Sierra Leone

Statement by the Honourable Vice President, Mr. Solomon E. Berewa at the Consultative Group Meeting held at the Lagoonda Conference Hall

29-11-2006

Mr. Co-chair and representative of the Secretary General.
Mr. Co-chair Representative of the World Bank,
Cabinet Ministers,
Honourable Members Parliament ,
Your Excellencies members of the diplomatic corps,
Members of international institutions,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of his Excellency the President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, Alhaji Dr. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, I bid you welcome to Sierra Leone. I trust that those of you, who have travelled the distance to our shores, will find time despite the busy agenda ahead, to take a look around and enjoy our beautiful beaches and sunshine. As you move around you will see evidence of an economy on the move and, you will also notice the various challenges still confronting us. What you cannot avoid observing is the enormous potential we have. We hope this meeting will serve amongst other things, as a forum for us to exchange ideas freely with you on our plans for the way forward.

One year ago we presented our PRSP to this forum. This document had been formulated with the participation of all stakeholders including donor partners. The meeting commended our efforts and encouraged us to proceed with our plans. Pledges of support, both financial and otherwise, were also made. Today, a year later we are here to evaluate the progress made, the obstacles faced, and the tasks ahead. We also wish to share with you our ideas on the future, both immediate and in the long term.

Ladies and Gentlemen: we are now at the point where most post-conflict countries find themselves at the greatest risk of reversal. In our case the signs are apparent, high unemployment, restless young people, a judiciary that suffers from capacity weaknesses etc. Fortunately the solutions are also within our reach, to ensure that we do not slide backwards and that we consolidate our peace. This and other issues will be the subject of frank and open discussions. We hope that our deliberations will help us refine our plans and strategies, as well as improve our performance.

Performance so far.

By and large our progress has been very satisfactory, especially when measured against the benchmarks or indicators set. Nevertheless we should strive for much more. The population’s expectations are high. The public has the impression that the PRSP is a solution to all the ailments in the society. Thus although the figures from the PRSP may be reassuring for this audience, unless the population can see concrete results, the PRSP is hot air to our people.

In the next twelve months we must therefore provide clear evidence of results for the population. The full effects of the achievements so far will only become apparent after about twelve to eighteen months. In the meantime we need continued support to bridge this intervening period. A case in point is the Youth Employment Programme. Here, government has launched the Youth Employment Scheme; we are now looking to our partners to complement our effort by supporting the other elements of the Youth Employment Programme so that these too can be made operational immediately.

What are the obstacles we encountered?

Our biggest challenge over the past twelve months has been implementation. Delays in disbursements, low capacity of the public service, delayed receipts of some anticipated donor funds, and grappling with the problems of corruption were some of the challenges we had to contend with. While some of these problems are structural and require time to resolve, there are still those in which we can make enormous progress with a bit more goodwill by all. In this respect we look forward to the implementation of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness through the joint donor/government task force on Harmonization that we have set up. Let me address some of them.

Low capacity in the public service. Our capacity problem is a major obstacle against reaching PRSP targets. We need more skilled staff at all levels, and need to appropriately remunerate those we have in order to keep them motivated and for them to remain with the Service.

You will see from the Roadmap for the Civil Service reform that we are ready to move. What we now need is your support in taking this through. Although some of our partners have indicated their readiness to fund certain activities, experience suggest that success is more likely when we can proceed on all fronts to effect the changes needed.

Corruption. Although the complete elimination of corruption will take time, the various measures we have instituted to reinforce accountability both by government and the civil society are beginning to show signs of success. The most recent results of the Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys (PETS) are being analysed and action is already underway to deal with the findings. Our Anti-corruption strategy puts equal emphasis on prevention and on punishment. Ladies and gentlemen, our campaign against corruption is considered top priority for the government. We are losing resources through leaks in the system, and our transactions costs are high because of corruption in its various forms. Our Anti-corruption strategy puts equal emphasis on prevention and on punishment As a government we are determined to keep the momentum and encourage donors to bring to the attention of the Anti-Corruption Commission any cases of corruption that they may be aware of.

Where do we go from here?

To answer this question, let us take a step backwards and recall where we have come from.

