By Hasbin Shaw
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of the Western Region, Sidie Sesay, on Tuesday September 4th, 2022, has said that the Ministry does not have an office space on its own from where it runs it activities as they are housed in an inadequate space at State House.
He made this disclosure while presenting the Ministry’s budget for the 2023 financial year, during the ongoing Budget Hearing process at the Ministry of Finance’s conference hall in Freetown.
According to Sesay, May 2022 marked the first year since the Ministry was established by proclamation of President Bio. He said since then, the Ministry has been having a lot of challenges which include: staff constraints. “The Ministry has only one vehicle which is the Minister’s official vehicle,” he said.
Sesay alluded to the fact that field activities involve lots of movements, and said that the Ministry needs to overcome some of its logistical constraints.
He also added that there is also inadequate funds to finance the activities of the Ministry that could have the most impact on the lives of the people.
“Last year, we requested for six billion to facilitates our mandate for this 2022 financial year, during last year’s Budget Hearing. The Finance Ministry approved it, but only Nle1,000,000 was allocated to us,”he commented.
He cited that the outstanding balance of the Nle1,000,000 allocated presently stands at zero, but added that the Ministry of the Western Region had undertaken a lot of successful activities under its mandate.
He alluded to the preparation of the Ministry’s Strategic Plan as being at an advanced stage, and added that it included “study visits to Regional Ministries of Greater Accra and the Central Region of Ghana, Study and Working Visit to the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria, Working/Study visit to the Regional Ministries in the provinces etc.”
Permanent Secretary Sesay informed the hearing that the Ministry has also undertaken community development interventions in relation to renewable energy support to hard-to -reach communities, facilitating the construction of recreational facility in York, naming streets and putting signs, facilitating bore holes in ultra-poor communities in the region etc.
Sesay said that some of the key deliverables of the Ministry in 2022 is to monitor development programs in the Region, and to transform and relocate slums communities all of which he said are underway.
Summarizing the Ministry’s planned programs for 2023, Sesay said that it will be needing a total of Nle 4,354,902 for the 2023 financial year.
He added that the fund is to facilitate the Administrative and Support Services, Urban Division-Program, Rural Division-Program etc.
“Our Ministry is expected to be able to deliver in the areas of slums transformation and relocation, capacity building of traditional leaders for effective local governance and facilitation and coordination of livelihood programs for economic empowerment of women and youths in deprived communities in 2023,” he concluded.