Sierra Leone Telegraph: 7 January 2023:
Classed as one of many poorest nations on this planet that can’t survive with out handouts from the worldwide neighborhood, questions are being requested in regards to the rationale for spending tens of millions of {dollars} in setting up a overseas service academy in Sierra Leone.
Why ought to constructing a overseas service academy be a precedence for a rustic the place 1000’s of youngsters die yearly of malnutrition, pregnant ladies die earlier than or throughout childbirth due to poor healthcare, tens of millions going hungry day-after-day, and tons of of 1000’s of youngsters sitting on flooring in poorly constructed colleges with no water or bathroom facility?
Each President Bio and the Chinese language authorities consider {that a} overseas service academy is a precedence for the poor individuals of Sierra Leone.
Talking on the opening occasion two days in the past, President Bio stated: “We’ll give attention to upskilling and reskilling the prevailing overseas service workforce by the International Service Academy. Additionally, the Academy will recruit and practice a devoted cadre {of professional} profession diplomats that will likely be globally aggressive in our ever-changing world.”
The brand new Chinese language Ambassador to Sierra Leone Wang Qing, agrees: “Capability constructing is crucial to constructing our nations. I hope and consider that this academy will develop into Sierra Leone’s cradle of diplomats, with extra profession diplomats on this nation and in Africa.”
However how necessary is Sierra Leone’s voice in international strategic diplomacy, if the federal government can’t even persuade buyers to put money into the nation’s financial system due to corruption, poor governance, and human rights abuses – to which the Chinese language authorities turns a blind eye?
Throughout the opening ceremony, President Bio expressed honest gratitude to the Chinese language President, Xi Jinping, for his authorities’s generosity and dedication to supporting his nation’s sustainable improvement and socioeconomic transformation.
“This strategic partnership continues to forge nearer financial ties, deepen cooperation, and assist my authorities’s imaginative and prescient for creating key development sectors, together with well being, agriculture, training, infrastructure, and protection, and constructing a resilient financial system.
“With President Xi Jinping’s and his authorities’s assist, we’ve got registered important progress in every of these sectors,” President Bio stated.
The President additionally stated that over the previous 4 and a half years his authorities’s primary overseas coverage focus has concerned strengthening exterior relations for integration, including that his New Path Agenda promoted worldwide cooperation constructed on mutual respect, mutual belief, and mutual profit with strategic companions. (Picture above: One of many lecture rooms within the new overseas service academy in Freetown).
“We’ve got strategically rebranded our nice nation and repositioned it with delight locally of countries by proactive, constructive, and productive engagements with the world. A vital coverage motion to strengthen worldwide cooperation outlined in my authorities’s Medium-Time period Nationwide Growth Plan was establishing a International Service Academy to coach and produce profession diplomats for international engagement,” he stated. (Picture beneath: Many kids in Sierra Leone are studying in very poor situations).
Chinese language Ambassador, His Excellency Wang Qing, stated that “because the institution of diplomatic relations 52 years in the past, China and Sierra Leone have all the time been good mates, good brothers, and good companions We deal with one another as equals and cooperate for mutual advantages and customary improvement;” and that “beneath the strategic steerage of His Excellency President Xi Jinping and Your Excellency, Julius Maada Bio, we’re certain that China-Sierra Leone relations could have a extra shining and promising future.”
Talking on the latest US/Africa Summit, Sierra Leone’s overseas minister – Francis, couldn’t assist telling half-truths and lies about improvement in Sierra Leone and the state of politics within the nation. That is what he stated:
