By Kenneth Thompson
Chief administrator of the Freetown city council has revealed that the workers of the Freetown Waste Management will soon be paid off, adding that “Masada can employ them afterwards if they want to”.
Amadu Conteh told the last council meeting for this year at the Laura Dove school in Freetown that they had leased the equipment and facilities owned and occupied by the Freetown Waste Management company to Masada.
Henceforth, he said, the new management would now take over the cleaning of the city, leaving the council with the core function of monitoring Masada as they carried out their duty and to effectively implement by-laws.
Conteh observed that the 2014 budget was going to force the council to increase salaries of their workers to at least Le480,000.
Mayor Sam Franklin Bode-Gibson unveiled their desire to start printing the annual local receipts by and for themselves and had already written a letter to the ministry of local government requesting permission to do so.
“We are still waiting for their approval. They have not told us anything either”, the Mayor said, adding that they were therefore going to write a reminder letter to the ministry putting a case for them to do the printing because of delays they faced in getting those receipts printed out by other people.
“This delay has had a negative effect on the amount of turnover we get. The printed local tax receipts are usually not enough. If we get the go-ahead, we hope to start printing in January”, he said.
While councillors present linked the problems of ward committee meetings to insufficient funds to facilitate their activities, Mayor Gibson promised to summon finance officers in the council next Tuesday so that the matter regarding ward committee subvention could be resolved.
He encouraged councillors to hold ward committee meetings at least once monthly, stressing that such committees were very serious bodies that could consolidate the strength of the ward and should not be treated with levity.
He said appropriate actions would be taken against members of parliament who tried to frustrate ward committees in their constituencies.
(C) Politico 06/12/13
