By Kenneth Thompson
Executive Director of Health Alert, a local civil society organisation, says “politicians in the government of President Ernest Bai Koroma are responsible for the demise of operation WID”.
Victor Lansana Koroma told Politico that the operation to clear major Freetown streets of traders started off very well with them as a civil society partner responsible for monitoring the process and ensuring that the mandate of the operation was actualised.
He complained that “as time went by some elements within the government started derailing the process,” adding that the minister of trade and industry, Usu Boie Kamara, “contributed immensely to frustrating the efforts of the operation.”
He accused the minister of telling traders not to countenance the taskforce set up by the president, and allegedly assuring them that traders at Abacha Street were not going to be removed from the streets.
When asked what his organisation was doing to ensure the operation was revived, Koroma said that they had held several meetings with the taskforce, including one with the president to make it clear to them that “politicians and political interests should be removed from the entire process if the operation is to be actualised and sustained”.
He said that because their calls were not taken seriously, they had officially backed out of the whole process until such a time when the issue of politics and political interests was addressed.
The trade minister refused to answer our calls despite several efforts to get him directly and through one of his friends.
© Politico 03/10/13
