EBOLA INCORPORATED: LESSONS IN HOW NOT TO RUN A COUNTRY AS A BUSINESS By Kalilu I. Totangi Like him of hate him, President Ernest Bai Koroma is a man true to his words. While he campaigned for the Presidency in 2007, Mr. Koroma declared that he was a protégé of Siaka Stevens, former President and founder of his All Peoples Congress (APC) party. That pronouncement would have been apocalyptic to any Sierra Leonean familiar with the charred history of Stevens’ rule. But not so the 18 to 35 year olds who made up over 50% of the voting population during that election; they voted for him overwhelmingly. On assuming office, President Koroma told the nation that he will run the country as a “business”. In our euphoria, no one bothered to ask him what kind of a business he will run. In the seven years since he came into office, there has emerged clear indications of the type of “business” into which this President has malformed the country. The Koroma Family Enterprises Ltd: Only a year into his Presidency, the cost of basic commodities skyrocketed, causing great angst for the citizens. The Koroma government at the time blamed the declining living standards of his countrymen on the global economic downturn. In an effort to alleviate the “global” situation, the government went cap in hand around the world begging for offerings. The Indian government was generous enough to donate a significant quantity of rice to the nation. Just about the time the donations were made, Harmony Trading Company emerged out of nowhere. The new company was given the “responsibility” of selling the donated rice to the public. This in itself would not have been newsworthy. Except that Harmony Trading was owned by the youngest brother of the President, Mr. Sylvanus Koroma, who only months before was a student with no known business background, let alone financial wherewithal. In addition, there is no record that young Mr. Koroma accounted for the sale of the rice to the nation. What’s more, Harmony Trading was further rewarded with a whopping sum of $1m (One million dollars USD) following the sale of the rice, for what the government claimed then was a “reimbursement”. News reports also indicate that he has landed several controversial no bid contracts to supply rice to the military. In one specific instance, a winning bid was overturned in favor of Harmony Trading. But the question that the Koroma government has never answered especially in relation to the Indian rice saga is: why was Sylvanus Koroma “reimbursed”. What was accrued from the sale of the donated rice? Why was Harmony Trading, which was a relatively new company with no record of involvement in the sale of rice, chosen to handle such a huge consignment of rice donated to the nation? These questions and several others relating to the Indian rice “project” remain germane to our governance landscape. Another Presidential sibling, Mrs. Admire Sesay, is the well-known owner of Palladio Restaurant in central Freetown. It is an open secret that she has been the “mother caterer” for all government gatherings. News reports have indicated times over that all government catering contracts have gone to the Presidential sister with no questions asked. Some of her more accomplished competitors have on occasions complained to newsmen that she has continuously used her standing as the President’s elder sister to snuff them out of most government catering contracts that were supposed to be placed on public tender. Also, in the run-up to the 2012 elections, press reports indicated that Mrs. Sesay imported container loads of campaign materials and passed them through customs without paying required duties and fees. Running a country as a “business” indeed! As if all of this is not bad enough, another Presidential sibling, Mr. Thomas Koroma, an architect by profession, landed the contract to build the Kenema to Pendembu road on behalf of a Korean company with no prior history of building roads in our part of the world. Bid documents that I have seen indicate that other companies with long history of building roads in the country, who also offered better deals to the country lost out to the Korean company. Contemptibly also, not long after the company had started work on the road, they abruptly stopped work and demanded that the contract price be revised upwards. The government obliged to pay the extra amount without a wink, since the donors who were funding the road project could have nothing of it. This may not be unprecedented, but it certainly raises eyebrows, considering the fact that other companies with vast knowledge in building roads in the country had offered less than what the Presidential sibling’s partners had put up. But again, the country is now a “business”. Corporatizing a National Calamity: On October 15th, 2014, State House issued a Press Release stating “it has become necessary to reconfigure the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) into a separate entity that will have a robust command and control structure to effectively eradicate Ebola”. The government renamed the EOC the “National Ebola Response Centre (NERC)”. The release also noted that “it has pleased His Excellency the President to appoint Major (Rtd) Alfred Palo Conteh as Chief Executive Officer of NERC on special assignment from his current position as Minister of Defence”. The rationale given by the State House release for the “reconfiguration” of the Ebola response is “the diversity of the resources being provided and the intensity of the activities to be undertaken”. The release also gives the Chief Executive Officer “full authority for the implementation of the National Ebola Response Plan (NERP) and all programmes pertaining thereto…ensure the efficient and sustained utilization of the massive support coming into Sierra Leone”. Granted that the Ebola response structure may need some reconfiguration, but why a CEO. For ease of understanding, a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) “is generally the most senior corporate officer (executive) or administrator in charge of managing a for-profit organization. The CEO of a corporation or company typically reports to the board of directors and is charged with maximizing the value of the entity” (google). This definition of a CEO raises many questions. First, why does the President see the need to corporatize the Ebola response? In essence, why does the Ebola response need to be managed by a “for-profit organization? Second, who is going to benefit from the profit accrued by this Ebola response? Third, who are the board of directors of this corporation? And finally, what are the credentials of Major (Rtd) Alfred Palo Conteh that make him the most fitting man to run this corporation? Readers may need no reminder that ours is the only country in the subregion where the Ebola response has been corporatized. The Ebola response in Nigeria was led by the Health Minister, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu. The response in that country of 173.6 million people was so effective that only 18 people contracted the virus. In neighboring Guinea, from where the virus is known to have spread to Sierra Leone, the response has been led by the Minister of Health of that country. The same is true of Liberia, where President Johnson Sirleaf recently replaced her Minister of Health to better that nation’s Ebola response. If President Koroma believes, as is suggestive by this restructuring, that his Health Minister is not up to the task, the reasonable thing he could have done is to replace him. A Corporation? Why wonder, this President has a corporate mindset, so what is stopping him from corporatizing even the tragic death of his countrymen! Whither to Ebola Corporation? The latest Ebola response roadmap Situation Report by the World Health Organization released on November 19, states that “transmission remains widespread and intense in Sierra Leone, except in the south east. Freetown, the capital, remains the worst affected area. The districts of Bo, Bombali, Koinadugu, Kono, Moyamba, Port Loko, Tonkolili and Western Area have reported high numbers of cases recently”. In fact, in the month since the Ebola Corporation was “registered”, over 1000 new cases have been announced. Under the watch of this CEO, more of our compatriots continue to perish in full public view due to the lack of capacity to take them into treatment centers. The BBC reporter in Freetown, Mr. Umaru Fofana reported on his Facebook page only the other day that the much trumpeted Kerry Town facility has only 10 patients, while Sierra Leoneans perish on street corners for want of a facility to take them in. Our nation owes a depth of gratitude to our friends around the world who have stepped up support in our “war” against the scourge. We should be eternally grateful to our compatriots, the healthcare workers who continue to risk everything to save lives even where the CEO has not ensured prompt payment of their salaries. Maybe some progress is being made, but it is certainly not visible, as the WHO situation report seems to indicate. In fact, while reports indicate that the virus is in decline in Liberia, where the President has lifted the State of Emergency, and in Guinea where the situation is said to be stabilizing, in Sierra Leone, the situation is said to be “widespread and intense”. Whither then this corporation? Nothing is certain. But if our recollections of this President’s legacy of running our country as a “business” are a guide, then this might well be another chapter in our lessons in how not to run a country as a business.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 17:45:37 +0000
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