Information received from sources within the corridors of State House is that anytime from now, His Excellency President Rtd. Brig. Julius Maada Bio is set to announce another reshuffle of his government, which sources say is going to be massive and the last before the 2023 general elections.

Very recently, the Secretary to the President published a reshuffle list that prominently saw the President bring into cabinet as Resident Minister All People’s Congress’ (APC’s) ‘Apprentice’ Honourable Alpha Khan and the dropping of Sierra Leone’s Ambassador to Egypt, Dr. Alie Kabba. The pending reshuffle is reported to have left many political appointees in various quarters jittery over what is coming.

The reports maintain that with election year just around the corner, the president wants to ensure that his government delivers at its highest capability in order to ensure him and his party’s return to State House in the presidential elections that the main opposition APC is keen to snatch.

Reports state that based on his review of the performance report of ministers and heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), the President thinks that there is the need to throw out non-performers, swap some ministers as he did in the latest reshuffled and to relegate some others to the bench to be replaced by fresh legs.

One of the people who may be replaced is Amara Dennis Turay Jalloh popularly known as Kao Denero who is Special Envoy for Entertainment and Investment. Observers describe Kao Denero’s tenure in the last one year of his appointment as “unfruitful”  A source who is also very close to President Maada Bio said the President is not happy that Kao Denero has further divided the Entertainment Industry rather than harmonizing it.

President Bio, sources said, is keenly aware that the citizens look to him to ameliorate the challenging economic situation in the country facing the poor masses, based on his 2018 election promises to improve on the wellbeing of the people.

The Exclusive Newspaper reports that, his game plan for achieving this fall within the framework of the 2019 to 2023 midterm national development plan that is aimed at addressing the people’s socioeconomic and cultural problems holistically.

However, unfortunately, this dream has been greatly frustrated by the outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic that has severely affected resource mobilization as well as diverted funds from essential programmes and projects to fighting the pandemic.

Notwithstanding with this setback, advances have been made in the areas of the free quality education programme that benefits over 2 million school going pupils, electricity in the city and major settlements in the provinces, water, judicial reforms, freedom of expression, human rights, the fight against corruption, improved public governance and public financial management but huge challenges still remain with inflation which daily continues to erode the purchasing power of the majority of citizens living on or below Le20,000 (USD2) per day; low agricultural, food security for the masses, youth and women’s employment.

Furthermore, the country’s public debt portfolio, due to increased COVID-19 related borrowing is exposed to severe strain on revue collected, which is exacerbated by a considerable devaluation of the Leone since 2020, requires sustained fiscal consolidation, sound management of scarce public finances and careful prioritization of infrastructure projects.

 

Thus, President Bio’s Continuous recalibrating of the mechanics of state governance and service delivery through reshuffles of the key political and administrative functionaries in his government is to ensure that he does not fall too far short of the election promises that he made to the people to improve on their lot.