A. As you might know, Sierra Leone has been a pioneer in developing the media, in the sense that you talk about the print and electronic media. Many of these began here in this country. We set the pace for other West African countries to follow. Some of the best journalists on the West Coast of Africa were Sierra Leoneans who migrated later to other countries like Ghana and Nigeria, for example and established newspapers there. That was the situation for many years, during the colonial era and up to the independence era. Soon after independence, in 1961 there was a military coup in 1967 and we got into a new political system. A new political party came to power and the kind of opportunities that were present earlier, I would not say that they were eroded but there were certain challenges posed to them, because the party in power wanted to make sure that they were portrayed in a positive light. Soon the media started questioning the "progress" that the Government was making and the media houses came under "siege". The relationship with the Government became strained and it remained so during the seventies right on to the eighties. This particular Government composed of the SLPP - The Sierra Leone People's Party, and H.E. Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah came to power in 1996 and since then the press has enjoyed more freedom than ever before. Just take a look at the newspapers and see what they write. The fact that they can write these things and nobody bothers them for it clearly indicates that these people have a tremendous amount of freedom. We have established an Independent Media Commission and we have also set some of the guidelines for the press to take some training. Ethics, balance and objectivity are principles that should be taken into consideration. The idea is to make them comprehensive in their reporting. We believe that some of the things that they write will get to the broader audience, which are sometimes not very favorable for inviting people who want to come and invest in our country. So, they are free to write what they want but you have to be ethical about it. Since the establishment of the Independent Media Commission, the commission has been given the authority and responsibility to handle the affairs of both the print and electronic media. We also have the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists and they are there to guide the activities of their profession.
In a nutshell, these are the most recent developments. The Government for its part continues to be very supportive, we co-operate with the Government of the UK, the Thomson Foundation that provides us with money and support to train specialists in both print and electronic media. The press at present, as you can see enjoys a lot of freedom; nevertheless it is necessary to establish some guidelines.

Q. Before you took up office you had already drawn up an action plan for your Ministry, what were the main guidelines of that plan?

A. I used to be the spokesman of the President for 5 years, and from that position I had an insight in to what was prevailing as far as information was concerned. The Ministry of Information has four departments, the Government Information Services, which has the responsibility of engaging in public relations for the Government. The Government Printing Department, that does all the printing of the speeches of the President, and other government documents etc. The Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service is in charge of the radio and television and you have the Sierra Leone News Agency. Recently, after being appointed to this position the task of reviewing films and controlling their content taking into consideration the cultural, religious and other matters, became the role of this ministry. This is not necessarily to censor things but rather to make sure that whatever we show is in good taste and matches with the cultural environment of the people. Taking all these areas into account I decided to outline the mandate of this Ministry. The mandate is three-fold: to inform, educate and entertain. The challenge was to find a way how to maximize the potential of these activities in the Ministry and to take advantage of the mandate of the Ministry to reach these goals. It was in the light of that, that I was able to put together a position paper, which were merely objectives of what we needed to do. First of all we needed to restructure the administration of the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service. We needed to establish our archives, and a website. We needed to be proactive in the dissemination of news. This vision paper talks about the short, medium and long-term goals of each of the various departments. We regularly check the progress that has been made to see how we are complying with the set deadlines. At the end of a particular period we sit down and check, where we need to improve and we also try to find solutions to improve on these issues.

Q. What are the major challenges in the information sector at this point in time, when the whole country is undergoing such a rapid development?

A. Let me call back your attention to some basic facts. The estimates are that there are 5 to 5.2 million Sierra Leonean; the economic growth rate is about 6 to 6.5 %. However we have to take into consideration the last 10 years and its devastating civil war that almost completely destroyed the basic infrastructure and caused a major brain drain from the country. These are the realities that we are facing now. So, what are the most important things to do? I think that these are: good leadership and good policies. This is where I, in particular got to appreciate His Excellency the President. He has the vision, outlook, perception, and insight to move this country forward. It is through his vision, his driving enthusiasm that he has been able to devise policies that have made it possible for us to be able to do what we have been able to do in the information sector. Everybody thinks that information should be among the highest priorities in this country. However, when you look at the amount of money that used to be allocated to the Ministry, it was minimal. So you want the Ministry to do a Herculean task but you tie their legs behind and you still expect them to run.
Like I said, the President decided to move ahead fast. So as a result, this year, when I became the Minister of Information, the Ministry got a better budget than previously. In addition to that, very soon we are going to get new mobile broadcasting vehicles to enable us to work properly. Beyond that, we now have new community radio stations in five districts. That is something that we did not have before. We have just recently opened a broadcasting station in the East, on the border with Liberia. We already have one in the North and in the South of the country and of course in the capital, Freetown. But we wish to go further to other regions to establish stations. This is very important for us. We don't want our people to only listen to the stations of the neighboring countries. They should be impacted more by what is happening here, in our country.
Then, we also have the task of training the necessary personnel; we need to go ahead with their capacity building in order for us to function properly.

