Decentralization in Sierra Leone - Research for Development

Decentralization in Sierra LeoneIn recent years, paramount chiefs have been lobbying government for a greater role indevelopment governance. This lobbying bore some fruit in the concluding clauses of theChieftaincy Act of 2009, which include the provision that a paramount chief should serve asan “agent of development” in his or her chiefdom. Chiefs are not the only agents lobbying foran enhanced role within decentralized governance. MPs, some of whom remember theconstituency development funds of the pre-war era, have also been campaigning behind thescenes for ex officio seats on district councils. Hence all the talk about local councils’ lack ofcapacity as if that was a failing of the councils themselves rather than government as a whole.Both groups, especially chiefs, have found allies in the mainstream civil service. Civilservants in the Ministry of Local Government had an uneasy relationship with the better paidcontract staff of the IRCBP and gained a reputation among other MDAs for protecting theirhistorical prerogatives as overseers of the chiefdoms. The senior civil service generally haslong been campaigning for the return of District Officers. Some of the policy literature on thisreturn leaves no doubt as to the attraction, for them, of the powers of administrative fiatembodied in this colonially inherited post (see Annex 1). These powers were originallydeveloped for the purpose of regulating customary authority within a regime of “indirectrule”.The fact that some sections of the governing elite are interested in strengthening oldmodalities of “indirect rule” may be a testament to the success of decentralization and therelative impermeability of its regulatory and monitoring mechanisms. But it also reflects thedesire of the governing party to assert its authority in opposition strongholds and bringcouncils controlled by opposition parties “to heel”.Furthermore, there remain remote populations in the provinces that rely on chiefs to authorizetheir land rights, whose nearest schools and PHPs tend to be located in section and chiefdomheadquarters and whose primary links to the wider world are through chiefs. As we found inthe case of the village in Bombali District, remote communities may consider voting as theirchiefs dictate to be their duty as subjects. Governing elites in Sierra Leone have longexploited these dependencies for electoral advantage. Preserving these dependences has theadditional utility, for them, of facilitating the management of popular expectations in aneconomy that cannot currently sustain mass education and wage employment.However, this strategy clearly has limits. Human rights, development and good governancehave become part of the political lexicon in Sierra Leone. The present government’s Agendafor Change, for example, refers explicitly to the idea of a new social contract between a dutybearinggovernment and a socially responsible citizenry ready to pay its bills and taxes. It isnot technically feasible for government to transfer significant service delivery responsibilitiesfrom local councils to the chiefdoms. Furthermore, re-centralizing service delivery wouldalienate large sections of the public and international donors. Sierra Leone has moved onfrom the time when District Offices were hubs of governmental activity outside Freetown andin any case, resources are simply not available to supply District Officers with substantialsupport staffs.It would be particularly damaging to the reputation of an APC government, both domesticallyand internationally, to de-activate local councils a second time. What we are most likely tosee in the future is further juggling of institutional reform priorities and the exercise ofelectoral realpolitik. Local councils will remain flagships of good governance and serviceFanthorpe Consultancy Ltd Page 46