By Africa 24 newsman
The opposition All People’s Congress (APC) Member of Parliament from Falaba District Hon. Mohammed Alpha Jalloh has urged President Julius Maada Bio to depoliticised the governance system of Sierra Leone.
He made the submission during APC parliamentary monthly press conference at the APC party headquarters in Freetown.
According to Hon Jalloh the government of the Sierra Leone people’s (SLPP) party has politicized the feed Salone agenda the point that it has not been yielded dividend.
“They are politicizing the system,” the lawmaker asserted.
He said during the June 2023 presidential and general election in Sierra Leone, President Julius Maada Bio and his party campaigned on five pillars prioritizing “Feed Salone” which is agriculture.
He revealed that the big five game changers include but not limited to, Feed Salone, youth employment, human capital development, youth employment, revamping the service architecture among others.
He said farmers do apply for fertilizers but cannot get it to time until the time for farming passes.
He gave an example to a farmer identified as Auty Hawa someone he said applied for fertilizer and three hundred bags was approved for her by the ministry of Agriculture but Aunty Hawa only get seven bags something a development that he strongly criticized.
Hon Jalloh pointed out that at the time she could receives the seven bags of fertilizer farming season has also ended.
“It is the same thing we are seeing after the use of fertilizer has ended, they are issuing it to farmers,” he stated.
He pointed out that it is a problem to actualizing the government’s developmental agenda, adding,“They are politicizing everything.”
He said currently, there is a program called Food System Resilient Program (FSP) that operate in seven countries which is Sierra Leone is one of the countries and has a program for farmers to go and study and has program that caters for farmers to go and get training in Brazil but most of those that went for the program are not farmers emphasizing that he is in doubt the success of the Feed Salone program. Clarifying the doubt, he noted that the government had announced about 1.6M Dollars for the feed Salone and for 2024, $257m is needed for the implementation, saying at presently only about $140M available at the project document and that there is a gap of about $116M.
Hon. Jalloh said with three years to go nothing has been done.
“In three years, they need $1.4bn where can the government get this money?,” he asked