Public Servants Validate Transformative Strategy

Addressing guests at the New Brookfields Hotel, The Minister of Public Administration and Political Affairs, Mr. Amara Kallon, noted that the validation represents a comprehensive blueprint for modernizing the public service into an agile, innovative, and inclusive public service.

Among the key objectives of the Strategic Master Plan according to the Minister is to ensure institutional reform, enhancing coordination and productivity by reviewing organizational structures and mandates together with a comprehensive human resource development measures that emphasizes meritocracy and continuous training.

Mr. Kallon informed the workshop that digital transformation is a key priority for the government noting that there are plans to integrate ICT to streamline operations and improve data management. He also stated that decentralization, Good governance and accountability, monitoring and evaluation are central to the reform.

The Minister maintained that the Strategic Master Plan would not have been possible without the concerted efforts of the government and the donor partners, particularly the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank.

In his keynote address, the Secretary to President, Dr. Emmanuel A.R. Gaima affirmed that the directives issued by President Dr. Julius Maada Bio in 2018 to ensure efficient state management remain on track and expressed gratitude to the President for establishing the Ministry of Public Administration and Political Affairs specifically to oversee the “Revitalization of the Civil Service through Reform.”

As part of the validation and transformation strategy for Sierra Leone’s Public Sector Reform, Dr. Gaima highlighted several essential imperatives and the importance of aligning institutional solutions with the specific context of reforms. He advocated for functionality of Ministries, Department and Agencies, MDAs whereby proposed reforms should fit seamlessly into the existing institutional framework.

Dr. Gaiama recommended for the adoption of “form before function” as a phased approach to the introdion of functional changes incrementally. This, he said, would allow for the gradual adoption of new functional elements while leveraging existing instructional guidelines and differentiating between transitional capacity challenges requiring short-term interventions and functional issues that necessitate long term investment.

He stressed the significance of long-term reforms targeting the institutional and organizational pillars of capacity change which includes ensuring the stability of the political economy and safeguarding of judicial independence.

In advocating for the incorporation of digitalization into public sector reforms, he informed the workshop that the government is committed to collaborating with relevant stakeholders by providing adequate resources and expertise to rationalize bureaucracy, particularly within the Civil Service.

The Director of Public Sector Reform Unit, PSRU, Mr Sulaiman Phoray-Musa, presented the draft Transformative Strategy for participants to make meaningful contributions that will be incorporated into the final report, which will serve as the road map for the ‘Revamping of the Public Service Architecture’.