By Allieu Sahid Tunkara
Deputy Minister of Health and Sanitation II (MoHS), Madina Rahman, is engulfed in serious allegations of breach of agreement involving hundreds of millions of leones.
The minister has been accused by a group of volunteer street cleaners who say she has held up monies meant for them after completing a cleaning exercise sanctioned by the government.
The Street Life Family (SLF) claims Mrs Rahman owes them Le800M for the job done earlier this year.
SLF is a group of jobless youths that include homeless people who have taken to self help projects as a means of making livelihoods.
The organisation which comprises 3,150 members, including mostly single parents and marginalised women, came into existence in 2010.
On the eve of the reopening of schools this year, following months of closure due to the Ebola epidemic, the Health ministry contracted it to clean various secondary schools in the Freetown municipality for a wage of Le 40, 000 per individual. This, said Alhaji Koroma, Chief Executive Officer of SLF, totaled Le1, 513, 139, 000 (One billion, five hundred and thirteen million, one hundred thirty-nine thousand Leones).
The cleaning exercise commenced in March and ended in April.
Deputy Minister Rahman supervised the project, and was responsible for payment.
But Koroma said not only did she fail to pay the first installment on time, as agreed with the organisation, but after paying Le700M following weeks of delay, she has refused to talk to them.
He said she had in fact told them she owed no money to any street cleaner.
“This situation forced us to go to the office of the Minister at the Youyi Building to ask for our money,” Koroma said.
When SLF won the MoHS contract, it incorporated some women groups into its fold to add more hands and ensured timely completion of the job. And these women have been mostly visible at the protests against the continued refusal to have their payment.
Among them is Mariama Kamara, 35 and mother of six children. She joined the Street Life Family last December hoping to improve her economic status through contract jobs like those secured through the organization. She said she was among those who gathered last week at the Youyi Building amidst a noisy protest that was reportedly forcefully dispersed by security officers stationed at the entrance of the main government administrative building.
Mariama told Politico at the headquarters of the organization at Goderich Street in Freetown that she had a “big” responsibility to bear as her husband was unemployed.
“As a woman, I have a lot of domestic responsibilities which compelled me to join this organisation,” she said.
Mariama said she studied catering and was an employee of the defunct African Minerals Limited (AML). She went out of job when the former iron ore miner closed down operations after running bankrupt. The woman expected her economic situation to change for the better with her joining the Street Life Family.
‘’As of now, I am not happy because the minister is yet to pay us our balance,” she said.
Her colleague, Fatmata Kargbo, 35, said she had been abandoned by her husband with their six children. She had no idea where her husband is, she said, and the Street Life Family has been her only rescue.
Prior to her membership with the organization, Kargbo said, she was a petty trader selling pepper at Guard Street. But she said she was not making enough money to take care of her responsibilities.
‘’Most times I end up in debts because I reap less or nothing from the pepper trade… I am really suffering,” she lamented.
Like all the other women who participated in the MoHS project, Fatmata received Le25, 000 per day, for which she was thankful to the organization, even though she was yet to receive the pay for her labour.
‘’I am a single parent. I don’t want to sit down idly while my children suffer,’’ added Isatu Kamara, 31, who sold boiled groundnuts at the Dwarzark Junction before joining the Street Life Family.
Among the schools cleaned by these women are the Freetown Secondary School for Girls, St Joseph Convent, Vine Memorial and Collegiate Secondary School, which were among facilities used as part of the national logistics in the fight against the Ebola epidemic.
SLF is disappointed by the treatment from a government whose leadership had encouraged it to embark on such projects, said its CEO Alhaji Koroma.
Koroma accused Deputy Minister Rahman of creating a bad image for the government. He said the membership of the organization would now decide on what next step they would take regarding their money.
‘’It is left with the membership to show what action to take if the money is not paid,’’ he said.
Politico made repeated attempts at talking to Deputy Minister Rahman to get her side of the story, but to no avail.
(C) Politico 01/07/15
