

“Patients who were admitted – both male and female – are abandoning the hospitals,” said Vandi. “They are now going to pharmacies or being treated by quack doctors or nurses in their homes. This is worrisome because the signs and symptoms of Ebola mimic the prevalent malaria and typhoid fever in the country and, before they know what they are dealing with, it will be too late.”

The Senior Human Rights Officer who heads the Human Rights Commission’s Office in the Eastern Province, Hassan Yarjah, blames the government’s Ebola awareness raising strategy for fanning mistrust and disbelief among people.

He pointed out that the eastern part of the country, in which almost all cases of Ebola have so far been identified, is an opposition stronghold. “What the central government is doing, which I think is wrong, is sending people to these communities that the people cannot identify with; they are parliamentarians, they are ministers, they are executives from the ruling All People’s Congress party and this is a country where everything is polarised,” he said.

According to Yarjah, people in the country’s Eastern Province are saying that “because a census is scheduled for September, the politicians want to scare people away from this part of the country so that their number will dwindle; then, when they delimit the boundaries for constituency seats, this will mean less representatives for the opposition in parliament in the next election.”

“I think government should use the local structures, like the paramount chiefs, the medical personnel on the ground, and the local councils,” Yarjah told IPS.

Meanwhile, the government has announced a ban on regular trade fairs in Kailahun, one of the districts in Eastern Province worst hit by Ebola. There has also been an executive order for placing medical personnel at a number of checkpoints on roads from the Eastern Province to check people for Ebola-related symptoms.

“This has affected our agriculture,” complained Lamin Musa, a farmer from Kailahun. “We cannot sell our produce now at the trade fairs and this had heaped more hardship on our poor people. Even bush meat, which had been a lucrative trade for us, has been banned. It is difficult for us to understand all the suffering we have to undergo because of Ebola.”

Whatever the misgivings, misconceptions and accusations, the virus is thriving, in part due to dysfunctional medical systems and weak disaster management structures in Sierra Leone and its neighbours.

At the beginning of July, the World Health Organization (WHO) held an emergency meeting in Accra, Ghana, with health ministers from 12 West African countries to discuss and propose suggestions to combat the outbreak of Ebola virus that has hit the three West African countries.

The ministers adopted a common inter-country strategy calling for accelerated response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The strategy stressed the need for regional, sub-regional and national leadership, coordinated actions by all stakeholders, enhanced cross border collaboration and the involvement of communities.

For his part, Kamara is optimistic. “I was able to beat this disease and any of you out there can,” he said. “You have to believe that Ebola is real, set aside prejudice and go to the hospital early if you experience the symptoms.”

The problem is that while Ebola may be a killer, a potentially greater threat to Sierra Leoneans and West Africans in general lies in less spectacular diseases. During the current outbreak of Ebola, other diseases are quietly taking their toll. Malaria is still rampant, and there is concern that cholera, which usually attacks during this period of the rains, will resurface to claim more lives.

Navo Kai-Kai from the Sierra Leone People’s Party told IPS that there were other pressing reasons for the decreased number of women contesting high political positions this election. Credit: Mohamed Fofanah/IPS

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Nov 6 2012 (IPS)

Only 38 women – of a total of 586 candidates – will contest parliamentary seats in Sierra Leone’s November elections, and the blame for this can be laid squarely on the shoulders of the current group of female lawmakers, according to Barbara Bangura, the director of the women’s organisation Grassroots Empowerment for Self Reliance.

The Nov. 17 elections will only be this West African nation’s third election since the civil war ended here in 2002.

And while the country will see its first female vice presidential candidate, Kadi Sesay from the opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), run for office, there are not many women joining her in the race for parliament. There is no female presidential candidate. But in addition to the dismal number of candidates running for seats in the legislature, there are only 337 women out of 1,283 candidates for local council elections.

Bangura points an accusing finger at the current crop of female parliamentarians who, she says, are to blame for the failure of parliament to pass the Gender Equality Bill that would have provided for a 30 percent representation of women in the legislature.

Bangura, one of the leading women’s activists pushing for the enactment of the bill, has squarely laid the blame on the Women’s Parliamentary Caucus. Women from the caucus were meant to champion and table the bill and lobby their colleagues for its enactment. But they did not succeed, because of what the activist calls a lack of interest on their part.

“We had to be hard on their heels, they did not show enough interest in pushing the bill forward and also getting their parties to support it. Now many of them are not going back to parliament, as they have not retained their seats. I hope they have learned their lesson,” Bangura told IPS.

Banging away on her laptop in the Women’s Situation Room – a room in the country’s capital Freetown where non-partisan women sit, receive and analyse information before the elections – Bangura explained to IPS that there was controversy among the female parliamentarians over which institution would monitor the implementation of the bill when it was enacted into law.

The chairwoman of the Women’s Parliamentary Caucus and member of the ruling All People’s Congress (APC), Marie Yansaneh, told IPS that there was indeed confusion about which institution would monitor the implementation of the bill, resulting in the bill not being finalised before the five-year parliamentary session ended on Sep. 25.

One school of thought said it should be a Gender Equality Commission, while another was calling for the creation of a specific Women’s Commission to monitor implementation.

“None of these proposed institutions had even been set up, so we lost time. And then these female parliamentarians had to go into their various constituencies to campaign, so there was no time for the bill. So that was the end of the matter. As far as we know the bill is still sitting in the Office of the Attorney General and was never tabled in parliament,” said Bangura.

Effective political participation by women remains abysmally low in this country of 5.9 million people.

Before parliament closed, just 17 out of the 124 parliamentarians were women. Women make up 18.9 percent of female councillors in the local government – none at the level of chairwoman – and they comprise less than 10 percent of top civil service positions.

The public information officer of the Human Rights Commission (HRCSL), Henry Sheku, told IPS that the enactment of the Gender Equality Bill would have affected the development of the country.

“There is a whole raft of women with the appropriate skills and experience to take on leadership roles, and the confidence to do so. But because of a bad system these women have been deliberately marginalised,” he said.

However, Navo Kai-Kai from the SLPP told IPS that there were other pressing reasons for the decreased number of women contesting high political positions this election. Kai-Kai has claimed that her male opponent from the SLPP, who was also contesting the post of chair of the Kailahun District Council, had intimidated her after he lost the party primaries to her.

“There was serious intimidation; my male opponent came out with his secret societies during our party primaries so I had to leave my district in Kailahun, east of the country, escorted by the police to Kenema district, for fear of my life. As a result I was unable to contest for the party symbols and lost to my male opponent,” Kai-Kai said.

The endorsement of candidates by political parties to contest elections in Sierra Leone is called “getting the party symbol”.

A number of women also dropped out of contesting the elections when the country’s National Electoral Commission (NEC) increased nomination fees.

“I withdrew from nominations immediately when the NEC announced increased nomination fees. I know it will be difficult for me to get that kind of money and my party will not help, so I lost my opportunity because of money and the lack of support,” Memuna Sapateh, a candidate representing the Peoples Liberation Party, told IPS.

The nomination fees were increased from one million Leones (250 dollars) to one hundred million (about 250,000 dollars) for presidential candidates, and from 100,000 Leones (25 dollars) to one million Leones (250 dollars) for parliamentary and city councillor positions. The dramatic increase in fees met with stiff opposition from civil society groups and the majority of the nine registered political parties.

Parliament approved the NEC’s decision to raise the nomination fees, and the new fees came into effect on Sept. 10. Only after political parties threatened to boycott the elections did the government allow candidates to revert to the fee rate from the 2007 elections. Instead, the government announced that it would pay the difference in the fees to the NEC.

But Bangura’s accusing finger still points to the female parliamentarians.

“Yes there were challenges for the women, the finances to run elections, the patriarchal political system, the sudden increase in the nomination fees,” she agreed.

“But I still blame the women in the political parties. I always say that women do not know the power they have; we always say to them you are a woman first before you belong to a political party. Not all of them with party symbols will win.  So whilst we are looking at the women that actually have symbols we have to look at the ones that will go through, that will win seats in parliament and council, we will definitely see decreased figures.”

Sheku said that the HRCSL would be focusing on pushing strongly for the passage of the Gender Equality Bill as soon as a new government took office.

Bangura was also upbeat. “After the elections we will re-organise and continue to push for the Gender Equality Bill so it becomes law.”

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, May 13 2011 (IPS)

In Sierra Leone’s highly patriarchal society, where institutionalised gender inequalities are exacerbated by discriminatory customs, one group is singing its way towards changing this.

The Grassroots Empowerment for Self Reliance (GEMS), supported by the Governance and Transparency Fund of the UK Department for International Development, is working to change the status quo and raise awareness around the proposed legislation to have 30 percent female representation in all levels of government, using radio jingles.

(Sierra Leone’s President, Ernest Bai Koroma, has said his government will work with the female parliamentary caucus to develop and table the bill before parliament.) It is working with the Mwananchi Project, which aims to involve citizens in governance.

“We have developed jingles translated into all the local languages and a theme song which will be released for use by everybody working on the 30 percent quota campaign for women. They will be aired in all the 14 political districts of the country,” said Barbara Bangura, the Executive Director of GEMS. She they had also been training women in advocacy and lobbying and also role-playing on how to lobby their parties.

Fifty-one percent of Sierra Leone’s population is female but there are only 17 female members of parliament out of a total 112, and only 18.9 percent of female councilors in local government. There are only two female ministers out of a total of 24 and four deputies out of the same number. There is one female ambassador and only five state institutions are headed by women.

“We are trying to educate and raise awareness on the minimum 30 percent quota for women in decision making in Sierra Leone and we are targeting the political parties to adopt this quota system,” said Bangura.

She told IPS that they have also ensured that the messages in the jingles and the theme song are not confrontational like previous campaigns that stress messages like “women can do it better than men.” “Those messages have hampered our campaigns and excluded the support of the men. Now our campaigns seek to get support from everybody.”

The opposition SLPP, the Sierra Leone People’s Party, is the only party that adopted a gender policy, which was developed by the women of the party. “The purpose of the new gender policy is to put in place concrete strategies aimed at increasing the participation of our women folk in the administration of the party at all levels and in enhancing their chances to contest and win in both Parliamentary and Local Government elections,” said Isatu Kabba, the president of the party’s women’s group and wife of the country’s former president Ahmed Tejan Kabba.

The ruling party is now following suit and the All Peoples Congress is developing a gender policy according to Marie Jalloh, a member of parliament for the APC. “We are seeing an increased number of women filling up party hierarchy positions at all levels in the party structure. For example, we have six women now in the party executive when it was only two before the party’s convention,” said Jalloh.

The third-largest party in the country, the People’s Movement for Democratic Change, is reported to have rejected a gender policy introduced to the party by its women’s wing.

However, Bangura told IPS that GEMS is working with other women’s organisations, including the Ministry of Social Welfare Gender and Children’s Affairs, to develop a draft bill. This bill will be presented as a private members bill by the Parliamentary women’s caucus. She said that the bill will cover every sphere of decision-making structures in the country, from ensuring that 30 percent of the 12 reserved seats for paramount chiefs in Parliament are allocated to women to even the private sector.

“We are targeting the 15th of July this year for that bill (the private members bill) to be enacted because the National Electoral Commission and the Political Parties Registration Commission that regulates political parties will be reviewing their own laws. So we will want them to be able to incorporate the thirty percent quota and build pro gender structures for the 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections,” said Bangura.

“More than before we are seeing a strong political will by the government to implement the 30 percent quota recommendation. We hope the parliamentarians will also share the same enthusiasm to pass the bill into law, so come 2012 elections we will see greater participation of women,” said Jalloh.

Excerpt:

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, May 2 2011 (IPS)

He was all over the place during the 2008 local council election campaign, but no one’s seen the councillor since he won his seat, says Freetown journalist Ismael Bakarr. “He just disappeared.”

Sierra Leoneans want to see local govt take an active role on services like providing water. Credit: Anna Jeffreys/IRIN

“[Our councillor] promised to bring pipe-borne water to the area and there is still nothing,” says the journalist. “We had a power outage for over three months but the councillor was nowhere to be seen.”

Local governance not built in a day

Sierra Leone re-introduced local government councils in 2004 after a 30-year absence; the experience of the last six years is prompting questions about how to successfully introduce effective democratic authority and responsiveness at the local level in a country where few have experience of active participation in governance.

Devolution of responsibility to local councils is behind schedule, with responsibility for key services such as water and waste management and infrastructure like roads among the important areas remaining under the central government’s control.

Traditional chiefs are also proving reluctant to yield their long-standing control over collecting and spending local taxes to the new authorities.

All this has weakened the power of councils to make their presence felt. But the problem is compounded by weak capacity of councillors and ward committees elected to represent different parts of each local council.

Better understanding the problems

Campaign for the Voiceless is a national non-governmental organisation working on improving the quality of – and interest in – social accountability in Sierra Leone. Supported by the Governance and Transparency Fund of the UK Department for International Development, CAMPVO has carried out a public perception survey to capture the challenges, gaps and possible solutions to problems faced by local councils from the point of view of the people they are meant to serve.

The survey found that councillors fail to organise community meetings to discuss development, provide updates on needed services or to solicit constituents’ views on issues.

CAMPVO director Mohamed Turay confirms Bakarr’s view that councillors and constituents alike are still not clear what the roles and responsibilities of local government are.

“[Citizens] do not seem to know, for example, where to turn to when there is an outbreak of disease in the community or what to do when there is a water or security crisis,” says Turay.

“The effect is a personalisation or privatisation of action by individuals and families in response to these community needs.”

A recent power outage in the New England Ville area of Freetown due to a faulty transformer illustrates this finding. Instead of the local councillor leading the process of restoring electricity, it was family heads who went around the community, pooled resources and bought a replacement transformer – unwilling to wait for the National Power Authority to take ages to replace it.

Councillors defensive

“We have to be invisible,” says Councillor Michael Bayoh of Constituency 246, in the Tinkonko Chiefdom of the rural district of Bo, “because to call a meeting means that people will be expected to be refreshed [to be given food and drink] and most times we do not have the money to do that.”

The challenge is that Sierra Leoneans are still feeling out the strengths and weaknesses of a new level of government. The majority of councillors are poorly educated and unemployed; in many cases they imagined election to local council as a way out of poverty. But the post comes without a salary; instead councillors are now viewed by their constituents as politicians – meaning rich.

“Councillors are only receiving a meagre sitting fee of three hundred thousand leones (about 70 dollars) per month and these monies are paid on a quarterly basis… and are always late,” says Remi Martin, a councillor in ward 250 in the Lugbu Chiefdom, also in Bo District.

“We are not being paid salaries and most times people have this concept that we are politicians and very rich so there is all kinds of demands from us, from financing community projects to domestic expenses.”

Bayoh agrees. “The expectation of people is really a challenge for us and when you do not meet those expectations you begin to dig your own grave for the next council election. The people will surely bury you.”

The councillor told IPS that working with his ward committee is also hampered by lack of resources.

“They are not given travel allowances to attend meetings – especially when the town or sections they represent are far from the district council. They in turn expect us to handle all their expenses and we cannot. So most times, a whole year will pass and we are unable to meet.”

Future success

Yet the example of New England Ville residents raising their own funds for repairs demonstrates that local leadership and resources can be mobilised for community needs. The trick may be to replace exaggerated expectations of this level of government with the slow building up of popular confidence in local government in keeping with its gradual consolidation.

