By Frederick V. Kanneh
The Ambassador of America to Sierra Leone, Bryan David Hunt, has played host to Amb Tamba Lamina, the Minister of Local Government and Community Affairs where they discussed a lot of issues around local governance, and decentralization.
The meeting took place at the American Embassy in Freetown where the Minister was accompanied by his Information Officer and Assistant Secretary, and on the other hand, the American Envoy was with his Political Counselor.
The meeting started with a resounding welcome statement from Ambassador Hunt who expressed a desire to see the Local Government Minister and know about local governance and decentralization since it’s a critical sector and that he has a long-term development plan for the same.
In response, Minister Amb Tamba Lamina started off by narrating the history of local governance in Sierra Leone which he tied to Paramount Chieftaincy during the pre-colonial era on to the time when there were 149 Chiefdoms but later increased to 190.
He explained the reasons for the formation of Local Councils in 2004, which led to the devolution of most sectors of Government.
On the current status of local governance in Sierra Leone, Minister Lamina explained the significant efforts by the Government to make sure that legislative reforms are put in place to streamline the activities of the Ministry which plays monitoring and oversight function roles, and the different sectors under the Ministry.
He mentioned the Local Government Act 2022, the reviewed Decentralization Policy, and the 5 years strategic plan of the Ministry, amongst others as examples.
He informed the Ambassador of the determination of the Vice President, who is the Chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Local Government and Decentralization to effectively engage all sector Ministries and Local Councils’ leadership to discuss issues concerning devolution, service delivery, and capacity building of Local Councils.
He further disclosed that the Ministry has a structure set to recruit Chiefdom Development Officers who would serve as administrative hubs for the Paramount Chiefs for the implementation of developmental projects in the various Chiefdoms.
However, he highlighted Challenges that are impeding the actualization of the full potential of local governance in Sierra Leone. He underlined vehicle challenges for the Ministry as a setback for proper monitoring and oversight functions, inadequate Government allocations to Local Councils due to huge financial pressure on the same, poor revenue mobilization by Councils due to refusal from the community people to pay tax, huge financial commitment on the Councils to pay support staff, amongst others.
The meeting later ended on an interactive note where the American Envoy explained his experience of traveling to certain parts of the Country and his realization that the country has wide, different, and unique cultures. He promised to be in touch with the Ministry for possible areas of their intervention.
