At May’s induction ceremony for new Members of Parliament, Joe Abass Bangura was invited by Sierra Leone’s government to address MPs in Parliament on governance issues.
His presentation, “Making Governance Work for the People”, aimed to discuss the role of governance in Sierra Leonean politics and its application in parliamentary activities.
Since the general election in March, there has been a significant reshuffling of Parliament with the arrival of the new ruling party, Julius Maada Bio’s SLPP, having defeated the APC party which had been in power since 2007. The atmosphere in parliament was described as “tense” by Joe, given how “acrimonious the end of the elections was between the two parties”. At the end of the presentation, Joe managed to succeed in breaking party lines by gathering all MPs to shake hands, a gesture that Joe hopes will mark a softening of relations between the two parties.