Political watchers in Africa are recalling the adage which says that a new broom sweeps clean. This is because the new President of Sierra Leone, Julius Bio, has already hit the ground running. Barely one week old in office, President Bio has visited his Senegalese counterpart, Macky Sall, in Dakar, on his first foreign trip.
President Bio said after the summit last Tuesday that they had discussed economic affairs and matters of governance, and “how Senegal can help Sierra Leone move forward.”
President Sall was certainly excited about the visit. He described the choice of his country for President Bio’s first foreign trip “as a clear interest in developing a special relationship, built on friendship and mutual interests”.
In a statement, Bio’s office explained that Mr. Sall had provided an airplane for the visit and that the new Sierra Leonean leader had limited his delegation to eight people “to curtail government wastage”.
This is in keeping with his promise at the rally in the Sierra Leone capital, Freetown, after his election victory last week. The former coup plotter who relinquished power to a democratically elected president in 1996, stressed the need for discipline in the management of public funds.
Despite huge mineral and diamond deposits, Sierra Leone remains one of the world’s poorest countries and is still trying to recover from the effects of war and the Ebola disease.
