AYV News, February 6, 2025
Sierra Leone’s Chief Minister, Dr. David Moinina Sengeh has revealed governance operations aimed at service delivery, pointing out tasks that are easy to achieve and those that are probably herculean.
Exactly about 3 years ago, Dr. Sengeh said President Bio transformed the Eastern Polytechnic into the Eastern Technical University (ETU).
He further confirms that the Kono Technical University was also established, the Milton Margai Technical College attained a University status, and the creation of numerous Government Technical Institutes (GTI) across the country, because the Bio led government believes in human capital development.
One of the good the good things Dr. David Sengeh loves about the ETU is that entrepreneurship is a compulsory module offered by all the students which helps them to know about business, problem solving and value addition, therefore, he calls on other Universities to follow suit.
Three years later, Dr. David Sengeh affirms that the gains from the ETU are enormous as they are now making electric vehicles, innovating and creating several other products.
Despite the successes, he underscored the fact that government processes takes time as there was delay in the upgrade of a salary structure befitting a University.
“Government had given the green light for the salary increase for lecturers but the process has to be endorsed by the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), Ministry of Technical and Higher Education (MTHE) and the Budget Office in the Ministry of Finance,” the Chief Minister explains.
After the issue was brought to the attention of President Bio, he gave a directive to Dr. David Sengeh to solve the problem.
Thereafter, the Chief Minister assigned different responsibilities to the focal staff in the finance and educational sector including the registrar at the ETU, where documents were processed to exemplify government efficiency to solve the problem once and for all.
“This vision was translated from President Bio and roles were allocated to government employees at different levels to lay the issue to rest for the lecturers at the ETU,” he stated.
In the end, Dr. David Sengeh affirms that the people at the ETU are currently earning what they are working for because their salaries must be aligned to the status of a University.
The problem was solved due to the directives from President Bio and the coordinative and collaborative efforts spanning multiple stakeholders, as according to the Chief Minister, the salary of some people was increased by 200% whiles those on average is by 68%.
“This is what is meant by service delivery because we in the SLPP normally listen to the people and work very hard to solve their problems,” the Chief Minister, Dr. David Moinina Sengeh concludes.
