Freetown, Sierra Leone – August 6, 2025 — The Mayor of Freetown, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, has formally expressed serious concerns over what she described as the ineffective functioning of the Tripartite Recommendations Implementation Steering Committee, urging for its urgent operationalization.
In a letter dated August 5, 2025, and addressed to Chief Minister Dr. David Moinina Sengeh, who also serves as Chair of the Committee, Mayor Aki-Sawyerr lamented the lack of adherence to the agreed Terms of Reference (TOR) and Mode of Operation guiding the Committee’s work.
“I am honoured to be able to serve as a member of the Tripartite Steering Committee,” she wrote, “as the effective implementation of the Tripartite Recommendations will ensure a more transparent and inclusive electoral process and improve the integrity and fairness of future elections.”
However, she raised red flags over what she described as a “Steering Committee in name only and not in function.”
According to the Mayor, the Committee has fallen short of its commitment to meet bi-weekly. “In contrast to the envisaged 24 bi-weekly meetings, the Steering Committee has only held seven meetings since July 2024, with two of those meetings being with Development Partners,” she revealed.
The meetings held since its inaugural session on July 19, 2024, include:
* August 27, 2024
* September 11, 2024 (with development partners)
* October 18, 2024
* December 6, 2024
* March 20, 2025
* May 29, 2025 (with development partners and other observers)
Additionally, the Mayor criticised the apparent absence of sub-committees, which are supposed to lead on key areas of implementation, and noted that there is “no platform that enables Steering Committee members to feed into the Constitutional Review process and the legal reforms.”
She also expressed dismay at the lack of transparency in the operation of the Secretariat. “It is important to note that members of the Steering Committee only became aware of the recruitment of the Secretariat Coordinator through social media posts,” Aki-Sawyerr said. “There is no regular reporting of the Secretariat’s activities to the Steering Committee and no opportunity is provided for the Steering Committee members to give input.”
Refuting previous responses from the Chief Minister that the Committee is not meant to “micromanage” the Secretariat, the Mayor stated, “With only a single one-hour ‘working’ meeting held since the start of this year, I am concerned that this is a Steering Committee in name only.”
She referenced an additional call for action made by the Executive Director of CHRDI, another member of the Committee, who posted in the Steering Committee WhatsApp group on June 19, 2025, urging an urgent meeting to address outstanding issues — a request which, according to Aki-Sawyerr, remains unanswered.
In her concluding appeal, the Mayor stated: “May I respectfully suggest that given the importance of the implementation of the Tripartite Recommendations and having in mind the principles of transparency and inclusivity, the Tripartite Implementation Steering Committee be urgently operationalized. The oversight role of the Steering Committee is absolutely necessary and it is imperative that it be exercised.”
The letter was also copied to all members of the Steering Committee, development partners, moral guarantors, and key executives of the opposition All Peoples Congress Party.
The Tripartite Recommendations arose from post-election negotiations and were designed to foster political reform, national unity, and institutional transparency across Sierra Leone’s electoral systems.
