By: Aaron Bundu Lahai-Head of Media & Public Relations
The Honourable Vice President of Sierra Leone Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh has embarked on nationwide voter registration engagement with stakeholders and the general public. The essence of the engagement was to have first-hand information on the status of the voter registration from stakeholders, and to be informed about the mechanisms put in place to encourage the public to register as well as identify the successes and challenges associated with the registration process, he disclosed. Based on the status report, Vice President Jalloh explained that Government will position itself to organize better and put ideas together with the stakeholders. He thanked stakeholders for their effort to sensitize the public to register, and thanked the stakeholders for their effort to mobilize resources to the registration process.
He told the people that the benefits of Government come in two forms: soft and hard. He explained soft benefits as those which are enjoyed in abstract form but are felt by individuals. Hard benefits, he stated are those that can be seen and are concrete. He cited some reforms that had been undertaken by the New Direction Government on governance from 2018 to present, especially in 2018 and 2019 before the emergence of COVID-19. Vice President Jalloh informed about the water and electricity projects started in the country first two years of President Bio’s Administration. He further explained that the reforms had been undertaken because of the increased mobilization of resources, since the economy was opened and trade was flourishing.
Vice President Jalloh assured the public that the Government of Sierra Leone will be living up to its responsibilities in the areas of road and health seriously. He noted Government’s continuous effort to transform the Country and informed the public on the distribution of one thousand lots of free State lands to five hundred public sector workers including nurses, teachers, security and others for the first time in the history of Sierra Leone.
He appealed to stakeholders to find ways of encouraging Sierra Leoneans who are refusing to partake in the voter registration to do so. He noted that he was in the provinces to canvas stakeholders to encourage people to register. He called on stakeholders to identify those not register in their communities to move to other centres and register, as registration centres are to be moved to other communities in the second phase.
He reminded the public that voter registration is not census that can be extended so easily. He therefore advised stakeholders to support people left out in the first phase to register in other communities during the second phase.
Vice President Jalloh appealed to the public to be patient with officials of the Electoral Commission Sierra Leone (ECSL) on the challenge of faulty machines especially now that ECSL has acknowledged that it is faced with challenges with the machines. He added that the digital registration exercise undertaken by the ECSL had its challenges, and expressed hope that the challenges associated with first phase will be addressed.
A series of challenges were highlighted by attendees of the town hall meetings including faulty machines, insufficient power to generate electricity for the machines, poor road network, insufficient registration messages among others. The Vice President held meetings in Targrin-Portloko District, Moyamba, Mattru Jong, Bo, Pujehun, Kenema, and Kailahun towns respectively between Friday 16th to Monday 19th September 2022.