By Sheku Sackoh Turay
The Ministry of Public Administration and Political Affairs (MoPAPA) held a successful capacity-building meeting with a team from the Eastern and Southern African Management Institute (ESAMI) at the Ministry’s conference room on Monday, 23rd March 2026.
Deputy Minister Philip Tetema Tondoneh opened the session by referencing the 1986 involvement of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) through the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP), which had criticized the country’s administrative structures due to high levels of corruption, irregular recruitment processes, and inefficiencies in service delivery. The establishment of Agencies and Commissions followed to address these gaps.
“Due to anomalies within the service in the past and present, the President deemed it necessary to revamp the Civil and Public Service. The President said there should be a revamping of the Civil/Public Service, and this Ministry, which you are privileged to visit, has the mandate to lead this transformation,” Deputy Minister Tetema stated.
He welcomed the ESAMI team and provided an overview of the Ministry’s transformation process, highlighting the revamping of the Public Service architecture in Sierra Leone. He emphasized that capacity building is a key component for all Civil and Public Servants, which led to the transition of the Civil Service Training College (CSTC) into the Public Service Academy (PSA).
“The nucleus of our journey is capacity building,” Deputy Minister Tetema said, stressing the Ministry’s mandate in administrative functions, particularly in recruitment. Recruitment for grades 7 and above is handled by the Public Service Commission (PSC), while grades 1 to 6 are managed by the Human Resource Management Office (HRMO). He underscored that capacity building is essential for effective and efficient service delivery, and ESAMI’s presence represents a timely and valuable partnership.
Chengetai Magunje, Director of Marketing and Business Development at ESAMI, gave an overview of the institution, its founding, and its headquarters in Tanzania. She explained that ESAMI is a Pan-African regional management development center owned by ten member governments from Eastern and Southern Africa: Eswatini, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The institution offers high-level specialized management training, consultancy, and action-oriented management research services.
“We were founded in 1980 during a Ministerial Meeting in Ethiopia, when ten governments agreed to establish a training institution to bring together public servants from various countries,” Magunje noted. Former President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania provided the building for ESAMI to commence operations, establishing Tanzania as the headquarters.
She added that ESAMI targets governments, regional and international institutions, NGOs, parastatals, private sector organizations, and national training institutions across the Eastern and Southern African region. In May 1997, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) officially designated ESAMI as “The African Centre of Excellence in Management Development.”
