Five years ago, the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) under my leadership promised the People of Sierra Leone a "New Direction" in the People's Manifesto. That Manifesto represented a contract between the SLPP and the Sierra Leonean electorate. Our Vision of a united, peaceful and progressive Sierra Leone presented in that Manifesto won your approval and vote, and you elected me as President of the Republic of Sierra Leone. When I took the oath of office on my inauguration day, I promised to work tirelessly to make that vision a reality for all Sierra Leoneans, regardless of political affiliation, religion, and tribe.
By the grace of God, five years on, I can say to the People of Sierra Leone that under my leadership and the New Direction Government I put together, we have made good on the most critical promises for transforming Sierra Leone. As we embarked on setting our country on a new path, the COVID-19 Pandemic broke out with far reaching consequences on the lives of millions in Sierra Leone and testing our resolve to transform the country. I am proud to say that we passed that test, with Sierra Leone seen as an exemplary case for effectively addressing the Pandemic when it inevitably reached our shores. We are currently in the midst of a global economic shock resulting from the Russia-Ukraine Conflict that has potential to upend gains we have made in my first term.
In the last five years, we took on big challenges and we succeeded in addressing them even under these unprecedented global challenges. We prioritised human capital development as the flagship programme. The results we have achieved are laudable even to our most stern critics. On almost every single indicator in education, from access, literacy and numeracy rate, gender parity in outcomes, transition rate, etc., Sierra Leone is better today than five years ago. It gives me great hope that our children are learning in schools again while removing the burden of school and exam fees from parents. On health, Sierra Leone has not only improved, but we perform better on most health outcome indicators than most of our regional neighbours. Far less women die during delivery and more infants grow up to see their 5th birthday, than five years ago. My Presidency has perhaps been most consequential for promoting rights for women and children. We have engrained in our laws that women should have the same opportunities as men in every facet of life, and we continue to empower them to do so. The "Hands off Our Girls" campaign led by the First Lady has considerably helped to keep our girls longer in schools and protect them from early pregnancy and marriage. With increased investments in tertiary education and technical vocational training, our youth are better trained than before. Our social protection programmes like the unconditional cash transfer by NaCSA continue to give dignity to the most vulnerable in our society.
We have also given a facelift to our infrastructure. We have paved additional township roads, linked more district headquarter towns and constructed bridges and feeder roads to ease access to market from our production centres. We have increased the proportion of households with electricity and built the capacity to double access while also reducing cost. Internet penetration has quadrupled in the last five years, and mobile connectivity has expanded to more remote locations. We have leveraged digitalization to bring efficiency in service delivery and to support innovation in the private sector. The banking sector now benefits from interoperability offered by the National Switch, with even more promise for wider financial inclusion.
Ensuring that people have trust in our democracy and government has been critical to me and the SLPP. My government has been the most aggressive at tackling corruption. Our
effort in this regard has been noticed and rewarded by many reputable international organizations, including the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and Transparency International, that consistently rank my administration among the most corrupt-free in the region. We have removed the death penalty, and repealed the seditious libel law, giving the press more freedom. I made it a personal interest to rebrand the image of Sierra Leone in the international community because this is important for attracting investors and buying us good will. Sierra Leone now holds several leadership roles on critical issues at the international stage.
The hardest challenge we have faced is rise in cost of living resulting from the multiple global shocks. My resolve has been to do all we can to shield our people from these economic shocks. We have ensured that essential commodities are available in the country even when others experienced prolonged shortages. We invested to boost local food production. We have increased the salaries of teachers, nurses, the police, and the military, and we have consistently paid salaries on time. We have raised the minimum wage and increased pension for retirees, and created jobs.
I am motivated by the gains we have made and the potential to do even more. Therefore, I humbled again to lead the SLPP into another election, and to ask the people of Sierra Leone to renew the contract I signed with them five years ago. We are presenting a new manifesto; "The New Direction Agenda: Consolidating the Gains and Accelerating Transformation"which gives account of our stewardship in the last five years and lays out the vision to continue transforming Sierra Leone.
This is an agenda that promises to consolidate the gains we have made, and to take advantage of new opportunities we have created, while addressing emerging challenges. Our vision remains to get Sierra Leone to a middle-income status by 2030. We believe we have put the right policies in place to support this agenda.
In the next five years we will prioritise the following fives initiatives as anchors for faster and lasting transformation; Feed Salone, which entails an ambitious programme to boost staple food production to drastically minimize our reliance on food imports, increase our exports, create jobs, boost economic growth and reduce poverty, Human Capital Development for Nurturing Skills for 21st Century Industry, with a gender focus, a Youth Employment Scheme (YES) that aims to create jobs for through a focused initiative that I will lead, a Tech and Infrastructure Programme to serve as pathways for sustained economic growth, and Revamping the Public Service Architecture, for delivery efficiency and professionalism. I believe that making progress in these key areas will set Sierra Leone on a path of transformational change, poverty reduction and resilience in the face of external shocks.
The choice is stark for the June 24th elections. We have presented an account of our stewardship and the responsibility you bestowed on us five years ago. We have also presented a focused agenda for building on the progress we have made. Under normal circumstances the gains we have made will guarantee landslide electoral victory for the SLPP. But I urge every SLPP supporter and well-wisher to avoid complacency as the opponents will aim to exploit effects of the global economic shock for electoral advantage.
I again commend this Manifesto for your approval and ask that you vote for my re-election to protect investments we have made in your children and the future of Sierra Leone.