The people of Sierra Leone are very happy with the approval of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compact grant of $ 480 million to help draw the country out of the dark ages in terms of electricity generation and distribution. The energy compact is a great win for the people of Sierra Leone.
Well-meaning citizens have praised the government that despite the extant issues surrounding the presidential electoral impasse they were tenacious enough to ensuring that they got the modalities in place for the grant to be approved.
However, the people have said that the approval of the grant is bad for the image and reputation the president Julius Maada Bio led government would like to send to its supporters and indeed all those who have been adamant in questioning Bio’s presidential mandate. The president is in desperate need of legitimacy and how to sustain it, which this grant among other things has given him.
Upset Sierra Leoneans that spoke to FORUM said they are not happy with the United States Ambassador Bryan David Hunt’s recently friendly and cosy relationship with the ‘discredited’ government of the president’s, saying Hunt had initially come out very vocal about the irregularities in the announced presidential election result for him to be now seemingly courting members of the Bio led regime not limited to the Speaker of the House of Parliament.
Hunt is seen as being captured by the regime with many people insinuating and even alleging that some senior state actors must have bribed him with precious minerals from Sierra Leone for him to all of a sudden to be looking like the government’s new poster boy.
Allegations and assumptions aside the citizens that spoke to FORUM spoke of American government’s duplicity with the awarding of the $ 480 million grant to the Bio government, saying that the double standard is quite glaring.
The question on everyone’s lips now is with the awarding of the MCC compact grant to the government and people of Sierra Leone does it mean that our electoral impasse is over? Does it mean that the American government has accepted the elections results as announced by the Chief Electoral Commissioner Mohamed K. Konneh that the US government had said is full of statistical inconsistencies? Are the Americans telling the people of Sierra Leone including the man many people say ‘won’ the election, Dr Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara and his All People’s Congress (APC) and supporters that the incumbent Bio had won the election in a free, fair and credible manner?
Despite all the good the MCC grant will do for the country in terms of settling our perennial electricity problem, the US administration’s about face turn despite its initial reaction of travel bans for members of the Bio regime and possible asset freezes for those responsible for the electoral coup of 24 June 2023, to now granting the government the MCC compact, which many have said is due to the recommendation and background work of the US Ambassador Hunt, has sent a very bad message about the US and its intention in Sierra Leone to the citizens.
Civil Society activists dedicated to democracy and the rule of law have said that they are not the least surprise with the government being awarded the MCC grant in light of how Ambassador Hunt is now the darling of the Bio led government, a relationship the regime wouldn’t have dreamt of with former Ambassador David Dale Reimer, who many hailed as a true democrat and American patriot.
The Civil Society activists complained that for the US government to award the Bio led regime the MCC grant in the midst of an on-going investigation into the discredited and widely resisted June 24, 2023 presidential election result announcement they cited as ‘fraudulent’, is making light and irrelevant the work the Tripartite Committee is trying to accomplish.
They said the granting of the $ 480 million to sort out the nation’s electricity problem failed to meet the standards set for its approval: the nation has a longstanding issue with inadequate and infrequent supply of water to homes and businesses, electricity generation and distribution or supply is still in the stone ages when compared to others in the region let alone the continent, our democratic governance credential is very poor including the ‘stolen’ 24 June 2023 presidential election by the incumbent and his handpicked Chief Electoral Commissioner, and poor or negligible investment in human capital despite the 2018 manifesto promise by the 2018-2023 regime to address such a critical development issue.
The US, for the sake of approving the money for Sierra Leone to get on with making a lasting impact on the electricity supply side of things, has lowered its own standards with the awarding of the MCC compact to Sierra Leone under Julius Maada Bio. This is not the image of the global democracy champion the people of Sierra Leone hold of the US government and all the ambassadors that have served here.
With the granting of the MCC compact to president Bio’s government of Sierra Leone, the US government and the Ambassador are telling us that our electoral issues are over and that they will work with the Bio led government until the 2028 date they have been touting as the next presidential elections.