Q. Here people are extremely conscious about what is happening in the country; almost everybody in the street has a radio receiver.

A. If you want to give somebody a good present, you give him a radio; he will always carry it with him. That's a joke, of course, but it is true that almost everybody has a radio and people are always listening to the news. If you are in town at the time of the news, it's impossible to talk to anybody. People are listening to "Focus on Africa". It is fantastic. It merely shows that people are aware of what is happening and they want to be informed so that they can make rational decisions or pursue what actions they should take at that time. The President himself is a visionary. He decided that we should move the Cabinet from Freetown to the regional capitals, since Freetown does not represent the whole country. So, we hold the cabinet meetings in the regional capitals, we make a proposal to the people there, about what we have in mind for that region and then we ask them for their input, to help us create priorities. After that we start receiving the feedback from the people. For instance, if we want to construct roads, the people help us to choose which road is the most important one. They tell us that they urgently need a secondary school. This is a wonderful way of doing things. That is a sense of awareness of information. It is the dissemination aspect of it that we are trying to do. Doing things this way helps us to raise the consciousness of our people.

Q. Also, one of the goals of the President is to achieve transparency in Government and decision making and going to the provinces seems to be the best way of doing it. Your task in that case is to report on these meetings and other issues related to decision-making, how are you doing that?

A. Personally, I meet with the press every week. I have been doing it since 1998; I sit down with the representatives of the press and invite them to ask whatever questions they wish to ask. If I know the answer I respond, if I don't know it I go and find the answer and get back to them. The only guideline we have is that these meetings have to be issues oriented. For example, the benefits of taking the cabinet to the people, but I refuse to talk about gossips or who said what about this Minister or that Minister. That is not up to me. Now, if the person is said to be involved in corruption, or is inefficient, or is known to engage in unethical behavior, then it becomes a matter for all of us to address. I invite the person and I organize what I call "operation explain yourself". He has to explain the charges against him face to face with the press. Since I follow the press on the daily basis, I always ask direct questions. We all need to be accountable and transparent. There is a perception that there is rampant corruption in this country, that is something that we have to face, by making efforts and reporting on the issue, so at the end we can say with confidence, yes there was corruption before but not on the level that you think there was or, no there was no corruption at all.

A. very positive. Especially when I started bringing in people that were accused of being inefficient, ineffective and corrupt to answer to the charges. On Fridays the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service hooks up with the rest of the country and the other stations so that everybody can listen to the same thing at the same time allover the country. People are receptive because it gets them involved in governance issues.

Q.: Now, let's look at the business side of your sector. What is the impact the Foreign Investment Act will have upon your sector of the economy? There are also several entities on the Governments list that are intended for privatization; to what extent will they attract foreign investors?

A.: There are 24 institutions in total on the list of the Government and two of them are under this Ministry. They are the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service and the Government Printing Department. The idea is to privatize them. That is not so easy, since most of the machines in the Printing Press for example are quite old. Somebody the other day was joking and told me that those machines were perfect museum pieces. Of course if you really want to be competitive, you have to bring up-to date machines. I have to admit that those people that are working on those machines now, are really doing a wonderful job, when you consider what they have to work with. They do almost the impossible. When we give them some work, like the Presidents speech for example, they are under enormous pressure to finish it on time. They work extra hours to get the job done. And they are getting it done.
The Privatization Commission is currently examining these two institutions. They are now reviewing their situation. What recommendations they will come up with, I don't know. My point of view is that you need to sell them at a time when it is still in good condition, when it is still productive and when it is efficient.

Q. Is the Ministry interested in buying international productions, or would you rather welcome international production companies to come and produce here according to the demands?

A. Let me look at it from this point of view. First of all, its one of the areas slated for privatization. They may say we want to turn it into an organization like the BBC. They can come and buy it over and the Government will have some of the shares in it or we can draw some other kind of agreement in a joint partnership, for example. The objective now is to really create value in this country. Its through the creation of value that we can create jobs. In so doing we will be able to generate additional incomes. The persons employed will pay taxes to the Government and we can save some of that money. It depends on the scenario that we have to take into consideration and choose the right way to proceed by analyzing the consequences and effects that will come up later. These are questions that need to be addressed first of all and the Privatization Committee will have to find the possible answers.