The Decentralisation Secretariat, the national body charged with designing and implementing local government, has introduced new minimum standards of education for councillors, as well as providing training and technical staff to help councils go about their tasks.

Having completed its survey, CAMPVO is now working to improve engagement between councils and citizens. This should go some way towards aligning people’s expectations with the real powers and capabilities of their local councils and councillors.

Excerpt:

The re-establishment of local councils in Sierra Leone in 2004 was intended to give people a greater voice in their government, reversing long years of marginalisation for rural districts in particular. But nearly seven years later, it has still not been fully implemented. A local NGO, Campaign for the Voiceless, is working to strengthen the performance of this most accessible tier of government.

Outside the Freetown City Council office. Credit: Mohamed Fofanah/IPS

Local councils were disbanded in 1972, and misconceptions about the role councillors should play are common.

“Many people in my constituency have reduced my role as councillor to sponsoring their weddings, funerals or help them handle even domestic expenses,” Councillor Madinatu Kamara of Freetown’s Ward 377 told IPS.

“When you are unable to help, you are blacklisted as not working for them, they fail to engage you on real issues like the provision of pipe-borne water, clinics or feeder roads which are what we can handle,” said Kamara.

The elected officials have also struggled. “Many councillors also did not know their roles as councillors,” said Mohamed Turay, programme coordinator for Campaign for the Voiceless. “Their low levels of education also limits their grappling with issues of the council and effectively work as councillors. Some councillors I talked with admitted that they have not even read the Local Council Act that establishes the Local Council structure.”

Restoring local government

Nineteen local councils were established by the 2004 Local Government Act, restoring a level of government disbanded by former president Siaka Stevens in 1972. Freetown Council had continued to operate, but local government elsewhere was replaced with a combination of centrally-appointed district officers and local chiefs.

“Siaka Stevens thought that by centralisation, he could maintain the maximum feasible control over the national economy and economic development,” says Kenday S. Kamara, Ph.D., a freelance international consultant in administration, policy development and capacity building.

“It was a handy strategy for him in the sense that he called all the shots, and that enabled him to exploit more easily the resources of society,” Kamara continues. “Evidently, his hidden motive to push for centralization was to loot the resources of the country, which was far easier for him to do with highly centralised powers as opposed to when they were dispersed throughout the many levels and segments of the society.”

Turay says the establishment of local councils was a step in the right direction for Sierra Leone’s democratisation process, noting that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report of 2004 stated that the over-centralised system of rule, which excluded the majority of the population from decision-making, was one of the key causes of the conflict.

Even today, government institutions and services are all concentrated in Freetown. Outside the capital, only Bo, Kenema and Makeni districts have even limited electricity supply; there is no pipe-borne water in many districts. The Human Rights Commission reports that Bonthe district is just one where courts have not been in session for more than a year.

Without properly functioning local councils and devolution of responsibility, the argument goes, the provision of services will not become a reality.

“Decentralisation will bring the government closer to the people,” says Turay. “It will expand the political space, and allow greater government accountability and citizen participation to public affairs, hence strengthening state legitimacy.”

Slow progress

But since 2004, the implementation of the new governance structure has been fraught with challenges, admitted Councilor Melrose During, a councillor in Ward 397 in Freetown.

“One of the major areas set out in the Local Government Act was the devolution of state functions to the council. This devolution has been slower than expected,” says During.

“The state has only been able to devolve health (primary and secondary health facilities),  education (primary and secondary education) and agriculture to the Council. There are host of other functions like feeder roads, rural water, solid waste management, youth and sport activities that is yet to be devolved and this is affecting our service delivery.”

Floyd Davies, a legal expert in the country’s Decentralisation Secretariat, the act envisioned completion of the transfer of authority by 2008, however about 50 percent of functions are yet to be formally devolved to local councils.

The Decentralisation Secretariat is a component of the Institutional Reform and Capacity Building Project, in the Local Government Ministry which finances the detailed design and implementation of the decentralisation programme of the Government of Sierra Leone.

Davies told IPS that the process has been hampered mainly by the lack of a national decentralisation policy and inconsistency between the Local Government Act and other national laws.

“For example, the Act did not bring closure to the relationship between the local councils and the chieftaincy. Although by law the chiefdoms are subordinate to the local councils, chiefs have not accepted this hierarchy, and ambiguity on the part of the national government persists,” he said.

The Act transfers several sources of revenue previously controlled by the chief to the local council, including local taxes, fees, and licenses. Local councils now have the authority to determine the rate of local tax. All revenues are to be paid into local authority accounts and subject to audit controls.

But at the same time, the collection of tax is to remain in the hands of the chiefdoms. As a result, some paramount chiefs collect these revenues without turning them over to the local council. In several districts, there have been reports of local councillors collecting their own taxes, and printing their own tickets and receipts.

“To handle these bottle necks we have drawn up a national policy on decentralization which was launched early this year, to take care of anomalies for the smooth implementation of the decentralization process,” Davies said.

The new policy also set out educational qualifications for the mayor or council chairperson – now required to have a qualification higher than a secondary school certificate, and specifies that councillors should be able to read and write in English.

The policy states that the transfer of functions from central government to local councils will be concluded by the end of 2012 and re-emphasises that the local council is the highest political body in its locality.

Ibrahim Massaquoi, a business man in ward 106 in Freetown, said that there are always wonderful policies – the problem is in implementation. Looking back at the devolution achieved over six years, he doubts the government can meet its 2012 deadlined.

“The low level of education has been seriously hampering the work of the council.,” he says. “Our councillors are not confident, they cannot articulate on serious issues, they cannot engage with developmental partners on a higher platform and also cannot challenge central government to devolve critical and technical functions to them.”

Davies insists that things are looking up for councils, with several training programmes building capacity of councillors. He said the Secretariat has also provided councils with the relevant technical staff to help handle the affairs of the Council, including administration, procurement, financial and monitoring and evaluation officers.

“What is important is that government is committed to a policy of decentralisation by devolution, to the transfer of power, authority and resources from the center to democratically elected local councils. And that will happen because there is a political will.”

On Apr. 5, the United Nations Children’s Fund will launch a report on teenage pregnancy in Sierra Leone. Teenage pregnancies account for 40 percent of maternal deaths in the country, and the report comes as public health authorities recalibrate strategy to address a problem that endangers both mothers and children.

This young woman from Makeni dropped out of school when she had her first child at 16. Credit: Anna Jeffreys/IRIN

Seventy percent of teenage girls in Sierra Leone are married, according to a 2008 survey by the World Health Organization, in a country where early marriage is supported by traditional practice.

The United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF) report, “A Glimpse Into the World of Teenage Pregnancy in Sierra Leone”, states that “such importance is given to girls marrying as virgins that the age of marriage often coincides with the first occurrence of female menstruation”.

Drawing on research conducted in four regions, UNICEF’s report finds the typical consequences of teen pregnancy are social stigma, unstable marriages, poverty and the end of a girl’s education. UNICEF cautions that comprehensive evidence-based data on the phenomenon is still limited, but the issue has become a focus of concern for educators, doctors, politicians and parents alike.

Poverty and stigma

Kadiatu – not her real name – lives in Kissy Mess Mess, in the eastern part of the capital, Freetown, with her three children. Now 27, she recalls how she became pregnant with her first child.

“We were a poor family and I was really in want for virtually everything, from food, clothing, to even paying school charges… so I got this man that was ready to provide all of these, so i yielded to him,” she told IPS.

Her boyfriend was 30; she was just 15 at the time, preparing to take her Basic School Certificate Examination. She was taken to the doctor with what was suspected to be appendicitis – it turned out that she was three months pregnant.

“I told my boyfriend immediately,” Kadiatu recalls.

His reaction? “You have to get an abortion! Just get rid of it!”

“The man – who had been showering me with gifts and telling me all kinds of loving words – denied that he was responsible for the pregnancy,” Kadiatu recounts. She had the baby, but like many others in her position, she dropped out of school.

“I became pregnant again at 17 for almost the same reasons as the first pregnancy. Now I have three children, I am still a single mother and my only means of survival is to hawk fruits in the market and rely on favours from men who promise love,” she says, “but what they really want is to sleep with you and run away afterwards.”

In 2009, village chiefs in one northern province passed bylaws that require that when a schoolgirl falls pregnant, she and the father must both drop out of school. This scheme quickly drew criticism for only compounding the problem of stigma and a high dropout rate.

In Koinadugu District, also in the north, the Biriwa Youth Association for Development took the opposite tack, offering school-age girls between the ages of 12 and 16 the chance to win scholarships to attend university – if they passed regular examinations by a community nurse to “prove” they were virgins. This initiative too was quickly scrapped.

Stigma aggravates problems

In a draft report for the World Health Organisation, Dr Helenlouise Taylor noted that few teens have ante-natal checkups, instead trying to hide their pregnancy or try to abort. This makes early detection of potential problems in a high-risk group very difficult.

For her research, directed towards developing strategies to reduce Sierra Leone’s maternal mortality rate, Taylor visited 14 districts of the country, observing conditions, interviewing health workers and using a questionnaire to collect information about patterns and trends of maternal care as well as training and equipment in health facilities.

In the draft report’s recommendations for teenage pregnancy, Taylor says measures to reduce coerced sex and unsafe abortion and increase access to contraception for adolescents are all important, and makes several important suggestions regarding information and reducing social stigma to encourage young mothers to make use of available health care.

She urges a review of life skills and biology in the school curriculum, as well as tighter links between schools and antenatal clinics – possibly even offering antenatal care at schools. She also calls for appropriate training for health personnel and teachers to help both groups communicate accurate and effective information on sex and birth control to teens.

Maud Droogleever Fortuyn, child protection director for UNICEF in Sierra Leone, told IPS that bringing about changes in behaviour and attitudes will take time. She said UNICEF has been supporting local NGOs conducting baseline surveys to improve understanding of the extent and nature of teenage pregnancy, developing modules to improve knowledge, as well as working with traditional authorities to develop effective bylaws that will support teen mothers, especially with completing school.

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Nov 30 2010 (IPS)

Lucky for Osman Conteh that one of his aunts disagreed with the family consensus that he had been stricken by an evil spirit. She insisted the twitching, incoherently babbling child be taken to the hospital rather than a witch doctor.

And so he was rushed to the Bonthe government hospital, where Dr Manso Dumbuya diagnosed him with cerebral malaria. A day of treatment and he was stabilised; three days later, he was discharged from hospital.

“I am happy to have saved the boy from the clutches of malaria,” said Dumbuya.

That was in October, and the doctor noted out that Conteh was the 93rd case of malaria recorded in the Bonthe hospital’s district in just the month of October.

Malaria is responsible for a quarter of all deaths in Sierra Leone, according to the Ministry of Health. The ministry says that malaria accounts for 40 percent of public health expenditures, 30-50 percent of inpatient admissions, and up to 50 percent of outpatient visits.

To reduce this heavy burden on the health system – and improve public health – the government and its numerous partners have been issuing bed-nets to communities all over the country as a way to prevent the disease.

The Red Cross gave out 875,000 bed-nets to children under five years of age in 2006. In 2008 and 2009 the government in collaboration with UNICEF gave insecticide-treated bed nets to every pregnant woman and parent with children under five.

The Red Cross expected that its campaign would save the lives of 5,300 children in its first year alone; the government believed the later campaign would reduce malaria by half.

“Disappointingly, we are still unable to combat malaria”, said Dr Alhaji S. Turay, the only doctor in Koinadugu District Hospital. His hospital registered 115 cases of malaria in October – and 28 deaths.

“We have realised that the beneficiaries of these treated bed-nets are not using it for its intended purposes,” he said.

“These beneficiaries have discovered very peculiar alternative uses for the bed-nets in my district,” Turay explains.

“Koinadugu district is an agricultural district. We discovered that many parents we supplied with insecticide-treated nets have been using them to cover their [plant] nursery beds. Instead of protecting their children and themselves, they were now protecting their crops from insects.”

From the fishing island of Bonthe, Dr Dumbuya, said his staff had observed that the bulk of the people who received bed-nets are using them to fish.

Bonthe island resident Moisia Ngobu is unapologetic. “We had to choose between putting food on the table or fighting mosquitoes,” he says.

“It has never been an easy choice for us, but we have to survive, even the children have to eat and to even see a fishing net to buy is difficult. When you see one to buy it is very expensive, so we have to use the free nets we have and feed our families.”

Marian Kargbo, a nursing sister at Princess Christian Maternity Hospital in Freetown, says, “In the Western Area and other parts of the country, the beneficiaries of these bed nets sell them to other people. Some people we found using the insecticide bed nets to kill bed bugs: they will wrap their mattress with the nets which kills the bugs, but exposes them to the mosquitoes. Some others could not find anything to do with the bed-net, and they just keep it, and they say they simply could not sleep inside the bed-nets because it is too hot,”

Yet another campaign to distribute treated nets is under way now. The British Minister for International Development, Stephen O’Brien, who came to Sierra Leone in July 2010, donated one million bed nets to support the Government of Sierra Leone’s aim of providing every household in the country with bed nets by December 2010.

The campaign, which runs from the Nov. 25 November until Dec. 2, aims to put at least three nets in every Sierra Leonean household.

Abass Kamara, Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Health, said that the government is well aware that many people have not been using the bed-nets for the intended purpose. To mitigate this, they have convened all local chiefs, paramount chiefs, and head administrators from all the regions of the country to get them to discuss the issue, develop by-laws against misuse of bed-nets and also discuss strategies to enforce those laws.

“We are also doing massive sensitizations all across the country to encourage every one to understand that the use of bed-nets will prevent malaria,” said Kamara.

Used properly, bed nets are a basic intervention that Kamara, says his ministry expects to cut malaria deaths for all ages by a third. Besides saving lives, “nets could radically reduce the burden on health services, because fewer patients will need hospital treatment for malaria.”  

Excerpt:

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Oct 22 2010 (IPS)

“I think I am successful now,” says Fanta Jabbah. “I am able to take care of my three children and support my husband; now I have a say in my household.”

Weeding a demonstration rice plot at Lumley. Credit: Mohamed Fofanah/IPS

The WMFC is a Chinese government aid project which is improving the agricultural output of groups like Jabbah’s in Freetown, as well as others around the cities of Bo and Kenema. The project has provided hybrid rice and fertiliser, as well as access to power tillers, combined harvesters and a rice mill.

A translator is an essential part of the team, and the Sierra Leone government has taken care to organise further translation into local languages so to facilitate the sharing of farming techniques.

“The Chinese people gave us this new rice and they came with their big machines to plough the land,” says Jabbah. “Then they told us that when we sow the seeds we should cover it up and that we should not do heaps but sow on the flat land.”

The Lumley group were dubious, but it took only a single growing season to overcome this.

“We were skeptical because previously we would make several heaps and then throw the rice seeds on them and leave them to grow and then hope and pray it turns out well. But when we experimented with the Chinese way of doing things, we realized that the rice was doing better than what we used to sow in our own way,” said Jabbah.

Comprehensive support

Xie Yu Fei, who is coordinating the WMFC in Freetown, told IPS that the idea is holistic support for the groups they are working with. “We take them through the planting season up to post-harvest stages.”

The techniques being shared are basic, he says. “We show them how to apply fertilisers, how to space their crops – especially rice – and how to sanitise their farms. Previously they would just weed on the farm and leave weeds and other debris around the farm and this brings in bacteria that destroy their crops.

