By Mohamed Issa

Literally, the term decentralization is the devolution (transfer) of functions from central authority (government) to local levels (councils) in an effort to save people from struggling to have access to basic facilities.

But in Sierra Leone, the concept has remained largely illusive since the reintroduction of local government in 2004 by erstwhile President Ahmad Tejan Kabba of blessed memory, following his reelection in 2002.

After the reintroduction of local governance and subsequent establishment of Decentralization Secretariat  that is charged with the responsibility of devolving some functions to the established councils around the country, that has never been fully materialized as anticipated under the previous and current government.

It was expected that all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and other important public establishments should have experienced the same but still   things remain the same or even worse than ever.

The reality is that, every little step in a bid to achieve almost everything that is associated with government will involve movement (migration) of people from rural to urban areas especially the capital city of Freetown where everything is centered.

This negligence of government to fully implement late Pa Kabba’s SLPP led government slated as one of the channels that geared towards the laying of solid foundation for the development of our country which was totally battered as a result of the eleven years civil conflict that has long been concluded but the problem is still creating serious embarrassment to many citizens in the country.

The stark reality is for many citizens to gain employment means to trek to Freetown as the only place that even labour card, national identity cards, birth certificate including all necessary documents are available. The most nauseating issue is even to obtain death certificate will warrant movement to Freetown, what an endless frustrating burden on our people in the provinces yet, government cares less about solving the problem. The fact is, the essence of all these developments was to expand government offices into almost if not all other parts of the country to elastic operations and to reduce the burden on other citizens in these areas who may want to access these services.

In fact, if this idea is working according to expectation it would have reduced the bulky load on the central government as well as other perennial issues in the country. The over population of the capital city which has culminated into many other problems including clustering of street, lawlessness, street trading, littering of streets with rubbish, scarcity of supply of certain amenities such as water, energy (electricity) incessant robbery, drug abuse by especially young people and many other vices would have been eased.

In fact, this negative issue that has long been with us has a lot of ramifications on the city which in some cases have over the years paved the way to constant urban migration, propelling the high cost of living as a result of scarcity of certain commodities and many more.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that if government embarks on promoting Decentralization it will serve as a therapy to cure many other problems in the country. And many Sierra Leoneans are eager to seeing it done as expected because the current decentralization programme in the country is nothing more than a sham because almost everything is still centralised. And the only way that development will cut across any country is through decentralization.