Q. What would you tell to these people interested in coming here?

A. What we would tell to them is that Sierra Leone is back and back in a positive way. Sierra Leone is back with a vision that is investor friendly. The investment code that's being prepared now will be very attractive for foreign investors. There are also other kinds of development, for example, we believe in the free market system; we believe in a liberalized economy and reduced activity of the Government when it comes to interfering into the market. People in this country will also benefit from your activities. We have a sizeable youth population in the country; most of whom were used during the cause of the ten-year conflict. We don't want that to happen again. We need to move forward and we need to move forward in a way that everybody is brought on board. The only way we can do that is by making sure that the marginalized groups, whether it's the youth, whether it's the women, are brought on board. One of the things that his Excellency the President talks about often is that we need to bring more women into the corridors of power. For the moment in the cabinet we have 3 women. We also have women that are Deputy Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, and Directors. He is the kind of person that came into this country at the right time because of his work experience, sense of awareness and understanding of international and domestic issues. All of these things have been used in his vision.

Q. Provided there will be investors interested in those previously mentioned companies, to what extent would the Ministry control them after the privatization as regards to broadcasting and printing?

A. It will depend on what is recommended. For example, if the TV becomes a corporation, then a board will have to be set. It's the board that will manage the corporation. Of course the Government would have to recommend people to serve on that board. This scenario is just one of the possible ones, if we will decide to develop the television on the example of the BBC.

Q. Do you actually consider the BBC as an example of how state television should look like in Sierra Leone?

A. The BBC is a fantastic organization. You can listen to them 24 hours a day. The structure, the programs that they have are all great. There is not one moment when its boring. We became independent in 1961, since that time we have committed some mistakes. Especially after 1967, we had problems with bad management, bad administration, and a lot of other issues at that particular time. We decided to go back to what we thought was good for us. This is why the President made a speech one time and said "Come home Sierra Leone to the values that made us great. Come home Sierra Leone to what made us the Athens of West Africa".

Q. Going on a more personal level, you mentioned before that you worked for His Excellency the President as a spokesperson, could you tell us more about your background and about your professional experience?

A. I studied the social sciences and I am an economist by profession, but his Excellency the President decided to change my profession completely. His Excellency gave me the opportunity to serve him and my country. But, if you study economics you also study a bit of psychology, sociology and politics. My studies helped me tremendously to understand how things work and to be able to deal with the challenges that I had to face. That is why I was able to work with him as a spokesperson for 5 years. During the cause of that time I really enjoyed it because I came on board when the country was at a critical situation. I was appointed to my position in 1997 but I actually started working on a full time basis in 1998. I remember we used to call the BBC, the VOA, Radio Netherlands and others. We presented to the world what the Government was about, what plans the President had for the country and soon it became a challenge. You needed to make sure that the world understood what was prevailing on the ground each time when you were given the opportunity to speak. I was doing it for 5 years and then I was nominated to the position of Minister of Information and Broadcasting. Because of my previous role as spokesperson I had inside knowledge of how things were.
I remember once, when one of the famous journalists interviewed Nancy Reagan, she leaned over to her and said, " Just between us, tell me something, I will not publish it" and of course it was solid information, so she used it for her report. The point I am trying to make is that the media is like a tiger, sometimes you ride it sometimes it's rides you.
My idea is that we need to work for this country and we need to get things done in order to project a good image of our country abroad. We have to present whatever positive development we have made in the country. Recently I spoke to the press and I told them some of the most recent indicators of progress, towards growth and development. They were: the confidence of the international community in the leadership of this country is on the highest possible level. The international community would not be pouring money into this country if they felt that the leadership was incapable. The leadership of the country in terms of politics or economic policies is something we can take home. If you look at the level of construction that is taking place in the country, it is phenomenal. It is a massive job creation. We are impacting the level of employment and the landscape of the country in a positive way.
The interest and confidence that private investors have in this country is another solid indicator. Just recently, the Prince of Saudi was here. He is the third richest man in the world. He came to take a look at investment opportunities. The Prince of Qatar came just after him, because he learned that the Prince of Saudi was here. These are all solid indicators of progress for the country.
If you look at the peace after one year, we have been able to maintain it on the highest level. We have been able to enhance democratic institutions. Just take a look at the governance institutions, the progress they have made. These are all the things that we can sell. Yes, we had a civil war, yes we had mutilations taking place here, but that was then and we have to focus on what is happening now and the enormous progress that we have been able to make.

Q. With regards to the current events in Liberia, there is also something positive about it, namely Sierra Leone is mentioned in a positive way. To what extent you can use it for portraying a positive image of the country?

A. When the UN High Commissioner on Refugees came here he made a comment: "Sierra Leone is an island of stability in a region that is in turmoil." This is exactly the kind of message we would like to portray. This goes back to the point that I made earlier. If we are an island of stability it means that Sierra Leone is back! Back in a positive way! My favorite quotation is: "is the glass half empty or half full," it depends on the point of view that you have. If you are a
pessimist you say, its half empty, if you want to be an optimist then its half full. I say that we are half full!