WMFC’s technicians also advise the local farmers on the best time to plant various crops.

Claudius Farnnel, the agriculture ministry’s extension supervisor for the Freetown urban area, says other development partners have operated farmer field schools similar to the Chinese demonstration farms. “However their projects are not sustainable they start for 3-4 months engage farmers, then everything stops, and their support, in terms of inputs is relatively small,” he said.

He added that the Chinese have proved willing to provide long-term support, as well as targeting local associations of farmers. The WFMC has invested just under $800,000 in assistance.

He is optimistic that such support can reduce Sierra Leone’s dependence on imports of rice. Rice is the country’s staple food, and the government is encouraging its production to preserve valuable foreign exchange for other needs and bring the price paid by consumers in the country down. A 50-kg bag of rice is presently sold for 120 leones – about 45 dollars.

Farnnel noted that in the peri-urban areas around Freetown, there remains the problem of finding adequate land for extensive rice cultivation.

High-yielding hybrids are part of making the most of limited space. Last year, Farnnell says, the demonstration plot at Ogoo Farm location in Freetown was planted with a rice variety called Yanshualuohao. It’s performance was outstanding, yielding 4.5 tonnes per hectare – two to three times more than a typical yield.

This variety has now been widely distributed to farmers around the capital.

Beyond the farm gate

Chinese assistance in processing harvested rice has also been essential.

“It would have been a major problem for us if we did not have the rice mill,” said Aminata Mandowa, another beneficiary of the Lumley agricultural station. “With the bumper harvest, most of the rice would be spoilt, but the Chinese [milled] the rice for us on a cost-recovery basis and that has enabled us to take it to the market and sell easily.”

Fei said that his programme’s support is not limited to farmer-based organisations. Every year since 2005, 30 or more farmers and Ministry of Agriculture officials have been sent to China to study agronomy and acquire practical skills.

“The Chinese had made tremendous impact in the agricultural sector in the country,” said the Public Information Officer at the Ministry of Agriculture, Mohamed Conteh. “They are manning the rice research station in Rokupr in the Kambia district. And that research station had been helping in shaping the country’s rice production.”

He told IPS that Chinese agriculture experts are present all over the country and have also been helping the government and individual farmers with production of sugar cane at the Magbass sugar complex in Magburaka, in the north of the country.

“This Chinese aid is actually touching on the lives of Sierra Leoneans,” Jabbah says. “I am now looking for a bigger [piece of] land [to buy] with proceeds from previous yields to expand my rice farming. I thank the Chinese so much for helping me stand on my feet, I hope they continue to stay and help many other Sierra Leoneans.”

Excerpt:

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Oct 16 2010 (IPS)

Marie Musa, 37, is devastated. After the mother of four gave premature birth, her baby boy died a few hours later – because the hospital did not have enough incubators to rescue the infant.

Maternity ward in Port Loko: government resources are stretched thin by its ambitious plans to offer free care to pregnant women and infants. Credit: Mohamed Fofanah/IPS

Aminata Sesay, one of the hospital’s nursing sisters, explains the staff did everything they in their power, but without an incubator, there was nothing they could do save the infant. “It needed to be placed inside an incubator, and there was none available,” she says, shrugging her shoulders.

The hospital has only three incubators, and all of them were already occupied on that day. The facility needs at least ten incubators to meet the demand, the nurse reckons.

Princess Christian Maternity Hospital’s resources are under continuous pressure. It’s 140 beds are always full, and women are routinely discharged early in order to make space for new admissions.

Resource shortage

In August, the same month that Musa’s baby died in hospital, James Bamie Davies, commissioner of the customs and excise department of Sierra Leone’s National Revenue Authority (NRA), announced in a government gazette an auction of medical appliances, including eight incubators.

According to the commissioner, the incubators were a private donation to the health ministry by a Sierra Leonean emigrant who works as a nursing manager at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States. But after their arrival, the health ministry had failed to clear them from the quay.

NRA public information officer John Baimba Sesay told IPS the incubators were put up for auction in accordance with the Customs Act, which states that if goods are not cleared by customs within 30 days, they have to be auctioned.

Only the public outcry that followed the announcement of the auction in the gazette, did the Ministry of Health and Sanitation spring into action and recover the goods.

Dr Samuel Kargbo, director of the reproductive and child health programme of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, admits that the unavailability of equipment and infrastructure as well as the extensive bureaucracy within his department has hampered health care provision throughout the country.

It has also partially counter-acted the benefits of the free public health care services for children under the age of five as well as pregnant and lactating women, which government launched on 27 April in an attempt to reduce high child mortality rates in the country.

High child mortality

One in five children die before they reach the age of five in Sierra Leone, and one in eight women die during childbirth, according to the 2008 United Nations Human Development Index.

In the five months since the introduction of the new services, public health facilities have experienced critical challenges in implementing the new policy, as they lack skilled health personnel, particularly gynaecologists and nurses, notes Kargbo, adding that many hospitals throughout the country don’t have running water, electricity and generators.

According the national Ministry of Health, Sierra Leone, which as a population of 5.7 million, has only eight obstetrician-gynaecologists employed in the public health system and about the same number working in the private health sector.

There have also been serious allegations by civil society organisations that some patients are asked to pay for those services, even though they are free of charge.

Aminata Sesay told IPS that, to improve their salaries, some health workers try to extort money from women in labour who don’t have a choice but to pay if they want to be assisted.

Nurses’ salaries have been increased substantially by government after a countrywide strike action in May – from $35 a month to $130 a month – but health workers say this is still not enough for them to survive and to justify the long hours they are expected to work.

The cost for a bag of rice is about $30 and, considering the high cost of living and to settle utility bills, I think we need $500 a month,” Sesay complains.

First successes

Despite his vocal criticism of the public health system, Kargbo highlights the fact that Sierra Leone is still trying to recover from its twelve-year civil war, which only ended in 2003. “It is a gradual process, and we have started to see a few successes in the five months after the free health care started,” he notes.

“We have noted an increase in the utilisation of health facilities by over 80 percent, whilst it was at 30 percent before the free health care policy was introduced,” Kargbo further explains, saying that only ten percent of women used to give birth in a hospital setting.

He promised the health department will focus on the swift implementation of the new health policy throughout the country and monitor quality of care: “We have instituted a mechanism to address complaints, and we have a monitoring team to see that the implementation of the health care policy moves smoothly.”

Data collected in the countries’ twelve districts in the past five months show an overall drop in maternal and infant mortality rates, according to Abass Kamara, public relations officer at the Ministry of Health. Port Loko district in northern Sierra Leone, for example, counted only one maternal death per month since the introduction of the free health services, compared to an average of eight maternal deaths per month before, he says.

Karmara is optimistic that these are first signs for a continuous improvement of maternal and child mortality rates in Sierra Leone: “Things are beginning to look up.”

Mayalie Bangura, 34, a teacher who lost her first child during childbirth, is one of the mothers who recently benefited from the new policy, when she was pregnant with her second baby. “After my water broke, my neighbours rushed me to the Satellite Clinic in Freetown. The nurses helped me during labour, gave me blood transfusion and other medicines,” she recalls.

Says Bangura: “After a week, I was strong again and discharged with my healthy baby boy. I could not believe that I did not have to spend a single dime. Before, it would have cost me over 800,000 Leone [$200].”

Excerpt:

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Sep 23 2010 (IPS)

A woman took position alongside male soldiers at the graveside of a fallen colleague. She positioned her AK47 on her shoulder, and on command fired into the grey sky with the others.

Women soldiers on parade in Freetown. Credit: Mohamed Fofanah/IPS

Onlookers were not used to seeing women in such a role. Yet women are becoming a more common sight in the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces (RSLAF), after a gender policy introduced to ensure equal opportunities, with support from the Accra-based Women Peace and Security Network (WISPEN) and the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

Sierra Leone is a patriarchal society where women and girls are subjected to structural discrimination by practice, custom and law. The subjugation of women was worsened by the 1991-2002 war and its aftermath. A 2004 report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) noted the army’s role in the systematic rape of women and girls as a strategy to sow terror.

But it is a changed army now. “We are breaking the boundaries and barriers that limit our women in the RSLAF,” Chief of Defence Staff, Brigadier-General Robert Yira Koroma tells IPS. Koroma said the army has brought in flexible standards so women can clear the physical recruitment processes.

There are an estimated 300 women in the army, of a total troop strength of 8,500, says Col. Michael Samura, in charge of personnel. And they are stepping further and further.

“We have initially sent seven female soldiers to Darfur under the UN peacekeeping operations. For the next deployment we have prepared 20 female soldiers to be sent to Darfur. This I think is phenomenal, given the fact that it has never happened in the history of our army,” Samura said. And Koroma says there are now four female platoon commanders.

The RSLAF is also putting a conducive workplace environment in place. “We have instituted a board to handle sexual harassment complaints,” says Gen. Koroma. “We have also established a board responsible for promotion so no officer will be able to victimise any soldier, especially female soldiers. There is a chain of redress, so any soldier could exhaust this chain to seek relief.”

The big challenge is recruitment. “There is still the problem of getting quality women to apply for the army,” says Gen. Koroma. “A large proportion of women in this country are uneducated but the army cannot lower its standards in order to absorb more women.” The educational requirement is a basic school certificate.

A senior secondary school certificate is required for officer posts.

Brigadier-General Kestoria Kabia, who is the first female combatant brigadier-general in the sub-region, tells IPS “we are trying to get as many women as possible who are interested in the army to join the force and also see to it that those who are already in the army operate under favourable conditions and are not discriminated against in any form, structurally or otherwise.”

*This story was originally published by IPS TerraViva with the support of UNIFEM and the Dutch MDG3 Fund.

Excerpt:

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Jul 28 2010 (IPS)

Posseh Sesay will never be able to bear children again following a tragic birthing experience at the hands of her village traditional birth attendant (TBA).

Health workers at govt health clinic in Rokupa, Sierra Leone: free care for women and children has initially had some unexpected effects. Credit: Teun Vouten/UNFPA

“I pushed and pushed but the baby refused to come out,” Sesay recalls.

“Ya Marie said I was not pushing enough so she took a wooden spoon used for cooking and shoved it into my throat, I wanted to vomit. She said that would help me to push harder, she repeated this several times but nothing happened.

“She then shoved her big toe into my anus, still nothing happened. Then she concluded I was very lazy and sat on my chest. She was pressing me down saying this would help push the baby out. The pain was unbearable, I just wanted to die and end it all. I think I fainted.”

She was finally taken to the hospital in Moyamba, 70 kilometres away, where she delivered a stillborn by caesarean section. “They also had to take out my womb because the doctor said it was no good, the doctors said I was lucky I came out with my life.”

Stories like Sesay’s are re-emerging with the resurgence of home births attended by TBAs, who are now excluded from the health system under Sierra Leone’s ambitious free healthcare initiative.

Previously, TBAs worked in the country’s hospitals and clinics, received some clinical medical training and were paid out of fees charged to patients. According to the Health Ministry, TBAs in a hospital setting helped reduce maternal deaths – Sierra Leone’s maternal mortality rate is one of he highest in the world – as more women were presenting at hospitals and receiving professional help.

The new free healthcare plan for mothers and children has eliminated the user fees that supported TBAs, so they have gone back to practicing alone at home.

The change appears to be costing many women their lives.

Dr Samuel Kargbo, the director for reproductive health care who oversees the implementation of the free health care policy, admitted that the issue of TBAs was a snag in the new plan.

“We knew TBAs relied on the user fees and that as soon as this was tampered with they would return to where we have done everything to take them away from – delivering babies at their houses,” Kargbo said.

Kargbo told IPS there is no way the system will continue to accommodate TBAs.

But many women continue to seek out their services for various reasons, which include ready access, a caring service and low fees, including payment in kind or over time.

For Sesay, Ya Marie was nearest to her home. Other women prefer the services of a TBA to that provided in a hospital or clinic setting.

“I can easily relate with them. The grannies are experienced women and they show you care and concern. I am just comfortable with them,” said Salamatu Turay, whose three children were successfully delivered by TBAs.

“We are of great help to women. Our role is unique because we are everywhere where government cannot be. Yet they are always condemning us,” said Ya Alimamy Sawaneh who delivers babies at her home in Kroo Bay, a slum community in Freetown.

“Many pregnant women also die in the big hospitals,” she said. “What they are not seeing and talking about are the many women we help to deliver their babies. They just talk about the ones that were unfortunate to die in our hands.”

Some civil society groups are suggesting that traditional birth attendants should be retained in the system, with additional training.

But Kargbo disagrees, saying training has not improved the quality of care by TBAs.

“They could help in deliveries as much as cats and dogs need help to deliver their young ones. But when there is obstructed labour or other serious issues, the TBAs are useless and they deprive many women of their lives, which would have been saved if they were at a hospital.”

However, plans are underway to bring these “Grannies” as they are referred to locally, back to the hospital. Kargbo revealed the availability of a 13 million dollar grant from World Bank which will support several projects over the next five years, including providing a stipend for TBAs who refer their cases to hospitals.

“We want to redefine their roles and strengthen our referral systems. We want to use them as sensitization agents to educate women on vaccines; exclusive breast feeding,” says Kargbo.

“We could give them malaria diagnostic and treatment kits to help in suburbs where clinics are not present. We want them to help in ensuring that the bed nets we are giving out for free are being used by the mothers and children.”

Excerpt:

A woman alone: Josephine Bangali fetches water from the well to set to boil over a wood fire so she can sterilise her instruments.

At a government hospital in Makeni, Sierra Leone. Credit: Nancy Palus/IRIN

The clinic is built of mud. In one of its three rooms stands a rickety bed where she can admit in-patients; it is also the room where Bangali delivers babies. She relies on a kerosene lamp at night – supplemented with a torch when she can afford batteries.

“The underlying causes of maternal and infant mortality are far-reaching and enormous,” says Bangali. “For government to address these problems, they really need to start at the roots.”

And those roots are here in Bellentin village, where Bangali is the solitary nurse serving 15 villages – 3,000 people – in Bumpeh chiefdom, in Sierra Leone’s southern Moyamba district.

When the rains come, the water digs deep gullies in the roads. Bangali told IPS there has not been a regular supply of drugs to meet the needs of her patients, especially pregnant women and children under five.

Bangali sometimes runs out of gloves, and must attend to patients with her bare hands, putting herself at risk in an area where few people know their HIV status.

When she’s faced with a case that needs to be referred to the hospital in Moyamba, 65 kilometres away, she has to walk to the next village, 1.5 km away to get mobile phone coverage to call for the ambulance. The vehicle takes an age to come, struggling over the bad roads; sometimes a patient’s family will be asked to pay for fuel so the ambulance can make the trip back.

According to the U.N. Human Development Index, one in eight women in Sierra Leone risks dying during pregnancy or childbirth. One in 12 children die before their first birthday. These are some of the highest maternal and infant death rates in the world.

On the 49th anniversary of Sierra Leone’s independence from Britain, the government in Freetown announced it is extending free medical care to all pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers and children under five.

The plan is to cover 230,000 pregnant women and nearly one million children.

Nearly 71 million dollars has been committed to the project by development partners – including Irish Aid, the UK’s Department for International Development, the United Nations Population Fund, UNICEF, the World Health Organisation and the World Bank.

