By Ragan M. Conteh

The Member of Parliament from Falaba District, Hon Ibrahim Barrie, has urged the government of President Bio to implement the 84 tripartite recommendations if Sierra Leone will received the $480 Millennium Challenge Cooperation (MCC) fund.

The Member of Parliament made the submissions on Tuesday 15th October 2024 during the debate on the ratification of $480 million MCC agreement between the government of Sierra Leone and the United States of America.

”Implement the 84 recommendations of the tripartite agreement,” Hon. Ibrahim Barrie demanded.

According to Hon Barrie, now that the MCC fund has been brought to the Well of Parliament for ratification, the criteria eligibility of the Compact should be addressed by authorities to prevent failures or withdrawal.

He also spoke on the implementation of the Agreement of National Unity between the government and the opposition which talked about freeing political motivated prisoners as well as abandoning political motivated cases in court.

He said it is clear that the 2023 election has some issues which was tied up to the MCC and urged the government to abide by the conditions precedent to achieve the MCC.

Hon Barrie also alluded the fight against corruption and the finances accountability as well as electoral processes are part of the eligibility criteria to achieve the much needed money for the development of Sierra Leone.

He thanked the United State of America (USA) for helping Sierra Leone with such huge sums which will boost the country’s electricity problems.

He further cautioned the government to meet to the MCC’s eligibility criteria and to address the bottlenecks for full implementation.

Reacting to Hon Barrie, the Acting Leader of government business Hon Bashiru Silikie said “We got the threshold because of the previous government could not satisfy all the benchmarks for the compact program.”