Notes from

Sierra Leone

Local Government Training

8 June 2005

My keyboard is lit by candles on either side, and I’ve set my computer battery to ‘long life’ in the hopes that it will last until I finish this entry. As usual, there’s no electricity, courtesy of ‘Nothing Pass Advantage’ as the National Power Authority is often referred to here. That particular phrase was popularized early this year through a catchy but rather overplayed song by Emerson, a Sierra Leonean singer. For months I have heard Emerson’s music harking on corruption among the elite ‘Bobor beles,’ whose large ‘beles’, resembling the distended bellies of young children or ‘bobos’, are evidence of the fat they skim off the national cake.

Richard, my former roommate who is leaving soon for Sri Lanka to set up a human rights database, recently emailed to point out that I haven’t written anything since last September. “Is it the work, or the socializing, or are you just bored?”

I remembered his question as I came to a halt behind half a dozen cattle lazily plodding into Kenema town, led by Temne men from the north. I had started writing to share a bit of my life here with family and friends, but now I realize that the events, sights, and politics that would have struck me before now seem so commonplace that I forget they might interest others back home!

On top of that, though, it’s just been pretty hectic. After spending a delirious malarial Christmas at home, I returned to Sierra Leone to try my luck again. After all, there aren’t a lot of hands-on community reconstruction and development jobs in California! Luck was with me, and I picked up a position with a German development agency.

My first task: to develop a basic training module for Ward Committees. Some 400-plus Ward Committees were elected in November of 2004 following the passing of the Local Government Act of 2004. The Committees’ mandate is to mobilize community members to participate in self-development initiatives (like building latrines) and represent their constituents’ needs to the 19 Local Councils established under the same Act.

The main difficulty for these newly-elected committees was that they had no models to follow. Decentralized government was abolished by former President Siaka Stevens in the 1970’s in his efforts to consolidate power in the capitol. NB: with the same agenda in mind, Siaka Stevens also dismantled the railway lines that stretched all the way into the easternmost district of Kailahun, about which I grumble every time I cough and bump through Pendembu town, which used to be the last stop on the railway line. This journey is briefly recalled in Graham Greene’s autobiographical Journey without Maps written in the early 1930’s.

Another formidable hindrance is that the committee members lack sufficient education and experience to carry out their jobs effectively, notwithstanding being some of the most powerful, respected and educated members of their communities. Of the membership of the five committees on which we piloted the basic training modules, I estimate that half were completely illiterate and no more than a quarter were reasonably functionally literate. The total lack of literacy was particularly evident among the women, who make up half of each ten-member committee as mandated by the Act.

These challenges in mind, we employed the services of an artist to sketch scenes depicting the roles of Ward Committees.

“Can anyone tell me what you see in this picture?” asked Momodu. We were in a women’s centre in Buedu with the members of both wards of Kissi Tongi Chiefdom, Kailahun District, where the war first began and last ended.

One woman spoke up: “I see a court barray [community meeting place] over there, on the left. There is a man in the middle holding a box under his arm. There is a village with many people on the right.”

Momodu nodded and pointed to the red arrows indicating the man’s movement from the village to the court barray (or District Council) and back again. “Yes, and what about this? What does this show?”

The woman squinted and stared, evidently trying to manipulate the curved slashes in her mind into something she could recognize. Unsuccessful, she finally said, “I see… red?”

I mentally knocked my head against the wall. It hadn’t occurred to any of us that illiterate villagers might not understand the directional sense of an arrow. But then again, why would they? You don’t need arrows to plant cassava, thresh rice, or nurse your child. You don’t even need arrows to point out the path to another village. A pointed finger is not, after all, shaped like an arrow.

A hopeless ‘the-system-is-rigged-so-why-should-I-bother’ mentality also hinders the effectiveness of some committee members. To be fair, corruption is an undeniable fact in Sierra Leone and surely more and better schools and services would be available if the government were perfectly transparent and accountable. But plain and simple poverty is also an undeniable fact, and this poverty is reality for both the people and the government itself.

When asked to give examples of corruption, one Ward Committee member ranted about the price of zinc roofing sheets. “Zinc is too expensive here because all those bobor-beles in Freetown who supply the zinc are too corrupt!” ‘Borbor bele’ refers literally to the rounded bellies of little boys, which are often protruding due to malnutrition and/or intestinal worms. ‘Borbor bele’, used figuratively as it was here, calls up images of fat corrupt men who eat the money and goods of others in the course of their corrupt dealings. A popular song by the same name released by the Freetown artist Emerson in late 2004 reinforced the idea that if anyone is rich, it is because he is corrupt; and even worse, whatever money he has was somehow actually stolen from you. The first part is often (but not necessarily) true, but the second part bears only minimal merit.

Even if zinc were supplied to this village wholesale, the sad fact is that the villagers would still find it unaffordable because they are simply to poor. Zinc has to be mined, refined, moulded, shipped, and trucked across tedious roads to reach Buedu. No matter how inexpensive the raw material, the cost of refinement and movement alone would far exceed the purchasing power of a subsistence farming family that pulls in no more than a fraction of a dollar a day, if any money at all.

I shifted the subject away from cost of living and reminded the workshop participants that the Anti-Corruption Commission defines corruption as ‘the use of public goods for private gain.’ That definition includes a police officer using the police vehicle to transport goods for sale, or a Member of Parliament using his position to place family members in government jobs, or a doctor at the government hospital stealing hospital revenue. It does not include a businessman short-changing you, or a chief’s son stealing tools from the community store; those are simply theft. And it certainly doesn’t include the cost of living the life you want being too high for you to afford; that’s simply… poverty: a difficult fact of life for most Sierra Leoneans. A fact that keeps them at the bottom of the United Nation’s Human Development Index. (On a very slightly positive note, Sierra Leone went from ranking 176 out of the 176 countries evaluated in the HDI, to ranking 176 out of 177 countries in the 2005 rankings. Niger fell into the bottom spot that year).

Improving human development was my primary task with the German agency. I was assigned to manage some three hundred village-level projects across eastern and south-eastern Sierra Leone. The projects include construction of schools, wells, latrines, and community centres; support to agricultural cooperatives; and support to skills training centres offering courses and apprenticeships on tailoring, carpentry, auto-mechanics, and crafts. The goal is two-pronged: first, to improve the infrastructure and services available in the communities and second, to coach community leaders to plan and implement self-development initiatives so that they will be better able to initiate and manage similar activities on their own.

The impediments are many and familiar: illiteracy and general low education; long distances to reach local materials like sand and stone; lack of time people can labour for the project given their farming and other work; nearly impassable roads (and some communities that require miles of walking beyond any road); and power competitions between community leaders.

Communities are now ready to tackle these challenges. Sierra Leone is peaceful and stable (the strength of the stability may be tested during the next Presidential elections in 2007). Since returning to their communities after years in refuge, most families have managed to erect a simple mud home and rejuvenate their farms. Women have established petty trade in palm oil, groundnuts, and traditional gara tie-dyed fabrics. Armed with skills gained in refugee camps or training centres for ex-combatants, young masons and carpenters are helping to rebuild homes and infrastructure. Decentralized governance may offer people the chance to voice their needs and have a say in the allocation of public works and services. Citizens are learning their rights, as well as their responsibilities to the state, like paying taxes. Communities are ready to take control of their own development. I'll do my part to help make this possible.

Next article: Idriss's funeral

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in the personal notes are my own. Facts presented are accurate to the best of my knowledge, but this site should not be taken as an authoritative resource.

Copyright © 2005 Julie Greene