Abass Kamara, the public information officer at the national health ministry, said the ambitious programme still faces a funding gap of just over 20 million dollars.

And yet… is it ambitious enough?

Brima Sheriff, the director of Amnesty International in Sierra Leone, says to address maternal and child mortality, it’s necessary to widen the focus.

“Despite these huge resources pumped into free health care, what government should focus on is improving the road conditions. Because we can buy many ambulances, but if the roads are not accessible the ambulances are worthless,” he told IPS. “And women and children will continue to die because they will be unable to access the free care.”

Amnesty International’s 2009 report, “Out of Reach: the cost of maternal health in Sierra Leone”, states that high maternal mortality rates arise from a combination of factors including lack of access to healthcare due to high cost (and fear of cost) poor referral networks, lack of trained medical staff and insufficient drugs and medical equipment.

In addition, the report cited “discrimination against women and social factors that contribute to undermining women’s right to health and the lack of accountability at different levels of the health care system to ensure availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of health care services”.

“I believe we will begin to see considerable impacts in the capital, but the gap in realisation of the free health care will be widening in the districts, towns and villages if the government does not progressively provide roads, electricity and water to every part of the country,” said Sheriff.

The question of trained personnel is a serious one. Health ministry spokesperson Kamara told IPS there are only 825 state registered nurses in the country; the country needs 1,175 more. He also revealed that there are just five obstetrician/gynaecologists – just 75 medical doctors in total – in government service in the whole country.

“Government is unable to attract these professionals because of the poor salary structure in the country,” Kamara said.

“Imagine: a qualified doctor was being paid less than 400 U.S. dollars a month,” Sulaiman Conteh a medical doctor at Connaught Hospital, Freetown’s largest, said. “It is really pittance and many of our colleagues could not work in the country for such meagre sums, so they are leaving for other African countries and Europe.”

A recently-concluded strike has paid off, though. Government increased the health sector wage bill to about 125 million dollars per annum, representing six percent of total domestic revenues collected.

The benefits of the new attention to the country’s health needs are beginning to be felt in places like Bellentin, where Josephine Bangali is upbeat.

“The government has regularised my services very recently in preparing for the free health care (programme). Now I am expecting to receive my first salary at the end of the month after almost a year without salary,” said Bangali. “It is a good sign that they are ready for this (programme) to work.”

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Apr 1 2010 (IPS)

Lying forgotten in the bush somewhere is a sign declaring “Ogoo Farm is an open defecation-free community.”

This peri-urban community of roughly 3000 people was one of the villages where UNICEF and the Sierra Leone ministry of health implemented the pilot phase of a Community-Led Total Sanitation Programme in 2008.

The programme trains communities on the dangers of open defecation – which contaminates streams and other water sources – and mobilises action to end the practice.

According to the latest UNICEF and World Health Organization data, only 11 percent of people in Sierra Leone have access to adequate sanitation facilities; in the rural areas it is just five percent. Only about half of the population – and less than a third in rural areas – has access to safe drinking water.

Such statistics explain Sierra Leone’s unenviable position as the nation with the world’s worst mortality rate for children under the age of five.

But the gear pushing the programme forward in Ogoo Farm, 40 kilometres from the Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, appears to have become stuck in reverse. The majority of community residents still head for a quiet spot in the bush to empty their bowels.

“The project is simply not working properly,” Bai Kabia, the Ogoo Farm headman told IPS. He explained that initially the villagers were all thrilled with the idea of keeping their village hygienic.

“The sensitisation was dramatic. We realised that the idea of using the bush and streams in our village as toilet was bad and detrimental to the health of the whole village and we agreed to start building toilets,” Kabia explained.

He said that they dug 70 pit latrines around the village, each with a screen made of tarpaulin or nylon rice bags to shield a user from view.

The toilets were not an unqualified success. Ogoo farm’s women were among the first to abandon using them.

“These makeshift toilets are not very private,” Ramatu Kamara complained. “The heat that comes up these holes are unbearable when we stoop to use them. Moreover some of us have had infections using these toilets.”

There was worse to come. “When the rains came, the tarpaulin covering was destroyed. We also discovered that the pits were unsafe as the dirt around it was collapsing because we did not use iron rods to build the pit, we used sticks and these rot during the rain,” Kabia said.

“The holes even flooded and brought up everything we had sent down in them.”

Kabia said that they invited UNICEF and the health ministry to a meeting and told them about the problems.

“We suggested that they help us build proper toilets. We have offered to make mud blocks and we want them to give us corrugated iron sheets to (make a) roof. They promised that they would source funding for that but up till now nothing has been done.”

But Thomas Amara, the acting manager of environmental health in the ministry of health and sanitation told IPS that this is not how the sanitation programme works.

“What the project does is to trigger the community to take action against open defecation. We get them to see vividly that open defecation is bad for the community as it can contaminate their water source and thus lead to diseases including diarrhoea,” said Amara.

Arnold Cole, UNICEF’s water and sanitation health specialist for Sierra Leone, confirmed that the programme does not provide any subsidy whatsoever to communities.

“We encourage self empowerment.” Cole said. UNICEF is providing finance and technical support to more than 30 NGOs and six districts authorities to take the programme of awareness and mobilisation all over the country.

Cole claimed that Ogoo Farm was an exception in a programme that is succeeding in other parts of the country; alongside the health ministry, they have identified enthusiastic locals they refer to as “natural leaders” who then go into other villages and towns and spread the message.

The health ministry’s Amara said that in some rural villages in Port Loko, Kenema and Moyamba, the programme has been embraced so fervently that by-laws against open defecation have been passed, with heavy fines for defaulters.

“They also have been ‘scaling up’, building better and permanent toilets with their own monies,” said Amara.

One difference, he noted, is that villagers in the provinces usually own the houses they live in. They are more ready to bear the cost of building improvements like toilets than those in communities close to urban areas, such as Ogoo Farm, where most residents are tenants who look to their landlords to build permanent toilets.

Ogoo Farm headman Bai Kabia agreed, “They do not want to take responsibility for anything and as soon as they found out the project is being facilitated by NGOs – especially big organisations like UNICEF – they thought that there should be money for everything.”

And so it was that the “open defecation-free” sign was uprooted just two months after it was planted. “We do not want to live a lie, (open defecation) is still here,” the village headman sighed.

However Kabia revealed that the Farmers’ Association in their community has promised to build proper public toilets in different locations in the Community as part of their social responsibility.

The headman said he is also encouraging the community people, tenants as well as landlords to build toilets for their houses and that new house constructions will not be approved if the plan does not include toilet construction.



Excerpt:

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Mar 30 2010 (IPS)

Sierra Leone has become a place of torment for journalists practicing their profession.

Secretary-general of the SLAJ, Mustapha Sesay, says the association will fight against the intimidation of the press. Credit: Mohamed Fofanah/IPS

“Some members began to walk out of the hall, we (journalists) wanted to capture this moment and do interviews, but we were surprised when youths and senior party members fell on us. They beat us, confiscated our cameras, recorders and then prevented us from covering some of the other sessions,” explained Ishmael Bayoh, one of the journalists who was attacked. Bayoh works for Awoko newspaper, a local tabloid.

But this is not an isolated incident, it follows several other persecutions by public officials and ordinary citizens on journalists.

Reporters Without Borders, an international NGO that seeks to protect the interest of journalists, reported that in February 2009 four journalists were abducted and intimidated by members of a women’s secret society that practices female genital mutilation (FGM). One of the abducted journalists was forced to walk naked through the streets of the city because they had been conducting a series of interviews in order to mark International Day of Zero Tolerance of FGM. The matter was reported to the police but the women were not prosecuted.

In September 2009, the correspondent for Standard Times, Fayia Amara, was beaten up by a police constable for trying to photograph the constable allegedly smoking marijuana.

Another recent incident was the alleged threatening calls received by radio journalist Melvin Rogers, from the Deputy Minister of Labour, Employment and Industrial Relations, Moijue Kaikai.

Rogers filed a report on a local station, Radio Democracy 98.1, on Feb. 25 alleging that Kaikai had visited Lugbu, Bo District in the run-up to the recent local council by-election. He had allegedly done so after reported violence in the area, allegedly fuelled by government officials, had led the president to issue a warning that all persons not involved in the conduct of the elections should avoid the area.

The director of Society for Democratic Initiatives, a media advocacy group, and some of his staff members, reported that they received death threats after publishing a report highlighting the press conditions in the country.

The report lashed out against the continued use of the Criminal Libel Law, which the report states is hampering the work of journalists. Under the law, a journalist or anybody who writes and publishes material considered libellous can be arrested and jailed, whether or not what they published was true.

The report also catalogues over seven cases of assault on journalists and the fact that nothing was done by police about these incidents.

“These attacks and many more are calculated attacks on journalist to gag us and deprive us of our freedom of expression,” said Bayoh.

The secretary general of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ), Mustapha Sesay, said that these continued attacks on journalists and the inability or willful neglect by the police to prosecute these matters shows that the state is against journalists.

“The association will fight tooth and nail against those who think that they can get away with intimidation to restrain the press,” he vowed.

The Minister of Information, Ibrahim Ben Kargbo, said it is very unfortunate that members of the media were subject to attacks, but stated that government upholds the right to freedom of expression and would protect the lives of its citizens.

Bankole Morgan, the regional officer of the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone condemned the attacks and the intimidation of journalists. He said journalists must be free to ask tough questions and demand accountability from their elected officials.

“I am so afraid now as I am practicing my profession. I don’t know when my very presence will threaten and infuriate people and they will beat me up because I am a journalist, or what I write would sooner or later land me in prison because some government official feels slighted,” said Bayoh, who is still recovering from his attack.

Sesay said that the SLPP officials who beat up the 10 journalists have admitted to their crime and agreed to pay the journalists’ medical bills, replace their damaged items and to also compensate them.

“We are actually concerned about compensation, because we do not want people to mistreat journalist and then pay them afterwards,” Sesay said. He referred to an instance where the police paid compensation to several journalists they beat up. The journalists were covering a SLPP stalwart demonstration in March 2009 when the attacks too place.

“As an association we are ready to support our membership to ply their trade without fear or favour and nobody will continue to trample on our rights,” Sesay said.

Excerpt:

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Jan 29 2010 (IPS)

The World Social Forum held in Nairobi in 2007 inspired Sierra Leonean activists to organise themselves to demand things like housing, health care and greater accountability from their government. That inspiration was not sustained.

Abu Brima says the social movement in Sierra Leone was never sustained. Credit: Mohamed Fofanah/IPS

“It was attended by many civil society organisations and we discussed issues like corruption and how to get government accountable to the people, how to get government to provide housing and health care facilities, and how to consolidate the peace the country was enjoying after emerging from a civil conflict.”

Brima says the outcome of the forum was the development of a framework for all civil society to use in developing their organisations’ programmes and proposals. Also developed was an agenda for political parties to commit themselves to as they campaigned for the 2007 presidential and parliamentary elections.

“That social movement was never sustained,” he added.

But social movements did notch up several successes. In December 2007, people in the mining district of Kono demonstrated against the generous concessions made to mining companies, while government’s monitoring and regulation of their activities was poor or non-existent. This led to a new Mining Act that – at least on paper – corrects many of these flaws.

Brima noted that youth successfully challenged the government in 2009 to set up a Youth Commission as recommended by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Report of 2004.

“These are significant gains scored by these movements, but as soon as these movements stand on their feet they fall again,” he sighed.

Brima Abdulai Sheriff, director of Amnesty International in Sierra Leone, suggests that part of the problem is that many civil society activists are driven by the financial opportunities rather than the passion for change. Sherrif believes activists too often tailor their campaigns to meet the needs of donors rather than the needs of the people. Then when the funding dries up the campaign dies with it.

Sheriff said other activists lead social movements only to use that platform to seek political office.

He says the various social forums have been crucial to broadening his own organisation’s focus to ensuring that people can participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression, to socio-economic rights like the rights to food, housing and health.

Sheriff pointed out that Amnesty is today campaigning against maternal mortality in Sierra Leone, which has one of the worst rates of maternal death in the world.

“However, apart from big international organisations benefiting from the WSF, grassroots social movements in Sierra Leone hardly participate in these forums.” Sheriff stated.

The World Social Forum will this year hold a series of thematic events around the world. The Africa events planned so far will consider labour and migration, food security and poverty, the global financial crisis.

These events, and the global forum planned for Dakar, Senegal in 2011, offer an opportunity to Sierra Leone’s social movements to meet others facing similar challenges to exchange ideas and strategies.

Sonnia Kabba, a human rights officer working for the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone, highlights several areas for fruitful conversation and collaboration, including a concrete agreement on climate change and cancellation of debt.

Kabba advised: “Sierra Leone should consider the fact that compared to other countries of the world, we are hardest hit by all the social and economic problems that are in fact pinning the country to the last rung in the Human Development Index.”   She said she hopes that civil society in Sierra Leone will rise up in a sustained and organised manner as social movements elsewhere in the world have done to fight for their rights and for development.

Brima echoes this sentiment. “The WSF is an opportune place where people come from all over the world and present alternative governance ideas, alternative economic models, and also fosters a sense of solidarity. We all express a desire to transform society. We have opportunities to link with others learn skills like advocacy. Overall there is a sense of inspiration.”

Excerpt:

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Dec 15 2009 (IPS)

A war is raging in the eastern part of the country, once the centre stage for battles during the 10-year civil war and the place where “blood diamonds” were once mined. But this time the war is not for diamonds, but about whether a woman has the right to stand for paramount chief in the local chieftaincy election.

Elizabeth Kumba Simbiwa Sorgboh Torto has declared herself available for the position of paramount chief in the Nimiyama chiefdom. Credit: Mohamed Fofanah/IPS

It was the diamonds in Kono that many pundits claimed fuelled the country’s civil war that began in 1992 and it was its diamonds that the world leaders urged people not to buy because they were “blood diamonds”

But now Kono is seeing another revolution. Elizabeth Kumba Simbiwa Sorgboh Torto has declared herself available for the position of paramount chief in the Nimiyama chiefdom.

A paramount chief in Sierra Leone is the highest traditional head who rules over 11 districts in the country, apart from the capital, Freetown.

Torto was arguably the first woman who stood up at the Sewafe local administration Court Barry – a place where the paramount chief sits and the official consign were the paramount chieftaincy declarations takes place. She then went on to declare that she will stand for paramount chief in front of an assembly comprising of the provincial secretary, the assessor chiefs, the national election officers and the community.

According to the newly passed Chieftaincy Act, a person is qualified to stand as a candidate if “he was born in wedlock to a rightful claimant in a recognised ruling house in the chiefdom”. According to the provisions in this act, Torto is qualified to become the paramount chief because she was the daughter of a paramount chief.

The act also stated: “where traditions so specifies, he or she has direct paternal or maternal lineage to a rightful claimant in a recognised ruling house, whether born outside wedlock or not”.

This provision added the feminine pronoun “she”, which means that it also included women who were born to either parent who belonged from a ruling house. It also included women whether or not they are born out of wedlock.

“After my declarations on the 12th of November 2009, nobody objected to my claims to the ruling house. However, a blind man who I understand is the head of the ‘poro’ society (a male secret society that is practically the native governing body, that influences government) objected that I am not a member of the ‘poro’,” Torto explained to IPS.

