By: Juliana Vandy
Strategic Communications Unit- MIC
The Honourable Vice President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh has on Tuesday October 26, 2021 engaged the Liberia House of Senate on governance systems and operations in Sierra Leone.
Addressing the members of the Liberia Senate, VP Juldeh Jalloh thanked His Excellency Dr. George Manneh Weah and his Vice President Mrs. Jewel Taylor, the government and the people of Liberia for the reception accorded him and his delegation since their arrival in Monrovia on the 22nd October, 2021. “During this period, I was able to meet with the Vice President Dr. Taylor and discussed a range of issues and also met with President Weah and had a very thorough discussion,” VP Juldeh Jalloh disclosed.
The purpose of the visit according to Vice President Jalloh is to demonstrate the renewed relationship between Liberia and Sierra Leone. He described the two presidents as young leaders that have delivered systematically and progressively and reiterated their commitments to strengthen the bilateral relationship between the two countries.
He highlighted some of the good governance strides government has made since President Bio took power in April 2018. VP Juldeh Jalloh said President Julius Maada Bio put together a team to help him deliver on his mandate as President of Sierra Leone. He emphasized that in the New Direction manifesto, President Julius Maada Bio focused on human capital development, adding that the president believes that the right path to moving Sierra Leone out of poverty is to focus on the development of the human being. “As a government, we have dedicated 22% of our budget to education and today we have around 2.6 million kids in schools, fully supported by the government with school fees, teaching and learning materials, transportation and in some communities, food in order for them to acquire basic education,” he explained. He added that President Bio separated the education ministries, with one responsible for basic and secondary education, and the other for technical and higher education. This, he furthered, was done to ensure they focus more on basic education to increase quality and access for the children of Sierra Leone. VP Jalloh stated that all Sierra Leonean children, devoid of their region, tribe or social or economic status of their families should have the right and access to quality basic education. Dr. Jalloh explained that in the higher education ministry, government continues to progressively depoliticize university administrations so that these universities will be competitive, and meet the demands of the time, adding that they have created more technical universities. He divulged that the aim of these universities is to meet the requirements to provide for the socio- economic needs of the country. “More importantly we are doing this to allow the universities themselves to see how technical education can perch into the development of the country,” he noted.
He said government met budgetary allocation to the health sector at 6% and raised it to 8% and now it is at 11.4%, noting however that this is below the Abuja declaration which states that African countries should dedicate 15% of their budget to health. “Yet still we have been able to make massive gains within that sector,” he averred.
Dr. Juldeh Jalloh disclosed that government has been able to recruit over four thousand health care workers to improve the human resource capacity. “In the last two years we have been focusing on maternal and infant health and the indicators clearly show that we are making progress,” VP Juldeh affirmed.
Vice President Jalloh said his office houses a unit that deals with health, which enables him to play…
