Present holders of top civil/public service jobs such as directors, deputy directors, commissioners, chairmen and other presidential appointees are not holding those positions by merit but through patronage either with the president or the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party – SLPP.
The more reasons there are so many square pegs in round holes in departments and agencies including the country’s public broadcaster, where the managerial and administrative incompetence of heads of the public agency always keep manifesting itself, due to lack of experience and the requisite qualifications to head the institution.
One such public servant appointed by President Julius Maada Bio is the Director General, of the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC), Joseph Egbenda Kapuwa, the Catholic cultist of the Knight of Saint John, whose salary continues to attract attention at the Accountant General’s Department.
Sources at the AGDs’ that SLBC staff receives the least salary of all Ministries Departments and Agencies while their Director General, Joseph Egbenda Kapuwa takes the lion’s share of over Forty-Five Million Leones, equivalent to Four Thousand Five Hundred United States Dollars, without delivering on the job as required by his terms of references.
Kapuwa’s inept Deputy Director General, Alimamy Lahai Kamara the source states receives a monthly salary of over Eighteen Million Leones which is equivalent One Thousand Eight Hundred USD also for a job he has never been up to his task.
Inside sources at the SLBC informed this medium that since the new management took up office in 2018 no welfare issues has been addressed, nor promote or other forms of staff motivations.
The source further clued that all the management is embarked on are tribal, regional and political stratifications of staff. It furthered that those who hardly favoured by the management including the Director General are hardly given programmes nor even assign to beats.
Apart from salary disparity at the SLBC Forum investigations on allegations of sexual harassments of female workers, administrative, managerial and welfare issues continue.
Forum editorial team has in all efforts tried contacting the SLBC DG, Mr Joseph Egbanda Kapuwa and the Deputy Director General, Mr Alimamy Kamara for their sides of the story.
However, all efforts proved futile as the SLBC DG could not reply to SMS and WhatsApp text messages that were forwarded to him since last Saturday, 24th July, this year, nor pick any of our calls until we go to press.