“They went into recess and when they returned, the provincial secretary declared all the other nine male aspirants as legitimate candidates to the paramount chieftaincy. He stated that although I am a true claimant to the chieftaincy, I was not accepted because of the customs and traditions, without clarifying what those customs and traditions were.” Torto also pointed out that certain procedures were also flouted because the head of ‘poro’ was allowed to speak at that meeting, which is improper because only the chiefdom councillors are allowed to speak. They are also the only ones who are allowed to vote in the paramount chief elections.

She also pointed out that the acceptance of the candidature of an aspirant to stand for the paramount chieftaincy election is determined by the positive responses or acclamation of chiefdom councillors present in the Court Barry, which she had.

According to the minister of internal affairs and rural development, Dauda Kamara, Torto was barred because the Chieftaincy Act 2009 states that “a person is qualified to stand as a candidate in a paramount chieftaincy election where tradition so specifies”. He said that the provincial secretary and his assessor chiefs ruled Torto out because they say there had never been a female paramount chief in the chiefdom of Nimiyama and that the paramount chief has to be a member of the ‘poro’, which she is not.

“I feel frustrated that a woman was sidelined because of customs and tradition but that is the law. When I came in as minister, I initiated the new Chieftaincy Act. (There) was a heavy debate in parliament before the act was passed, so if there (is to) be any change to the act then the people have to go back to their parliamentarians,” Kamara explained.

The minister said that he initiated the inclusion of women in the act, but pointed out that parliament added the prefix: “were traditions so specifies”.

Treading cautiously, Kamara added: “We are taking a neutral position here, chieftaincy is a rather complicated issue and we do not want to hurt anybody but the matter will best be handled by the courts.”

Torto is ready to go to great lengths to fight for her right for the chieftaincy. She has secured the services of a popular constitutional male lawyer, Blyden Jenkins Johnston, who has preliminarily written a petition letter to the president calling for the inclusion of his client in the elections.

Otherwise, they will seek redress from the Sierra Leone High Court for an injunction to prevent the election from being held as long as Torto is excluded from the list of candidates. Torto’s fight has evolved into a women’s civil right fight and women organisations in the country including the 50/50 group (a group that are pushing for greater inclusion of women in politics) are rallying round Torto and are discussing collaborative strategies to fight for her. Veronica Dauda the president of Kono Women’s group said: “Madam Torto’s fight is a woman’s fight. If we are able to (allow) her contest the election then we would have broken a strong barrier to equal women participation in politics.” The chieftaincy institution has been the only form of government with vast powers over their subjects before colonialism in Sierra Leone.

However, their power began to erode during colonialism and was significantly reduced after Sierra Leone gained independence in 1961, which ushered in a central government. Women in the eastern part of the country have previously not had any difficulty becoming paramount chief. There has been a very popular female paramount chief Ella Koblo Gulama who ruled from 1953 to 2006.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report of 2004 under its imperative recommendation directed that government guarantee that all political parties ensures that at least 30 percent of their candidates for all public elections are women. “This recommendation has never been adhered to by the government. Even when we lobbied the Constitutional Review Committee, which was set up to review the 1991 national constitution, to include the 30 percent quota for women’s representation, this was never done,” Dauda told IPS “Government has always discriminated against women and the exclusion of Torto in the chieftaincy election heightens this discrimination,” Dauda added.

Meanwhile, Torto is not stepping down. She will continue to fight for her birthright. “If I had not had the acclamation from even one of the councillors present I would not have been qualified to stand as a candidate for the elections, but none of them objected,” Torto said.

Excerpt:

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Dec 7 2009 (IPS)

Journalists in Sierra Leone can still be arrested and jailed for writing material considered “libel” regardless if what they published is true or not.

Secretary-general of the SLAJ, Mustapha Sesay, says his organisation is disappointed with the court's ruling. Credit: Mohamed Fofanah/IPS

The SLAJ had argued that the provisions of the 1965 Public Order Act, which stipulates prison terms for journalists guilty of libel, contradicted section 25 of the country’s 1991 National Constitution, which guaranteed freedom of expression.

Under the criminal libel law, a journalist or in fact anybody who writes and publishes material can be arrested and jailed, whether or not what they published or said was true. Several journalists have been arrested, detained or jailed under this act.

The SLAJ sought to have this aspect nullified, as the standard defence against a libel suit in developed countries is that the offending article is the truth.

“It is the toughest legal setback for the struggle for Press freedom, media pluralism and freedom of expression in Sierra Leone. This has far-reaching implications for professional media practice and democratic governance in the country,” said Mustapha Sesay, the SLAJ’s secretary-general.

The 44-page, three-hour judgment by the Supreme Court threw out the matter, ruling the provisions were in line with the country’s 1991 Constitution, and that “journalists were under no imminent threat”, Sesay said. “The court has kept us waiting since February 2008. They also flouted the provisions of the Constitution, which says that they should give a ruling three months after closing argument. Now, when they finally give their ruling nine months after, they throw out our case.”

“Actually, we did not expect much from them,” Sesay said, adding that Chief Justice Umu Tejan Jalloh, who heard the petition, had also been a member of the bench that had jailed Paul Kamara, editor of For Di People newspaper, a tabloid, for two years for “breaching the Public Order Act”.

Kamara was jailed for a series of articles in his newspaper alleging that the former President of Sierra Leone, Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, was a “convict”, and constitutionally unfit to hold office. The articles focused on a 1967 Commission of Inquiry report that implicated Kabbah in embezzlement of public funds.

“How could Justice Jalloh now overturn her previous decision?” Sesay asked.

But not every journalist in the country is not against the court ruling. One such journalist is the editor for the Awareness Times newspaper, Dr Sylvia Blyden.

Blyden herself has been arrested and detained by the criminal investigation department in Freetown, for publishing a caricature of the state president, according to the State of Human Rights Report 2008.

But she still supports the law. “I do not think the criminal libel law should be repealed. I think it is quite in place. My arrest was government’s abuse of the criminal-libel law, like the way in which they are abusing other laws.

“We should also note that the criminal libel law does not only apply to journalists but to everybody, so I am never a victim of the criminal-libel law,” Blyden reasoned.

In an article stating her personal views on the repeal of the Public Order Act, Blyden said: “The Public Order Act of 1965 should remain firmly in place, until such time as a Parliamentary Act requiring that libel insurance be taken out by local newspapers and media houses is passed.”

According to Blyden, the criminal-libel law is the only legal provision that prevents certain SLAJ members from becoming “total journalistic despots” on the loose. “Some influential people had absolute carte blanche to turn white into black and black into white. They controlled what information the public was fed. If they did not like any person because of his or her views, they could put out the type of information that would make the public turn against that person, and effectively reduce the credibility of their viewpoints.”

Elean Shaw, a human rights activist, said she also felt the criminal libel law should stay, “simply because to every right there should be responsibility”.

“Journalists should be very careful about what they write in the papers, or what they say on the radio, because it is very difficult to take back what one has said wrongly about people who have worked very hard on their image.”

But Sesay maintains that government anti-corruption initiatives such as the Attitudinal Change campaign (a strategy to encourage all Sierra Leoneans to be less lethargic with regard to work, and change their attitudes to corruption and nationalism), will work only if the seditious-libel law is repealed, and a freedom of information Act introduced.

But deputy minister of information, Saidata Sesay, criticised the SLAJ for poor strategy in their fight against the seditious-libel law. She told IPS the Freedom of Information Bill had been sent to parliament by private organisations, and as they had not gone through the ministry they could not take the lead in piloting the Bill. The Freedom of Information Bill seeks to ensure public access to government records.

The deputy minister said: “SLAJ hurriedly went to court, and now the Supreme Court has upheld the seditious-libel laws, we just have to live with it.”

Meanwhile the SLAJ are considering the next line of action for the repeal of the criminal libel law. The issue was top of the agenda at their recent Annual General meeting in Makeni, northern Sierra Leone. The whole membership decided that since they have lost their legal battle, they will now continue to engage Parliamentarians and the cabinet for a repeal of the criminal libel law. “We want this law to be repealed at all cost and we are ready to bend over backwards to see that this obnoxious law is expunged from our law books”, Sesay stated. Betty Milton, a local reporter, revealed the mood of many journalists in the country when she stated the fight had come full circle.

“The fight for the repeal has come to the point where we started, we do not know where it will take us again,” Milton said. She added that the only option for journalists was to rely on the All People’s Congress government that had promised journalists during their election campaign that they will repeal the criminal libel law.

Excerpt:

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Nov 18 2009 (IPS)

Nothing has ever sparked a debate on the state of governance in the country like the song released by one of Sierra Leone’s most popular artists, Emerson Bockarie.

President Ernest Bai Koroma's administration has been heavily criticised. Credit: Mohamed Fofanah/IPS

The song compares the performance in government of the previous Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) regime and the ruling All Peoples’ Congress (APC). Bockarie points out that government in Sierra Leone was bad under the SLPP, but is worse now.

The song highlights corruption, the high cost of living, nepotism, tribalism, poor service delivery, poor government salaries and a static economy, concluding that things have not changed for the better under the new government.

“We identify with this song because Emerson said it all, nothing seems to move,” said Sahid Sesay a secondary school teacher in Freetown. He said the government had given a 20 percent increment in salaries, but this had had no impact “simply because all the prices of everything in the market have gone up”.

The APC government came to power on a platform of change, and in his inauguration speech President Ernest Bai Koroma announced he and his team would show “zero tolerance on corruption”.

Mohamed Turay, a research assistant at the Fourah Bay College in Freetown, said: “I think the government is still yielding in principle to an anti-corruption strategy in order to satisfy requirements for donor funds, without fully implementing it. The commission is still crippled by a lack of political will.”

Turay cited the case of Afsatu Kabba, former minister of energy and power, who clearly flouted the procurement rules by giving out a contract to Income Electrix, an independent power provider, for the supply of 25 mega watt (MW) generator whilst there were other favorable companies that would have cost government less and that even when the contract was awarded only 10MW was installed and commissioned.

“But nothing came out of it. She is now sent to head the ministry of fisheries and marine resources. How can we say the government is serious about fighting corruption?” asked Turay.

He also said the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Act directed that public officials, including their spouses and children, were to declare their assets. While the president had declared his, most of the ministers and other public officials had not declared their assets, in spite of the commission.

Valnora Edwin, the director of a Sierra Leone non-governmental organisation called the Campaign for Good Governance, said there had been a slight improvement in some governance structures.

Edwin noted that the new ACC Act of 2008 had been strengthened, and the commission now enjoyed real independence. “But I think we should see that there are no sacred cows,” she hastily added. “We are also seeing that the government has been trying to bring electricity to the city, but it is yet to be fully operational, and it should not only be for the capital but for the whole country.”

Edwin added that the transport and road networks were poor, and the communication tariffs very high. “The country’s telecommunications are not working, and the private phone companies are charging a lot of money. All of these contribute to a poor environment for investors.”

She said: “No one will come with investments to the country, and the few that are coming are transferring the high cost of overheads onto the consumers, so the cost of living will always be high.

“I think we still have not got the right kind of people to push the country forward, so it is the same situation as with the previous government which was fraught with poor governance structures, prevalent corruption and a diving economy. “The health sector is the worst, as there has been a shortage of personnel. Doctors are still in short supply. There are no specialised nurses, there is no research, and medicines are inadequate and expensive. We see this in the high rate of infant mortality and maternal mortality,” Edwin said.

There are still difficulties with the supply of purified pipe-borne water in the capital, Freetown, let alone the districts. These shortcomings follow the gloomy 2008 State of Human Rights Report by the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone (HRCSL).

Although accepting there had been good scores by the government in not inhibiting the registration of media organisations, and the restructuring of the judiciary to better handle matters in the districts, the report stated that Press repression, poor prison conditions, a corrupt police force, the inadequate protection of the rights of women (including an effective and efficient response to violence against women) were still a reality.

The report also said Sierra Leone faced enormous challenges in the fulfilment of human rights (especially economic and social rights). The HRCSL recommended that the government “should ensure the availability of a comprehensive health service, including drugs, ambulances, doctors and other health personnel in hospitals and health centres throughout the country”.

The public relations officer of the ministry of health, Abasss Kamara, accepts that Sierra Leone has the worst infant and maternal mortality rates in the world, but claims the government is taking great strides to deliver in the health sector, and drastically reduce these mortality rates.

“We have developed a five-year National Health Strategic Plan to address reproductive and child health. We have already instituted a three-month plan to target health centres and hospitals in five districts and the capital, which will be upgraded in training and equipment to respond to maternal health care,” Kamara said.

He revealed: “We have already launched a tele-medicine project, and doctors in Sierra Leone will be able to consult with experts all over the world – especially in India – to facilitate surgical procedures. This project will ease the shortage of manpower and expertise in the medical sector.”

The minister of information, Ibrahim Ben Kargbo, told IPS the government had promised to fulfil all its pledges to the people of Sierra Leone.

Kargbo argued that some of their policies had been translated into tangibles. “One can see that the country improved its overall ranking by climbing eight places to 148 (from 156 in 2009) in the annual Ease of doing Business Index, which ranked 183 economies. “This means we are creating a good environment for business, jobs and money flow.”

The Ease of Doing Business Index was created by the World Bank to survey regulations directly affecting businesses, and does not directly measure general conditions such as a nation’’s proximity to large markets, quality of infrastructure, inflation, or crime.

Kargbo continued “Overall, Sierra Leone emerged ahead of its neighbours, Liberia (149), Cote D’Ivoire (168) and Guinea (173) in the Mano River Union. “We have provided electricity which has been very bad in the previous governments, and we plan to improve on it. We have prioritised agriculture, and increased the agriculture budget from 1.7 percent (which we inherited) to 7.7 percent. “We will focus on human development by improving social services. For this we will push forward our policy of decentralisation and devolution of service delivery to local councils,” said Kargbo.

All of these were in line with the country’s Agenda for Change, a poverty-reduction strategy.

“People should be patient, because development is gradual, but the president has promised that life will be better for Sierra Leoneans –and we mean it and will deliver.” The ACC had recently indicted the country’s minister of health and the president had relieved him of his duty as minister while he answers to his charges. The ACC’s Commissioner, Abdul Tejan Cole, has told the plenary session of the UN conference on corruption in Doha on November 9th that over 17,000 public officials including the president and all ministers and parliamentarians had declared their assets to the ACC.

Salamatu Bah, a petty trader in the city centre, said “The government is trying, and things are better now than before. I disagree with Emerson’s “Tiday Betteh Pass Yesterday”, but the argument should not be which regime is the better or worse. We have voted for change and change is what we demand.”

Excerpt:

By Mohamed Fofanah
KAMBIA DISTRICT, Sierra Leone, Nov 4 2009 (IPS)

They call her “Marie Nerica”, after a new breed of rice.

Farming rice in Sierra Leone Credit: Marc Rachou/Wikicommons

“I am now cultivating a five-hectare plot and I am producing so much that I am selling (rice) back to government for seed for other farmers. I also sell to the public and pay other farmers that are working in my farm,” Kamara says.

“We all resisted the new rice because it is coming from the white people and we were worried that we would not have the expertise to cultivate it, moreover we did not want to waste a whole planting season on a trial crop especially if it turn out to do badly.”

Kamara is one of thousands of Sierra Leonean farmers benefiting from a renewed emphasis on agricultural extension work by Sierra Leone’s agriculture ministry.

