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MAYOR BRIMA KARGBO IS LOOKING TO FORM PARTNERSHIPS TO DEVELOP KENEMA INTO A GREAT CITY
By John Ernest Leigh, who recently returned from Kenema
INTRODUCTION
SOUND LOCAL GOVERNANCE PROMOTES DEVELOPMENT
All too often in Sierra Leone, the entire focus of the general public and that of the international community is on the doings of the central government. Naturally, this is so because that’s where the glamour, power and the money are. But one thing I was determined to do during my recent three-week stay in Sierra Leone was to make the time to evaluate whatever progress might be taking place in improving governance at the local government level.
With the help of a fellow SLPPer in Philadelphia, Mr. SaluSaidu, Chair of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Sierra Leone People’s Party, I arranged to visit the Kenema municipal authorities after the conclusion of last month’s successful SLPP ConVention. Why Kenema? Because a much talked about elected Mayor and his city council have just in the past year taken over the administration of that city for the first time. I wanted to meet Mayor Kargbo. It was easy as I was already in that city.
Kenema is a city with a population of128,000 as per the most recent census. But it looks and feels far more populous because it is a vibrant trading place with energetic business travelers, male and female, seen rushing everywhere in town, unlike the next big city, Bo, which is about 50 miles to the west on the way to Freetown. Every nationality in Sierra Leone can be found resident or traveling in Kenema, as are people from the Republics of Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Europe and the Middle East. I even saw a few Americans in town.
The place is teeming and bustling with commercial excitement fuelled by the diamond trade. Despite the economic doldrums elsewhere in the country, optimism prevailed in Kenema and everywhere I went in town, I found that the people love and respect their new Mayor, Brima Kargbo.
OF NORTHERN ORIGIN
Mr. Brima Kargo is a Kenema indigene who, some speculated, must have been descended from well-bred and responsible migrants from Northern Province who made their permanent abode in Kenema years and years ago. As is typical in Mendeland, migrants who are productive and of good character are quietly assimilated into full native Mende citizenship and treated in all respects as one of their own without ever looking back.
This willingness to genuinely accept good people from other cultures is a key strength of progressive cultures. And so it came to pass, that no matter where Brima Kargbo’s ancestors may have originated from, Mr. Kargbo is loved in Kenema as one of their kith and kin. Efforts to use his supposed Northern origin in the election campaign backfired badly to the utter embarrassment of his few detractors.
Mayor Kargbo is a very likeable man who works with ease on the job as if he has been at it for years and who impressed me as a most determined to make his city into a lovely and comfortable community with lots of modern amenities for all its inhabitants and visitors alike. The mayor’s job is a natural one for him.
Mayor Brima Kargbo of Kenema.
Mayor Brima Kargbo is on the move to modernize Kenema into a pleasant city, and he definitely needs all the help available. A bright, healthy, relatively young leader from Kenema, Mayor Kargbo is determined to make his vibrant, diamond-trading town one of the most modern cities in our country, as well as a top destination in Sierra Leone for travelers from everywhere. Clearly, his work is cut out for him. But with a paucity of resources, he needs help, especially from the indigenes from the area resident abroad; locals are too busy struggling to survive in Sierra Leone’s hard economic and political climate.
The Mayor needs each indigene of Kenema District to do three things systematically for their community: (i) organize and raise funds for improving municipal services; (ii) pay their annual local tax of Le5,000 (or less than $2.00 each). And (iii) collect quality second-hand equipment that would be useful in public establishments.
Most Kenema indigenes I have spoken to about the need to help their town, have readily agree that they will start paying their annual local tax but instead of a mere Le5,000, they will pay $5.00 or Le15,000 annually. Some of this could be credited to their relatives back home. They now need a system to regularly collect these $5s and turn them over to the municipality once or twice annually. The municipality in turn must set up an accountability and transparency system for these funds. Further, most indigenes have organized to raise funds and collect equipment and sullies to help Kenema. They now need to organize throughout the Diaspora.