In 2002 the war was declared over. We then concentrated on returning people to their abandoned or destroyed homes, demobilizing and reintegrating ex-combatants, re-installing the authority of the state, and thanks to the widespread support from the international community, humanitarian support prevented widespread famine or loss of lives. This took us about three years.

In 2005 we adopted our poverty reduction strategy, designed to maintain the minimum social outlay consistent with our poverty reduction goals. We commenced with re-launching the basics of the economy. We are still at this phase. At the same time we must begin to prepare now, for the transition to a development path. Part of the preparation for the transition to our vision for the country in 2025, is the definition of which path to take. The soft option is for us to do what we used to do in the past. It is easier for us to rehabilitate the same plantations, re-build the same highways, revamp the same institutions etc., and hope that this time around we will do better than before.

Ladies and Gentlemen: this time around we must be more prudent. We must learn from the errors of the past, and do things differently. Only then can we be sure of adopting a development path different from the one we followed before.

We should ensure that this time our development path will certainly lead us to prosperity. And we want to do it with you our partners. Not to be led by you, but by us taking the lead, not for us to dictate to you; but in partnership with you.

So where do we go from here? We are now going to assign greater importance to growth than before. Our two-pronged strategy is to take on the growth sectors and simultaneously promote the private sector to take the lead.

History has demonstrated that sustained growth is better led by the private sector. Our target is both the formal and informal sectors. For us this means providing the private sector with the inducement, the encouragement, and the support to expand. Creating the enabling environment involves both formulating the appropriate regulatory framework and reducing the physical obstacles to securing optimum productivity gains. For the former we have formulated the investment code, we are now implementing recommendations for eliminating administrative barriers to trade etc. On the latter, physical obstacles; I am specifically referring to difficulties in infrastructure - transportation, energy, water supply, and the provision of adequate training.

Distinguished participants, trade is critical for our long term growth. The small size of our economy and the dictates of globalization both demand a special attention to the trade sector. Our evolving patterns of production, our education and training systems must all be informed and influenced by the opportunities for trade and investment.

During this meeting we will present to you the results of our Diagnostic Trade and Investment Study, DTIS, which provides pointers to what should be done for promoting the private sector from the perspective of promoting trade. As you know, ours is a small economy and trade is vital for our future expansion. We will also outline our plans for one of the potentially limiting factors to private sector expansion; energy supply. Our major sources of long term growth are in agriculture, fishing, mining and tourism.

During the course of the next twelve months we will undertake in-depth reviews of each of these growth opportunities we have identified, in order to explore different options, and to formulate detailed perspective plans for each. We hope you will join us in our review process and that eventually you will accompany us as we seek partnerships with foreign direct investment to exploit our potential.

Distinguished ladies and Gentlemen, let me conclude by outlining our expectations from our partners. First I must reiterate our appreciation for the support we have received so far. We also fully understand that suggestions made and even benchmarks designed, were done in good faith and with the interest of the country at heart. Without your support we could not have come this far so quickly. We are confident that you will stay the course with us.

The coming months will be quite crucial for us. The country faces general elections in the middle of next year, and yet must continue to function at a pace that will not deprive us of the momentum we have generated so far.

This is not the time for partners to take a wait-and-see attitude. The activities now envisaged have to be undertaken whether or not elections are pending. We cannot delay the delivery of social services as the consequences for the poor will be disastrous. We cannot delay the revisions to our laws and regulatory framework; the effect of this on costs, credibility, and effectiveness of key institutions, will be significant. We cannot halt our programmes in agriculture because of the elections; the consequences for the newly confident and progressive farmers will be debilitating. We cannot wait any more to reform our civil service; the reversals to the change process we have unleashed could take us back to pre-2002. And above all we cannot delay expanding employment

opportunities for our youth; to do so is to invite social disaster. In the case of Youth Employment, government has launched the Youth Employment Scheme; we are now looking to our partners to complement our effort by supporting the other elements of the Youth Employment Programme.

In short we are looking to our partners for enhanced support, speedy action once decisions are taken, and mobilization of other sources of support during the coming year. As stated earlier we plan to launch some major consultations in a number of sectors, we look forward to your support in thinking these through and in translating ideas into action.

I thank you.