New plan for agriculture

The minister of agriculture, Dr Sam Sesay, is attempting to steer the ministry’s work in line with the four pillars of the African Union’s Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP): agricultural research, improved market access, raising small-holder farmers’ productivity and extending better land management and reliable water distribution systems.

The country recently signed a CAADP compact, formally adopting the African Union initiative, drafted in Maputo in 2003, which aims to ensure Africa’s agricultural development as a catalyst for socio-economic growth. Overall, CAADP’s goal is to eliminate hunger and reduce poverty through agriculture.

The ministry’s implementation of CAADP, Sesay says, will be carried out through the National Sustainable Agriculture Development Plan. “The good thing about the NSADP is that it mainstreams cross-cutting themes like gender and youth.”   In an interview with IPS, Sesay pointed out that women are being prioritised because in Sierra Leone they are the majority of farmers, producing the bulk of the food in the country using traditional tools and methods, while their male counterparts generally control income-generating cultivation of export crops.



“This means that (women) were being disadvantaged,” the agriculture minister said, “so that was why mechanisation was embedded in our NSADP sub program one, which is to increase productivity through appropriate technologies.”

Brima J Bangura, the agriculture ministry’s assistant director of extension and field operations, said Kamara and others in her area are not the only ones targeted by the ministry.

“We have targeted 195 farmer-based organisations (FBOs) from all over the country and these organisations are mainly women’s groups. We have supplied them with tractors, power tillers, transplanters, food crops like rice, maize and cassava; export crops like cashew nuts, coffee and cocoa. And we are also giving them fertilisers and insecticide,” Bangura told IPS.

Mixed reviews at this stage

Marie Kargbo, who grows rice on six hectares in the Kambia district, said she has recently started receiving full government support.

“Government sent a tractor that tilled my farm and the farms of the members in our association; they also gave us two bushels of seed rice, fertilizers and pesticides.”

Kargbo is head of a 54-member FBO, and chairs the women’s wing of the All Peoples Congress Women’s Wing in Kambia.   “Before now life for women farmers was very difficult but now rice production has been fruitful as we have been receiving supply for the government ranging from seed rice, power tillers, fertilisers and pesticides.”

But although she lives in the same district, Marie Kamara’s experience has been somewhat different.

“I was given a tractor last year after pressuring the ministry. By the time they came with the tractor, I had already hired people to plough, since I was of the opinion that the tractor was not forthcoming and the rain had already started coming,” she explains.

“We were promised a tractor, but when the tractors came to the district I was not given, and only a few people were selected and given (use of the) tractors.”

She has another complaint. “I now need a store where I will keep the rice after harvest. I also want a thresher as Nerica is difficult to thresh. There are heavy post-harvest losses which I can not continue to contend with if I am to be a sustainable commercial farmer.”


Attention to detail

Kamara’s observations highlight the care with which successful agricultural support must be delivered to farmers.

Maseray Conteh, a rice farmer in Makeni told IPS that in her area are indeed getting technical assistance from the ministry. Earlier this year, tractors cleared her three-hectare plot to prepare it for cultivation.

“The rice did very well, and when it was harvest time I was able to get the combined harvester machine from the ministry, but sadly the machine spoilt my rice. I was only able to save about 40 bushels of rice, as opposed to 70- 80 bushels when I harvest manually,” she lamented.

“They said that if I had planted the rice in rows, the harvester would not have spoilt it. I hope that they will show us how to plant in rows.”

Agriculture minister Sam Sesay says he is aware of the challenges. “All of these situations have existed for a long time and we are trying to put all of that behind us now,” said the minister.

“These gaps will soon be dealt with. NSADP is just in its starting phase and when fully implemented it will take care of all the problems the farmers are now facing.”

The objectives of NSADP, the minister underlined, are to enhance increased agricultural productivity, promote commercial agriculture through private sector, improve research and extension service delivery, and promote effective and efficient resource management.

In next year’s budget, just under $2.5 million dollars will be targeting an increased number of 442 FBOs as opposed to 195 currently in the project.”

Sesay added that in line with the NSADP/CAADP they have already developed a smallholder commercialisation scheme, pointing out that “it is a deliberate program to get especially women farmer groups to gradually operate as limited companies and become the backbone of the private sector in Sierra Leone.

“We will soon conduct training for these women in agribusiness so they will be able to operate as legal commercial entities.”

“This will have to change. We will focus on irrigation and our framers who are mainly women will be able to farm at least three times a year while we will rehabilitate storage and processing facilities.”

Marie Nerica and thousands of Sierra Leone’s women farmers will be looking forward to the NSADP being implemented to the letter, and to give agriculture a new face in the country.

Excerpt:

When in power, the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) promised that thanks to its pursuit of a pro-agriculture agenda, no Sierra Leonean would go to bed hungry by 2007. But the appointed date came and the people were still hungry. Unfortunately for the SLPP, it was an election year.

Sierra Leone's farmers wait to see if the latest pledges to support agriculture will be fulfilled. Credit: David Hecht/IRIN

The party was booted out and replaced by the All People’s Congress. The APC government promised in turn to make agriculture a top priority. And in September, Sierra Leone became the fifteenth African country to sign a compact in the framework of the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP).

CAADP is an African Union initiative agreed in Maputo in 2003 which aims to ensure Africa’s agricultural development as a catalyst for socio-economic growth. Overall, CAADP’s goal is to eliminate hunger and reduce poverty through agriculture.

The finance minister has announced that in 2010, government will increase the budget allocation to agriculture from the present 7.7 percent to 9.9 percent, towards meeting one of CAADP’s principles that ten percent of national budgets be devoted to agriculture.

“We inherited a 1.7 percent agricultural budget, and since last year we have increased it to 7.7 percent. This is a huge commitment to agriculture,” said Dr Sam Sesay, minister for agriculture.

He explained that the programme will facilitate and strengthen the productive capacities of small- and medium- scale farmers, as well as provide an enabling environment to promote large-scale farming and promote the development of agri-business. The plan is also intended to facilitate access to markets and value addition for selected commodities like rice, oil palm, cocoa and fisheries.

The plan, he continued, has started off with “sub-programme one: commodity commercialisation – to increase productivity (through) appropriate technologies and providing access to markets of selected commodities.”

The minister explained that farmer-based organisations are being supported with a 50 percent subsidy on fertiliser and seed for selected crops. These farmers are also gaining access to tractors and pesticides.

Other components of the NSADP include the development of agricultural infrastructure such as storage facilities, better roads, irrigation, markets, processing and packaging facilities, and the rehabilitation of research centres. Sesay revealed that, 241,000 hectares of irrigable swamps across the country have been earmarked for development.

A final sub programme, he explained, will take care of coordination and management of the agriculture section.

“We are only starting now with the implementation of NSADP. By 2010, we will have started the implementation of all the sub programmes,” Sesay disclosed.

Food sovereignty

But what is the assessment of NSADP by the very people whose lives are directly impacted by this national plan?

Brima Babo, the secretary general of the country’s largest coalition of farmers, the National Federation of Farmers in Sierra Leone (NFFSL) says, “NSADP is a step in the right direction for the development of agriculture in Sierra Leone.

“The national agriculture plan will uphold the principles of food sovereignty, the fundamental right of West African people to produce for themselves and by themselves the needed foodstuffs, which is also demanded by (ROPPA),” he adds.

Food sovereignty is a key demand of regional farmers’ organisation ROPPA (Reseau Des organisations paysannes et des producteurs agricoles de l’Afrique de l’ouest) with which the NFFSL is affiliated.

Alongside the East African Farmers’ Federation, ROPPA is demanding that agriculture in Africa should ensure stable income and decent livelihoods to family farmers; the associations of small farmers back the principles of the AU’s comprehensive plan to achieve Millennium Development Goals, especially on hunger and poverty.

They also stress the importance of sustainable food security and sovereignty, preserving the dignity of African producers and citizens and of a development process that is more respectful of African culture and values.

Babo said that the ministry of agriculture under the national plan is now organising farmers into viable groups in a programme called the Sierra Leone Agricultural Commercialisation Strategy.

“Before now,” Babo said, “there has been a lack of entrepreneurial skills, and capital in the sector. Even the people that studied agriculture in universities do not come back to the soil, Agriculture was looked upon as work to sustain poor peasants.”

“But with NSADP there are plans to inject loan capital into agriculture and make these loans accessible to small farmers. There would be training for these farmers and a forum to exchange research information and there will also be a system for agribusiness.”

“I think the main focus of the Ministry of Agriculture under the NSADP is to enhance the capacity of FBOs so that they will be able to better assert themselves in the national and international market. In other words to get them to move from subsistence to commercial (marketable surplus) agriculture.”

Gassimu Sheriff, a member of the Massa Agricultural Unit, a FBO in Pujehun District observed that it is too early to measure the success of the NSADP which has just started.

“But gauging from the fact that we have been fully involved in the whole process leading to the CAADP compact signing and the development of NSADP, and we have also been engaged in consultative and sensitisation process on all aspects of NSADP and CAADP, I am optimistic that we are looking at a revamp in the agricultural sector of this country,” he said.

Agricultural activities support 90 percent of the rural population of Sierra Leone and improvement in the sector will increase incomes and purchasing power of the vast majority of the people with the potential to uplift the rural population more than any other sector of the economy.

Sierra Leoneans are hoping that the new government keeps the promises outlined in the CAADP agreement, that in the near future none of them will go to bed hungry.

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Oct 9 2009 (IPS)

Umaru Fofana looks dishevelled. His hair is overgrown and people who do not know him could be mistaken for thinking he just joined an Afro band. And his hanging beard will surely solicit suspicious glances.

But Fofana is not some musician or an unkempt hobo. He is the president of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) and his appearance is all for the cause of media freedom.

"I will not have a haircut until the Supreme Court gives a ruling on our matter; as a result I have grown more beard and hair on my head than any other time since I was born." The SLAJ is presently at loggerheads with the country’s Supreme Court – over the failure by the court to deliver a verdict six months after final arguments on the SLAJ’s case. By law, the court is bound to deliver a verdict in three months.

The association petitioned the court for an interpretation and repeal of the criminal and seditious libel law contained in the Public Order Act of 1965.

Under the current law a journalist, or anyone who writes and publishes a story can be arrested and jailed whether or not what they published or said was true. Several journalist have been arrested detained or jail under this act.

The SLAJ argued that this was detrimental to media freedom and freedom of expression. The SLAJ also argued that the Act contradicted the country’s constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech.

But the association is still awaiting a ruling on the matter, and the court’s delay, Fofana says, is unconstitutional.

"The court has still not given its verdict and this is a contravention of the 1991 Sierra Leone Constitution, which states that every court established under the constitution shall deliver its decision in writing not later than three months after the conclusion of the evidence and final addresses or arguments," said Fofana.

The SLAJ went as far as imposing a temporary media blackout on the judiciary in order to force the Supreme Court to rule.

But the association later dropped the blackout after the country’s President Earnest Bai Koroma promised judgment would be delivered in mid-September. But this is yet to happen.

Elwin Bailor, the Master and Registrar of the Courts of Sierra Leone told IPS that there is no problem or reasons why the court has not given a verdict up till now. Bailor refused to explain further.

When asked when the court will finally give its rulings, Bailor hesitantly said "soon, pretty soon," and ended the conversation. President Koroma is on record as saying that government was interested in reviewing the criminal libel law but could not do so while the matter is in court. "This is why I feel ashamed for the country’s highest court’s continued violation of the constitution by failing to give a ruling on the case," Fofana sighed. Journalists and other citizens all over the country are questioning the separation of powers in the government; after President Koroma promised the verdict would be delivered last month.

Many are arguing that this ability of the president’s office to force the court to rule smacks of executive control over the courts. They pointed out that it is unsatisfactory that the Supreme Court can only be moved into action by direct appeals to the president. Rosemarie Blake, the programme director for Society for Democratic Initiatives – a non-governmental organisation that focuses on freedom of information and expression – expressed similar sentiments. "This standoff is totally undermining the fairness and independence of the Supreme Court. It is also affecting the of work journalists, especially in reporting sensitive issues that borders around government officials." "It is hard not to look at this situation as a ploy by government to continue to suppress press freedom." Blake added. Fofana agreed saying that the current law allowed corruption to continue. "Journalists feel hounded by the existence of this law, which inhibits their freedom to checkmate public officials. So it is as much in the interest of (financial) donors as it is in the interest of Sierra Leoneans to get this law expunged and have the Freedom of Information Bill passed into law."

Blake said her organisation was also calling for the repeal of the seditious libel law and the passing of a Freedom of Information Bill.

Last year Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone in its State of Human Rights report in of 2008 also recommended that Parliament should take immediate steps to repeal the seditious libel provisions in the Public Order Act, 1965 and enact the Freedom of Information Bill. The report had stated the current Act was still being used to control the media.

Inasmuch as the wrangling continues, Fofana’s hair keeps growing and only on the day the Supreme Court’s gives its ruling, will he set an appointment with the barber. How long that is nobody knows.

Excerpt:

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Sep 30 2009 (IPS)

The fight against corruption in Sierra Leone has taken on a new face. Government and civil society are now working together to stamp out rampant fraud.

The national anti-corruption agency, previously a toothless body with no power only recently bolstered by amendments in the law, has now invited civil society to play a significant role in ridding corruption in the country.

According to the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index Sierra Leone is still among the 70 countries in the world that are considered to have rampant corruption.

Civil society members, recently trained by the national Anti Corruption Commission (ACC), have been asked to monitor government institutions to make sure they are trying to be corrupt-free.

The ACC has been tackling fraud through a National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS). The strategy means that the ACC works hand in hand with government institutions to identify corruption hotspots in their organisations and to also find various solutions to this. The documentation drawn up as a result of this process has been given to civil society so they can monitor government institutions.

Ngolo Kata the head of a leading coalition of civil society groups said they have always wanted to play a role in the fight against corruption.

Ngolo explained the ACC has already trained various civil society members in the process of monitoring. "Members were nominated by their different organisations all over the country to form a core of monitors."

This team of monitors recently completed the first and second quarter of the monitoring process and is now compiling their reports.

"To regulate our work we have signed a code of ethics that controls the conduct of our members during the monitoring and among these rules maintaining a tight lip with the media is underlined," Ngolo said

Coordinator of the ACC project, Sholay Williams, explained that the monitoring reports will be put together at regional level and then presented to a steering committee that oversees the implementation of the NACS. "This core will make recommendations to government on what action to take against defaulting institutions," Sholay told IPS

According to the new ACC Act defaulters will be fined up to five million Leones, (about 1,4 million dollars) fired from their jobs irrespective of the provisions in their letters of appointment.

In the past, the ACC was been described as a "toothless bull dog". But under the new regime of President Ernest Koroma – who came to power on a ticket of zero tolerance – it has been recovering its teeth. Whent Koroma’s regime took power in 2007, it was quick to review the Anti Corruption Act of 1991 and strengthen it with a new one last year.

The new act gave the ACC the power to send cases directly to court, for the first time. Previously the ACC was required to send all their cases to the Attorney General for approval first. As a result many cases against top government officials perished on the table of the Attorney General who never prosecuted these matters.

The ACC had also lacked the capacity to thoroughly investigate cases. There was a lack of cooperation from civil society and the public in providing relevant information or tip-offs about corruption. This was because many mistrusted the commission’s ability to pursue corruption cases.

However, an invigorated ACC with new management and bolstered powers is anxious to effectively fight against corruption and redeem its battered image. The commission is gaining the confidence of the people.

