President Koroma's address on the occasion of the Forum for Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, Professional Heads and Senior Public Officers at Miatta Conference Centre, Brookfields, Freetown
8th - 9th May 2014

Courtesies,

It is with great conviction in the worthy value of public service that I once again welcome all of you to this Forum of the political, administrative and technical leadership of our country's public service. Our citizens depend on the commitment, professionalism and effectiveness of the people gathered here today, and the state institutions that you lead, to realize their aspirations of a state that cares, a state that delivers, and a state that is respectful of their democratic rights, their economic wellbeing and their social dignity. When this forum gets it right, this country will surely deliver on its promise of freedom, justice, unity and prosperity.

I joined politics and asked the people of this country to employ me as their premier public officer because I wanted to lend my expertise to get the public service to get it right; we wanted to inject concerns for the ordinary citizen into the ethos of the public service, and we wanted to improve efficiencies for growth, for service delivery, for infrastructure, for energy and for visible achievements. We wanted paper work to be translated into roadwork, for office work to be reflected in fieldwork, and for achievements on government reports to become facts on the ground.

To build these efficiencies, to achieve these goals, we have to strengthen the professional and inter-personal relationships between the political and administrative leaders of Ministries, Departments and Agencies.

In 2010, with laudable support from our friends from the Commonwealth, we gathered here at this same venue to discuss how to push forward these objectives. We ended those earlier sessions on a positive note with a list of Recommendations encapsulated in a Communiqué. Some of these recommendations have been put to practical use, but there are remaining challenges: challenges relating to spheres of authority, challenges relating to primary remits, challenges relating to personality differences, challenges relating to political priorities which tend to run on fast time and bureaucratic regulations which tend to run on slow time, challenges relating to older ways of doing things as against newer ways of moving forward.

We are gathered here today to dialogue on these challenges; we are here today to increase our stocks of social capital, to chart points of synergies where political will and urgency combine with bureaucratic competences to deliver on the promises we have made to the people of this country. We are all in this together; we are amongst the crop of Sierra Leoneans that have been given the most by our people, we must payback with the best of our endeavors; we are amongst the crop of Sierra Leoneans that have been given great authority, we must reciprocate with civility and committed service; our people look up to us; we must not look down on them, rather we must take them up with us.

Fellow public servants, as strategic leaders and implementers we must embrace a dynamic style that challenges our traditional command and control approaches to management; we must employ a results-driven and results-focused manner of work, which places a high value on creativity and innovation. We must see our work as personal – personal in composition, and personal in results; after all, the masters, customers and beneficiaries of our work are personal - they are ourselves, and our brothers and sisters are Sierra Leoneans.

My government continues to emphasize personal responsibility - the performance contracts signed by Ministers hold them personally responsible for the performance of their ministries, the same way those signed by Permanent Secretaries and Professional Heads, and the Individual Performance Appraisal System for civil servants in all Grades, will hold them too. Irrespective of whether one is elected and/or appointed into an office, there is only one goal, that is, to deliver services. Serving the public is a honourable endeavor, and I will hold you responsible for effectively delivering on that honour.

I have no doubt in my mind that the facilitators, who I have been informed are all homegrown and carefully selected, will do justice to the subject matter over these two days. I wish you fruitful deliberations. I assure you of my continued support as Minister of the Public Service, in pushing forward all the conclusions and recommendations from this session.

I thank you.