Decentralization in Sierra Leone - Research for Development

Decentralization in Sierra LeoneTwo points emerge here. First, many members of Sierra Leone’s governing elite continue toidentify, politically, with their chiefdoms of origin. Elite “sons of the soil” often serve aschiefdom councillors and tend to visit their home chiefdoms frequently to participate in socialevents. For example, the dignitaries attending a recent (June 2011) paramount chieftaincyelection in Biriwa chiefdom in Bombali District included a former APC Minister, anotherleading APC politician and former party treasurer, the Bombali District Council chairman,two Bombali District councillors, the Biriwa representative of the Western Area Limba TribalHeadman network, a Freetown-based insurance executive, several middle-ranking army andpolice officers and the mother of President Koroma. Members of the governing elite mayregard the paramount chiefs of their home chiefdoms as patrons, clients, allies or politicalopponents depending upon their family backgrounds and personal affiliations within thehighly factionalized world of chieftaincy politics. But the point at issue is that many membersof the Freetown elite are intimately involved in centre-local networks anchored by chiefdomsand don’t have the same connection to local councils.As the Biriwa example indicates, there has been some crossover between the old system ofcentre-local politics and democratic decentralization. The district council chairman anddistrict councillors mentioned above not only double as chiefdom councillors but are alsodescendants of Biriwa chiefdom ruling houses. The Kono District council chairman isanother case in point. She is a noted patron of girls’ formal education, making privatedonations to local schools; but she also sponsors girls’ traditional initiation ceremonies. Thefact remains, however, that local councils are subjected to close bureaucratic oversight and,unlike the chiefdoms, are not going to provide members of the national elite with easy entrypoints for political influence and wealth generation.Second, the colonially-inherited apparatus for supervising chieftaincy is the very opposite ofrule-bound governance in its emphasis on direct administrative fiat: hence the interest, forsome in government, in protecting chieftaincy and bringing back District Officers. Accordingto the Minister of Local Government, civil servants had been lobbying for some time to bringback District Officers. At first he had opposed the idea on the grounds that it would “createdifficulties over the hierarchy of authority”. But eventually he had been convinced bycolleagues that the local councils had become overly politicised and that District Officerswere needed to look after central government interests in the provinces. The example he gavehere was the SLPP-led Pujehun District Council’s much publicised refusal to host a formalreception for a touring Vice-President in 2009. The Minister also emphasized that the post ofDistrict Officer was merely de-activated when decentralization began, not abolished. Theimplication here was that reinstating the post was an executive matter rather than a legislativeone. However, this argument overlooks the fact that the post of District Officer is of colonialorigin and never has been the subject of statutory definition. Colonially inherited legislation(e.g. the Provinces Act, Cap 60) does not establish the powers and functions of DistrictOfficers; it merely identifies when and where they exercise their fiat (see Annex 1).All local councils visited by the research team reported that they had come under pressurefrom other political actors for access to their resources or for a share of the political credit fortheir programmes. MPs in particular were described by several interviewees as “enviousbystanders” in the decentralization process. One council leader remarked that it would be adisaster if MPs became ex officio members of local councils because they would beconstantly postponing meetings in order to carry out their parliamentary duties. Anotherrecalled that a Resident Minister had recently made a public speech in which he claimed thatthe council was about to spend millions of Leones to develop a commercial plantation. TheFanthorpe Consultancy Ltd Page 19