"The introduction of the NACS is a national orchestration, the broadest plan a country can have in the fight against corruption" Sholay said.

And no one will be safe from the new anti corruption commission. Government ministers will also be placed under the spotlight. The Information Minister Ibrahim Ben Kargbo said: "The President will also be looking at the reports closely and will be assessing the performance of Ministers based upon these reports."

Excerpt:

By Mohamed Fofanah
MAPUTO, Sep 3 2009 (IPS)

Rodger Phiri is a wealthy man. And the most amazing thing is that he made his money through farming.

'The government subsidy programme in Zambia is a success.' - Phiri Credit: Zahira Kharsany/IPS

"The government subsidy programme in Zambia is a success," Phiri declared.

Phiri, who is also president of the National Association for Peasant and Small Scale Farmers in Zambia, explained that government has been giving farmers 50 percent seed and fertiliser subsidies.

Phiri grows maize, cotton, tobacco and groundnuts, but when he first started he only used a portion of his land.

"I started farming on five hectares of land but since I started getting the subsidies, I am now able to work on 20 hectares," Phiri said. "They have also been constructing roads in the rural areas were our farms are, and providing information and markets for our crops."

"Now I am exporting and making tonnes of money," he giddily stated.

The provision of subsidies to farmers means that the government of Zambia is implementing the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), agreed by African heads of states.

CAADP's goal is to eliminate hunger and reduce poverty through agriculture. African governments have committed to increase national agricultural growth rates to six percent per year through a commitment to allocate at least ten percent of their national budgets to agriculture.

They are working on this framework by focusing on four pillars: sustainable land management and reliable water control systems; improving rural infrastructure and trade-related capacities for market access; increasing food supply; and agricultural research.

Phiri pointed out that his government should increase budget allocation to agriculture. He bemoaned that the agriculture budget allocation was recently cut down from eight percent to six percent because of the global recession.

At the centre of all of this is the Food Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN). They are spearheading the coordination of the implementation of CAADP within Southern Africa at the national and regional level.

Dr David Kamchacha, the FANRPAN CAADP programme manager, said that the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa contacted the network to help with speeding up the process of agricultural reforms. They wanted FANRPAN to bring together governments, civil society, farmers themselves and researchers at a national level to work together.

"With this facilitation, some countries are already budgeting above the 10 percent benchmark set in Maputo," Kamchacha said.

However the success rate is not so high.

"Since its launch in 2003, there are only four countries that have reached full implementation stage, and we are talking about 19 countries that signed up to CAADP," Kamchacha revealed.

Kamchacha pointed out that it has been a challenge for FANRPAN to bring all the stakeholders in to work together in implementing agricultural reforms.

He said they will also impress this message during the FANRPAN Annual Dialogue programme going on currently in Maputo.

To surmount these challenges Kamchacha said: "We are trying to make all of them understand their role, and that if they do not play it right nothing will move for their countries. They should all look at each other not as antagonists but as partners."

Kamchacha urged: "Without an alignment to full implementation of CAADP, Africa will always be net importers and will never be net exporters."

Excerpt:

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Aug 25 2009 (IPS)

They told her after the 40-day ceremony to mark the death of her husband. M’ballu Kamara’s in-laws said she would be taken care of by her husband’s younger brother. It took her a moment to realise the “care” she was to receive would require that she become his third wife.

The practice of "inheriting" wives is entrenched across Sierra Leone. But it is also a violation of new laws. Credit: Mohamed Fofanah/IPS

“All of these properties have been taken over by various family members of my deceased husband. They said that my children and I will only benefit from the shelter of the house and the proceeds from the shop if I remained in the ‘care’ of my brother in law,” Kamara explained.

“I cannot marry my brother-in-law. I refused. But it was glaring that if I go, I will forfeit everything – even personal effects of sentimental value which I bought with my own sweat,” she said.

“They did not fight with me for the kids so I packed my personal belongings under the watchful eyes of my brother-in-law who had already moved into the house. And I left with my kids.”

The cultural practice of “inheriting” wives is not limited to the Temne ethnic group to which Kamara belongs. It is entrenched across Sierra Leone.

But it is also a violation of the law. The Devolution of Estates Act of 2007 makes provision for surviving spouses, children, parents and other dependents of persons who died, whether or not they left a will.

The Act gives wives and children under customary law legal right to inherit property, reversing the previous situation where if there was no will, property simply reverted to the parents and brothers of the deceased. It also abolishes the practice of “wife inheritance”.

But old custom dies hard: forty-five-year-old Kumba Nyandebo is from Gbane-Kandor Chiefdom in Kono, in the east of the country. Her husband died last year, leaving her with four children.

A month after the burial, his family met and decided to distribute his properties and personal effects among his brothers and sisters; the house of the deceased, and Nyandebo herself were given to his brother, Sahr Missa.

Nyandebo told IPS that she is okay with the arrangement. “I did it for the children. Who would take me now, with all these children and nothing to my name?”

She said she had never heard of the Estates Act and never even considered questioning the dictates of the elders of her family: “That is our custom.”

There are scores of other women in Nyandebo’s village of Gbakodu who have been inherited by their late husbands’ brothers or nephews; she could not think of a single woman who had stood against the practice.

Sierra Leonean customary law, largely unwritten but which forms part of the common law, regulates upon matters including marriage, inheritance, divorce, and property – matters which impact heavily on women. Under Sierra Leonean customary law, women’s status is considered equal to that of a minor.

But in constitutional terms, the passing of three Acts in 2007 – Devolution of Estates, Domestic Violence and the Registration of Customary Marriages Act, often referred to as Sierra Leone’s three gender laws – has uplifted the status of women.

On paper at least. Assistant Superintendent Elizabeth Jeneti, is the head of the Family Support Unit (FSU), a branch of the Sierra Leone Police Force charged with handling family issues and gender matters, at Kissy Police Station in the capital, Freetown.

Two years after the passing of the Act, she concedes she has never charged any Devolution of Estate matter to court.

“This is almost the same scenario in other police Stations around the country. The problem is that people are not reporting these matters and the few that come in lose interest as soon as we want to charge the matters to court.”

However she also admitted that there are gaps in police handling of inheritance issues.

Charles Vandy, the coordinator of the National Committee on Gender Violence in the ministry of responsible for gender, children’s affairs and social welfare says police have received some training. His ministry, in collaboration with the International Rescue Committee, had trained female FSU personnel to respond to women and children whose rights to inheritance had been affected.

Vandy says the government is well aware of the conflict between custom and the constitution.

“The only way we can fight as a government is to give the people the information. We believe that when many people especially women and children are aware of their rights under the Devolution of Estate they will stand up and then the grip of this customary laws will gradually loosen.”

The ministry is now conducting a massive sensitisation drive, especially in the provinces, to inform the people who are worst affected about the Act.

Progress may be measured in modest increments.

Kamara, for example, says she knew that her husband’s people could not force her to marry his brother, but she believed they could seize her possessions. She was surprised to learn that she could actually apply to the courts to reclaim what she and her husband worked together to accumulate.

In Gbakodu, Nyandebo is wary. “I am sure our people had a reason to make those decisions… but if the government says it is a bad thing, then they must try to get our people to do the right thing which will benefit us all.”

Excerpt:

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Dec 12 2008 (IPS)

A court in Sierra Leone has overturned treason convictions for 11 men. It is the first successful appeal against a death penalty in that country, opening the possibility of an eventual end to capital punishment there.

“It was like a miracle, I could not believe it. We were all filled with emotions when the judge said that we were acquitted and discharged,” said Hindolo Trye, one of those aquitted.

The charges – laid against 10 members of the former armed opposition groups, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), and one civilian – related to an armed attack on the armory at Wellington barracks, on the outskirts of Freetown in January 2003, in an apparent attempt to overthrow the government of President Kabbah.

“The acquittal of the eleven condemned prisoners is phenomenal,” said Brima Sheriff, the director of Amnesty International in Sierra Leone. “This is the very first time in the history of this country that condemned prisoners had won their appeal and released especially for the conviction of treason.”

Sadly, Osho Williams, the lawyer and All Peoples’ Congress member of parliament who represented the eleven convicted prisoners during their 2004 trial and subsequent appeal, died just a few days after winning this victory.

This overturning of a previous decisions by the court has highlighted a key argument against the death penalty – the fact that an error in judgment can never be corrected if the victims have lost their lives.

The Court of Appeal acquitted the ten for procedural lapses during their trial; the fact that the trial judge failed to analyse the evidence led by the prosecution and to relate same to the law; and the trial judge’s failure to direct the jury adequately on the law relating to accomplices, and the danger of convicting on the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice.

In Sierra Leone murder, aggravated robbery and treason are capital crimes.

However there have been no judicial executions since October 1998, when 24 AFRC members convicted of treason were publicly executed after a trial before a military court.

One of the key recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) which was established by the government in 2000 to create an impartial historical record of human rights abuses committed during the armed conflict and to provide a forum for victims and perpetrators to recount their experiences was enshrining the right to human dignity and abolishing the death penalty.

The TRC’s report explicitly calls for the immediate repeal of laws authorising the death penalty, for a moratorium on all executions pending abolition, and for the government to commute all pending death sentences.

But the Constitutional Review Commission of Sierra Leone has recommended only that the death penalty be replaced by life imprisonment in all cases of treason or other crimes of political nature that do not directly result in the death of another person and be replaced by life imprisonment.

“This is not enough,” said the Amnesty Director in Sierra Leone. “We are calling for full commitment by the government for a abolition of the death penalty and nothing less”

Meanwhile, on Nov. 20, Sierra Leone abstained from voting on a moratorium on the death penalty at the UN General Assembly. This abstention has been condemned by many rights activists in the country.

The country still has 13 prisoners – ten male and three female – on death row at the maximum-security Pademba Road Prison, according to prisons officials.

Mambu S. Feika , the director of Prison Watch – an organization that monitors all prisonS in Sierra Leone – told IPS that the acquittal of the ten death row prisoners has brought not only faith in the justice system of the country but hope for the other 13 prisoners awaiting executions.

“The previous government of Tejan Kabbah has observed a moratorium on the death penalty. The Ernest Bai Koroma government has started on a good footing on the death penalty we sense willingness by this government to get rid of the death penalty in our statutes and these signs are good for the remaining 13 on death row.”

The Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Serry Kamal, told IPS that the president still reserves the decision to endorse the death penalty prescribed by the courts but that as the Minister of Justice, he will not recommend to the President to sign the execution order for any condemned Prisoner.

“Osho fought to save our lives it is a pity he had to loose his before he could see us live again, we hope that his party which is in power lives his dream to abolish the death penalty,” Hindolo sighed.

Excerpt:

By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Oct 23 2008 (IPS)

"Eight years ago my husband threw his haversack on his back and bade us goodbye. My two kids and I came out of the house and watched him leave. Water was dripping from our eyes uncontrollably; it was as if we were already mourning his death. He was bound for the war front."

Designated a priority for reparations , Sierra Leone's war widows fear they will be sent to the back of the queue. Credit: Mohamed Fofanah/IPS

"About three weeks after he left, we were informed that he was killed in an ambush at the Bo-Kenema highway by the rebels. Osman Kallon, my husband had been the nerve centre of the family. Since his demise things have been hell for us."

Kallon is among the large group of women described as war widows – their total number is still unknown.

A Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up in 2002 to investigate the causes of Sierra Leone's 11-year civil war, a brutal conflict during which all factions were accused of committing gross human rights violations.

The TRC specifically recognised the effects of violence on women and the family structure. War widows – in the words of the TRC's report, "women whose husbands were killed as a consequence of any abuse or violation and who, as a result, have become the primary breadwinners for their families" – such women were designated as a privileged categories for reparations, notes the chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone, Jamesina King.

The TRC recommended the provision of skills training and micro-credit schemes for these women, defined in its final report as to help equip and empower them to provide for their families.

But the National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA), the body that will be implementing the reparations, has no immediate plans to begin these projects.

"Because skills training and micro-credit schemes for these women need a lot of planning and the money that we have now will be insufficient to take this venture on board, when we have more funding we will consider that recommendation," the Reparations Program Manager, Amadu Bangura, told IPS.

NaCSA instead has chosen to give priority to the implementation of a housing project, providing housing to only three other categories affected by the war: adult war wounded, adult amputees and adult victims of sexual violence. The housing project was not a reparation recommendation by the TRC.

"I feel so deprived and the loss of my husband during the war will be more painful to me and my family if the reparations recommendations set out by TRC will not be followed strictly by NaCSA for whatever reasons," Kallon appealed.

Bangura maintains that the housing project is in line with the recommendations of the Reparations Steering Committee after analysing the TRC report and finding that 49 percent of victims called for the provision of housing.

He stated that when they did their assessment they found that out of the 960 amputees and war wounded registered by the Amputee and War wounded Association, 500 have already been provided with housing by international NGOs.

"We want to continue with what has been started and finish off the 460 beneficiaries that remain. We intend to start off with 50 houses for amputees and 25 for war-wounded beneficiaries," Bangura pointed out.

Bangura said that the whole reparations programme is expected to start next year, as soon as the verification process of beneficiaries is concluded. It is expected to last for six years.

Each house will cost $6,500 dollars, taken from the present reparations budget total of three million dollars.

"Housing is the best reparations and I support NaCSA to include housing," says Jusu Jarka, the chairman of an association of amputees and war wounded who stand to benefit from the housing project. Jarka is the only active representative of beneficiaries in the reparations committee.

"I agree that housing is very good, but if the TRC in their wisdom expressly did not recommend it, they must have taken into consideration many factors like limited budget for the reparations," said Jariatu Kamara, a war widow. "So I do not see any justification in providing housing for one set of people and excluding the skills training and micro credit schemes that were directly proposed for us in the report. It is unacceptable."

Jamesina King said that the TRC Report makes provisions for amendment of the reparations recommendations by the implementing body, but only with the unanimous consent of the members of the Advisory Board to the proposed amendment.

"The HRCSL was not aware that such directions had been followed before the housing decision was taken and at what level."

She told IPS that they have done a letter to NaCSA to request an explanation and justifications for making the amendments to the TRC reparation recommendation.

A total of 2.3 million dollars is expected to be expended on reparations for amputees, war wounded, sexually violated and children victims in the project's first year.

Amadu said that the Reparations Committee was expecting funding from the government which is still not forthcoming.

In addition, he said that the committee has developed a five-year strategic funding plan to attract international donors and if they have the funds they will implement all the TRC recommendations before the end of the six year Reparations Programme.

"We have suffered greatly during the war and up till now we are suffering. We are helplessly looking at NaCSA to help us get our lives back. Whatever decision they will be taking on reparations, we hope will be selfless and should be in the spirit of the TRC report that has made provision for us," Kallon pleaded.

The TRC Report stated that they were enjoined by statute to give special attention to the needs of women and girls because while the majority of victims were adult males, perpetrators singled out women and children for some of the most brutal violations of human rights recorded in any conflict.

The report states that "it is only when the legal and socio-political system treats women as equals to men, giving them full access to economic opportunities and enabling them to participate freely in both public and private life, that they will realize their full potential."

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By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Aug 27 2008 (IPS)

A barefoot girl watches expressionless as men clad in expensive suits and women in designer clothes make their way on foot to the Community Centre in Kroo Bay, Freetown. They are here to launch the first ever State of Human Rights Report for Sierra Leone; Zainab, 12, is in the midst of another day on the narrow, muddy streets of the area, selling groundnuts to help support her family.

