By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
First it was the current National Secretary General of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), Hon. Umar Paran Tarawallie, who told Truth Media’s Amadu Lamrana Bah that whilst he was the Clerk of Parliament he didn’t know that his wife was working at the House of Parliament for over eight months at the same time he was the Clerk of that arm of government.
It later turned out that whilst his wife was receiving salaries as a supposed worker at Parliament Building; she was either at home doing domestic chores or in the United States of America on holidays. And guess what? As the then administrative head of Parliament; it was the very Hon. Umar Paran Tarawallie who was said to be approving pay vouchers for parliamentary staff!
That insult is not only insultingly insulting to the moral sensitivities of decent Sierra Leoneans but shows how organized corruption has been iced with arrogance by the current ruling class which appears to believe that Sierra Leone is a nation of sheep. How can a man’s wife dress up every morning and leave the house for over eight months without her husband asking her once where she is going every working day? And how can a man’s wife be working in the same building with her husband for over eight months without the husband ever chanced upon her on the stairs of that building?
That same Paran Tarawallie’s willful ignorance is what the Chief Minister, David Moinina Sengeh (PhD), has shown in his recent interview with “Alhaji” Umaru Fofana of AYV television. How can a full grown man be receiving his monthly salary for the past eight years now and yet doesn’t know what he is receiving for his monthly troubles? Like Paran Tarawallie; David Sengeh thinks Sierra Leone is a nation of sheep so he can just ram down our throats mumbo-jumbos and think we can swallow them hook, line, and sinker!
I am assuming that Sengeh, being a typical Sierra Leonean stingy man, does not want his wife and children to know what he earns monthly. Yet, he could have simply told “Alhaji” Umaru Fofana that he would not answer that question because it is personal. But to repeatedly say he doesn’t know what he earns monthly is a deliberate mockery of the typical Sierra Leonean teacher whose five years’ salaries are far less than Sengeh’s monthly salary!
Now, I am putting it to Sengeh that he actually knows what he earns monthly but he is afraid to state the scandalous amount because stating it publicly would have created some sort of riots in the country among teachers and civil servants whose monthly salaries cannot even run their homes for a week!
If David Sengeh is feigning dementia and says he doesn’t know what he earns monthly; let me help him figure out his monthly salary. I am putting it to him that when he was appointed by President Julius Maada Bio, he might have received a letter from the Human Resource Management Office (HRMO) in which “a net composite monthly salary” was stated. And after he would have written to the Director General of HRMO accepting the presidential appointment; he would have provided a bank account where his monthly salary could be paid into regularly including his Leave Allowance and Ex Gratia.
And that’s not all. Every month, David Sengeh might be receiving a “Pay Slip” in which his “Basic Salary”, his “Gross Salary”, “Total Deductions”, and “Net Pay” are all stated. Even his “NASSIT Contribution”, “Income Tax”, “Pin Number”, “Pay Method”, and “Pay Date” are also stated on his “Pay Slip”. So, for the Chief Minister to publicly say he doesn’t know what he earns monthly makes him appear dishonestly dishonest. It also makes him seem to be very low on the issues of transparency and accountability!
In fact, if David Sengeh has purportedly declared his assets to the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) as he is supposed to do as a Public Servant, stating the property and liabilities he personally acquired before his presidential appointment without any fuss; then what is so difficult in stating what he is currently earning from the Consolidated Revenue Fund? Even the salaries of the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister of Britain are public knowledge (Just Google it and you will see the figures!). What I want Sengeh to know is that, as a Public Servant, the only private things or issues for him are those that happened in his bedroom not even those that happened in his sitting room or office!
What that entire AYV television interview of the Chief Minister, David Moinina Sengeh (PhD), brings out in him are willful ignorance, unrestrained arrogance, unintentional childishness, political incorrectness, and the picture of a Shakespearean dwarfish thief clad in a giant’s robe (“Macbeth”.)! Sengeh comes across as an untitled politician who is still wet behind the ears yet feels unnecessarily entitled!
At the moment, Sengeh thinks he is on top of Bintumani Mountain but forgets that President Bio holds both the knife and yam (To quote Chinua Achebe.) and that the Head of State can decide his political fate with just one slice of the yam as he did to others before him! Sengeh also appears to be forgetting that the only person that is indispensable in the Bio-led administration is President Bio himself.
One political lesson, in the Sierra Leonean sense, which David Sengeh seems not to have learnt is that political power is ephemeral. A time there was in Sierra Leone when political power in the SLPP was gravitating towards, or revolving around, people like Dr Abass Chernor Bundu, Dr Ali Kabba, Alhaji Kanja Sesay, Jacob Jusu Saffa aka “JJ Blood”, Professor David Francis aka “Mr One Percent”, Lahai Lawrence Leema and others who were bestriding the corridors of power like colossuses (If I could One Drop-nize Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”.). But where are they today? They could now be found in the political “Bormeh” of history with their figurative tails stuck between their hind legs like frightened German Shepherds—perhaps reminiscing on what they could have done better, or how they could have been very humble, whilst they were at the rudder of state! If they are today; so could Sengeh tomorrow.
So my advice to the Chief Minister, as a fellow Princewalean (I left the Prince of Wales in 1992 after my GCE O-Levels.), is that he must know that there is always a tomorrow or tomorrow’s tomorrow and its tomorrows. He must know that a handshake does not last forever. And David Moinina Sengeh (PhD) should also know that he will have to exit the political stage one day and become part of the faceless audience.
It is on that note that I will end today’s One Dropian dropping with a proverb from our African Elders that says, “It requires wisdom to understand wisdom”.
medsankoh@yahoo.com/+232-76-611-986