Sierra Leone’s local governance administration is deeply undermined as front line workers sometimes go home unpaid for several months.

While also senior political appointees at municipal and district councils get lot of immunities and privileges, low-paid up workers at respective councils in Sierra Leone say they are sad by this strange phenomenon.

Spoken to a staff who does an administrative work, the worker of a district council in east of Sierra Leone paints a stark picture of their conditions of services.

”It is serious that we are not taken that seriously by the local government. Our salaries continue to be meager but we do the job more than those senior political officials appointed by government minister,” explains the worker.

Some of the positions at at district councils level in Sierra Leone include: Chairman, Chief Administrator, Deputy Chief Administrator, Human Resource, Finance Officer, Procurement Officer, Engineer, Information, Education and Communication (IEC) officer, Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E), Environment and Social Officer, Gender Officer, Development and Planning Officer, Valuation Officer.

Among these positions the low-morale and meagre salaries received by administrative workers of district councils and at higher municipal levels including the junior staff working there have been considered as critical factors that significantly contribute to workers’ low-productivity thus leading to the many poor services they are rendering in communities.

Over the years, there have been repeated striking actions being mounted by Freetown City Councils (FCC) and many districts types of council across Sierra Leone.

And the several complaints and workers’ deeply concerns always hinge on delayed payments of salaries.

The delayed monthly payments sometimes brew up to a backlog running up months without being cleared off.

Owing to concerns of workers’ beggarly salaries at municipal and district councils in Sierra Leone, most workers don’t close the doors of other job opportunities that come their way.

While compiling this story, however; no senior official at local government was available for an interview.

There have been many workers from council’s administrative wings who have abandoned the local government sector and have sought out for other better employment offers.

”We often wonder the advantages that senior political officials enjoy when they are not actually the ones doing the tedious and tiresome tasks at the councils. We mostly ask ourselves why is that so? They are giving an ‘undue advantage’ over other workers”’ says a district council worker in Sierra Leone.

Whilst we strive to get official salaries disparities on local government structure, we would appreciate if officials could themselves willingly furnish us such crucial information to enhance our work.