Home for her is the warren of patchwork wood and tin dwellings that sits at the bottom of the west end of the Sierra Leonean capital, Freetown. The paths in Kroo Bay are of hardened dirt that turns to mud during the rainy season. There are no sewage pipes or water mains beneath them and they are too narrow for a car to travel.

Children bare to the waist play in the mud. Most of them, like Zainab, will never see the inside of a school. Babies strapped to their mothers' backs cry as if they knew how many among them will not survive to see their fifth birthday. The community's 10,000 residents are served by a single clinic.

"This community is a microcosm of the entire Sierra Leone, where 75 percent of the population is poor according to the country's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. A fitting place to launch the State Of Human Rights Report in Sierra Leone 2007," said The Minister of Presidential Affairs Alpha Kanu at the August 21 launch in Kroo Bay.

Two years after it was established as an act of parliament, the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone (HRCSL) has released its first report. It is not encouraging reading.

It finds that Sierra Leoneans face pulverising poverty as economic justice eludes them.

The commissioners found that cases of rape and domestic violence are not adequately prosecuted; that female genital mutilation remains prevalent in the country; and that women are discriminated against and need better access to justice.

They report that the overall administration of justice remains severely compromised by inadequate training, resources, and infrastructure. The death sentence is still mandatory for treason and murder, and discretionary for aggravated robbery. Conditions in prisons and other detention centers throughout the country are appalling.

And Sierra Leone is still recording maternal mortality rates at 1800 per 100,000 live births and infant mortality rates of 170 per 1,000.

The Human Rights Commission maintains "this national public health emergency is not being treated with the seriousness it deserves" and states that "the government is under a positive obligation according to national and international human rights law to take the necessary steps to reduce these high levels."

The Anti-Corruption Commissioner, Abdul Tejan Cole, pointed out that the country has a lot left to do to meet its economic, cultural and social rights obligations.

While critical of libel laws held over from the Public Order Act of 1965 under which journalists can readily be criminalised and imprisoned, the report observes there has been "much progress in the observance of the freedom of expression".

Licenses were granted to several radio stations and newspapers throughout the country and the Independent Media Commission (IMC) held a series of training seminars and workshops for journalists to raise standards of investigation and reporting.

The report also notes "government was tolerant and accommodating to musicians who produced songs, many of which are critical of members of the government, and the prevailing socio-economic and political situation."

Taking the shine off this commendation was the temporary closure of a radio station in Yele for criticizing government, and a member of parliament reportedly shutting down the community radio station in Pujehun for broadcasting opposing views.

The Presidential Affairs Minister praised the report and promised that his government will work assiduously to change this status quo in the country.

Edward Sam, the Vice Chairperson of the HRCSL, pointed out that to produce the report had posed a serious challenge for the Commission. He explained that they faced logistical constraints, like the availability of vehicles to facilitate field work especially for timely investigation.

He said that the availability of financial support for the Commission's operations largely depends on external donor support mostly from the U.N. Peace Building Fund.

"This is a crucial issue which needs to be urgently addressed by the government in order to ensure the sustainability of the Commission when donor funding folds up," said Commissioner Sam.

Will it matter?

The flurry of activity around the State of Human Rights Report launch has likely already faded in the minds of Zainab and the thousands of other residents at Kroo Bay who are unlikely to ever see the contents of the report or understand its potential importance.

When the ministers returned to their cars and drivers, Kroo Bay resumed its hardscrabble existence. Yet these are the people who most urgently need the government to deliver on its promises to work towards an adequate standard of living, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions for all Sierra Leoneans.

The report strongly recommends the implementation of recommendations of Sierra Leone's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, including an unequivocal apology to women on behalf of past and present governments for their suffering during the conflict in the country, and the enactment of legislation for political parties to ensure that at least 30 percent of their candidates for public elections are women. However the TRC's recommendations are yet to be fully implemented.

The Chairperson of The HRCSL, Mrs Jamesina King said the report will be a catalyst.

"The vulnerable groups would definitely get access to the report through community radio and they would also know that their deplorable living conditions and the violations experienced are being recognized and discussed. They will debate in market places, their homes and then they will begin to make leaders accountable."

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By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Aug 15 2008 (IPS)

A violent showdown on August 13 in the heart of Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital, demonstrated the political tension that has been brewing between the country's two main political parties, the ruling All People's Congress (APC) and the main opposition Sierra Leone's People's Party (SLPP).

Police have failed to prevent sporadic political violence. Credit: Mohammed Fofana/IPS

Jacob Jusu Saffa, the SLPP secretary-general, says that party offices all over the country have been attacked and party supporters beaten on many occasions.

It is barely six years since peace returned to a country that endured 11 years of gruesome and barbaric civil war. Tens of thousands were killed and an estimated 20,000 brutally mutilated as the Liberian-backed Revolutionary United Front (RUF) led by Foday Sankoh initially sought to overthrow an APC government which had in 1991 held power for over 24 years. By the time the war ended in 2002, as many as 2 million people had been displaced.

"We are moving in a circle. This was the same government in power when war broke out in 1990, and they are doing the same things that caused the war – suppressing opposition with thuggery as they are doing now," said Mohamed Turay, a lecturer at the Fourah Bay College.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up after the war found that among the main causes of the war were marginalisation, a disregard for human rights and fundamental freedoms by all parties involved, the suppression of free expression and political dissent, and an absence of good governance.

A nation divided

The results of the 2007 presidential elections spelled out clearly the political divide that, sadly, is accepted by many Sierra Leoneans. The APC won the majority of votes in the north and west of the country, whilst the SLPP had strong support in the eastern and southern part of the country.

"This division is bad for the country," observed civil servant Saidu Kamara. "Especially when (each of) the different regions are dominated by the two major tribes in the country, Mende in the south and Temne in the north."

When he took office, President Ernest Bai Koroma promised to form a government of national unity. However, the makeup of his cabinet was roundly criticized from all quarters when 17 of the 20 Ministers were either Temnes or from the north. SLPP secretary general Saffa pointed out that when they were in government, the SLPP included ministers from all parts of the country.

Defending the appointments, the APC information minister Alhaji Ibrahim Ben Kargbo said that it was only prudent to draw a team from amongst loyalists of the party.

SLPP member and former finance minister John Benjamin told IPS that concern about the widening rift led the SLPP to suggest that APC Minister of Presidential Affairs, Alpha Kanu, set up a peace building committee which would broker peace between the two parties.

"We were at the stage of putting a peace building team together when the August 13 attack on our party headquarters and supporters made it impossible to continue," Benjamin said.

He explained that the president called an SLPP delegation to a meeting, but APC supporters poured water on them and insulted them right in front of State House and neither police nor security did anything. "This totally defeated the talks we had with the vice president," Benjamin told IPS. "It might get to a time when we will not be able to control our own supporters."

The Secretary General of the APC, Victor Foe, flatly denied that APC supporters have been attacking the SLPP: "It’s all lies, They are the ones attacking our supporters,"

The Director of Campaign for Good Governance (CGG), Valnora Edwin told IPS, "Sierra Leone has moved past the issues of APC and SLPP. What we should be concerned with is the development of the country. We are tired of sitting in last position in the UN Human Development Index. If we continue to have unrest, investors will not come to the country."

Calm has returned to the capital, as the police made several arrests. But there has been no contact between the two parties to defuse the tension.

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By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Aug 2 2008 (IPS)

Official results from the July 2008 local council elections in Sierra Leone have been announced by the chairperson of the country's National Electoral Commission. Despite numerous reports of harassment and intimidation, more women were elected to councils than in polls four years ago. But results fell short of the 30 percent representation set by gender activists.

Poster promoting female candidates for local council in Sierra Leone Credit: Mohammed Fofanah/IPS

Honorine Muyoyeta, the Country Director for the National Democratic Institute, said, "Despite concrete steps to advance peace and democratic development in Sierra Leone, women – who constitute 49 percent of registered voters – are under-represented and continue to face significant challenges to full participation in politics."

But what will be the impact of continued low female representation in local government in a country that last year dropped to the bottom of the U.N.'s human development ranking? Economic growth has averaged over 7 percent for the past five years in the diamond-producing country of 5.7 million, but more than 70 percent of its citizens live below the poverty line and the country has high rates of illiteracy and the worst maternal and child mortality rates in the world.

Princess Pratt was a councillor for Kono District Council Ward 66 who ran again for the 2008 local Council elections under the opposition Sierra Leone People's Party's (SLPP) banner but was unsuccessful.

"Women in local governance is pivotal in our fledging democracy and development strides," Pratt said.

She said that she was one of three women on the local council in Kono and during her term in office, she catered for the needs of women in that district which had been ignored by previous governments.

"I built community markets for the women. I established rice mills for women farmers which improved their production of rice and subsequently their income. I constructed eight primary community schools in villages where there had never been schools. I gave scholarships to 70 girls and I even extended some of my projects to other wards were women's needs are desperate," Pratt told IPS

"Now there is only one woman in the council, I wonder how much she will be able to accomplish for women. But I know the men in the council will not be able to address the needs of women, because they do not relate to women's issues."

Richard Yarjah, a school teacher in Kono, whose wife was a beneficiary of the rice mill, is worried about its future, now that Pratt has lost office. "I wonder if the new councillors, dominated by men, will continue to support the mill, when the whole project has been grounded on women’s empowerment. My family has practically been managed from the proceeds my wife gets from her rice business."

Alie Kabbah, a trader at Kroo Bay, one of the slum communities in Freetown, said, "We only got a clinic for the first time in our community when we got a female councillor. If big politicians are threatening the women, refusing to give them symbol for them to stand for the elections, then things will not develop in this country.

There were numerous incidents of intimidation of female candidates during the election campaign. Fatmata Daramy had to pull out of the race in the Bombali District Council because she was afraid that her opponents would physically assault her. She said that the low female representation on local councils could be catastrophic for women.

"The northern region of the country where I wanted to stand for councilor really needs female representation because that part of the country has the highest rate of female illiteracy, so much so that the government had to institute affirmative action in giving scholarships to female students. How could we close the gaps in education if we are not there to push for these interests?"

The Director of Amnesty International in Sierra Leone, Brima Sheriff, stated that despite their support together with many other NGOs to women’s participation in the Local Council Elections the result is still frustrating.

He pointed out that "democracy is all about numbers and the fewer women in council means the less impact women will make to address their issues."

Brima however averred that unlike in Parliament where a majority is essential, women on local councils do not need approval from the whole council to develop projects and implement them.

"They could raise their voices even beyond their council, or influence the chairperson of their council to seek women’s welfare." he said.

Growing recognition of the impact women have on political institutions and agendas has prompted the International Foundation for Electoral Systems has initiated a project with the objective of building the Political Parties Registration Commission and the National Electoral Commission's incorporation of gender in their work, as well as to increase the electorate's understanding of women's involvement in local governance.

According to an official at the PPRC, the impact of this project will be realised in 2012 when there would be another Local Council election.

Margaret Vandy, another female candidate with the SLPP defeated in the council elections said "Women's empowerment is crucial to the development of Sierra Leone as a nation. Women are more than 50 percent of the population, so the status of women truly is the status of the people of Sierra Leone."

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By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Aug 10 2007 (IPS)

Sierra Leone will hold general elections Saturday with a number of significant achievements in hand, not least maintaining peace for five years.

A gathering in Freetown to call for violence-free elections. Credit: Tiggy Ridley/IRIN

Two polls have been successfully completed since the end of the conflict, efforts made to integrate demobilised combatants into civilian life, and also to retrain the army – which has mounted several coups in this West African country since it gained independence in 1961. In addition, millions of dollars in aid have been spent on rebuilding the state.

However, "…corruption, fuelled no doubt in part by extremely low civil service pay and emoluments, remains the elephant in the room," notes the International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based think tank, in a Jul. 12 report: &#39Sierra Leone: The Election Opportunity&#39.

Sierra Leone came 148th of the 163 nations surveyed for the 2006 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), produced annually by the Berlin-based graft watchdog, Transparency International. It scored 2.2 on a scale of zero to 10 used for the CPI; a rating of less than three indicates that "corruption is perceived as rampant" in the public sector of the country concerned, notes Transparency in the Nov. 6 press release for the last year&#39s index.

An Anti-Corruption Commission has proved unable to turn the tide. Commission head Henry Joko Smart "…has focused almost exclusively on junior and mid-level officials," says the ICG, "thus sending the wrong message about endemic corruption."

To date, those convicted of graft have included a caterer at a mental hospital, the accounts officer of a library, and the headmaster of a primary school – all implicated in embezzling small amounts of money.

The failure to curb corruption has resulted in a drain on government funds needed for social services – important in any country, but perhaps especially so in Sierra Leone where under-development fuelled by graft was one of the key contributors to the 11-year civil war.

Certain woman candidates have seized on this dismal track record in their campaigns to win a place in Sierra Leone&#39s 112-seat parliament. The outgoing legislature is dominated by men: just 14.5 percent of posts in this institution were female hands. Of the 566 people contesting the Aug. 11 legislative poll, 64 are women.

"We are less corrupt than men," says Luciana James, a candidate for the People&#39s Movement for Democratic Change.

Notes Husainatu Jalloh, running on behalf of the United Peoples Party: "Women are naturally afraid of disgrace; that&#39s our make-up, and…we know that women suffer more in corrupt countries. We spite (reject) corruption, and that is what I have been telling my people."

Sierra Leone has the world&#39s highest maternal and child mortality rates, according to the 2006 United Nations Human Development Report. In an overall assessment of development, the country ranked 176 th of the 177 nations listed.

Some three quarters of people in Sierra Leone live on less than two dollars a day, notes the U.N. report, and unemployment is widespread.

While the country has extensive diamond reserves that could contribute substantially to alleviating poverty, it is estimated to be losing substantial amounts of tax revenue through smuggling of the gems. Diamonds were also used to fund the recent civil war, with former Liberian president Charles Taylor – now being tried for war crimes by the Special Court for Sierra Leone – having supplied the RUF with weapons in exchange for diamonds.

"I tell my constituency that if corruption is to be tackled, every Sierra Leonean has to decide that they want to be corruption-free, and then we strengthen the structures we use to fight corruption – and we put women in parliament and ministries and parastatals," says Elizabeth Lavalie, a candidate for the ruling Sierra Leone People&#39s Party (SLPP), and deputy speaker of the recently dissolved parliament. "Then we would (be) on a strong footing in fighting corruption."

Are these women right in believing that female legislators will automatically take the high ground when it comes to graft?

Kadijatu Barrie, for one, appears to have reservations on this matter. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate said during her campaign that – if elected – she would look into whether any women in public office had been involved in graft. The NDA is the only party to field a female vice-presidential candidate.

But, notes the ICG, "Rooting it (corruption) out requires more than higher salaries or occasional exposure and prosecution of an official. It demands a thorough review of the system perpetuating the practice."

Seven parties are contesting the elections, with the SLPP, the All People&#39s Congress and the People&#39s Movement for Democratic Change considered the front runners.

SLPP presidential candidate Solomon Berewa, the current vice-president, is tipped to win the poll that will decide the next head of state.

About 2.6 million people are registered to vote. The latest census puts Sierra Leone&#39s population at approximately five million.

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