De Pa's GOODWILL SPEECH ON NEW YEAR'S DAY: OUR TAKE
We listened with great interest to De Pa's New Year's day speech. We were expecting some dramatic announcements in that speech and other follow-up actions like the promised wide-ranging cabinet reshuffle, strategies to remedy the downward spiral of the country's education sector and concrete ways of checking rampant corruption. But we have to be very honest with ourselves because after listening to the speech, we realised that De Pa didn't say anything new. In fact we could clearly see him in our mind's eye launching OPERATION WID at State House in January last year.
Because Operation WID has failed badly, we think a speech based on the thinking that went into that Operation WID project isn't likely to have much effect. But we are waiting to be disappointed even at this late stage.
At some points in the speech, De Pa sounded like an army General making a last stand against a ruthless enemy war machine. Here's one area where De Pa appeared to be taking stock of the difficulties facing his government.
DE PA - "The journey shall be a challenging journey. That is why I will engage more with civil society, with journalists, with the private sector and with youths and women groups on the specifics of many of the challenges. We shall engage mo re to build networks of monitors all over the country; we shall engage more to strengthen law and order everywhere, we shall engage more to sustain our culture of tolerance, to entrench civility, and to bolster effective implementation of the Agenda for Prosperity".
POLITICO - De Pa makes specific reference to journalists as one group with which he will "engage" to "build networks of monitors...strengthen law and order everywhere". Well it was De Pa who announced a few months ago that he would henceforth meet the media once a month based on the advice of his policy assistants. We've been waiting for the first engagement since. At some point the same assistants had revised the Advisory Note and told him that the advice had boomeranged?
We stand ready to "engage" but we doubt we can have any real impact to "strengthen law and order" in the face of cynical policing resulting in politically-motivated arrests and detention of journalists. Journalists get locked up as soon as a politician turns up at the CID to file a complaint against him. We have examples.
When De Pa once promised that "no more orders from above", we celebrated. But sadly, "orders from above" is now even more entrenched. But in the spirit of "goodwill", we are waiting to "engage".
DE PA - "But we shall allow no one to stand on the way to our achievement of the goals for which we have been elected into governance. We will build upon networks of goodwill but we will dismantle networks of indiscipline and lawlessness. Let me reiterate this resolution again, we will build upon networks of goodwill but we will crush networks of indiscipline wherever they are. We have our people’s mandate for this, and we will allow no one to stand in our way.
POLITICO - We agree with De Pa that networks of "indiscipline and lawlessness" should be "dismantled". In which case we want to make this suggestion:
ABACHA STREET - Because De Pa's best friends are acting above the law in the heart of the city, we expect him to "crush" them without delay. Okada Riders and people operating public transport in general are an integral part of a "network of lawlessness and indiscipline" and also deserve to be "crushed".
So again, we think De Pa is on the right track and really didn't need to remind anybody that "we have our people's mandate for this, and we will not allow no one to stand in our way". He is in office for the next four years and he should do the job for which he was elected. Happy New Year sir.
ENDING "DOLLARISATION" OF THE ECONOMY SAYS BANK OF SALONE
The Bank of Sierra Leone is an interesting institution. They woke up one morning and gave directives to commercial banks to stop paying money to people in US Dollars for transactions within Sierra Leone. Their spokesman says they want to stop the "dollarisation" of our economy and that in fact, they were only implementing a law that had been on the books since Noah was in the Ark.
We don't really have too much of a problem with this because we don't have any US dollars anywhere, but how come the Bank is acting only now since Sambadeen came to office? Has he just seen the law on the shelves? Or is the Bank trying to get at some section of the society as in the days of JS Momoh's Economic Emergency project?
We ask because if, as their spokesman said on radio, they knew the law existed all this while, why didn't they act when:
1. Belgium Boys were reported to have received US $ 65 000 from De Pa
2. Dollar Boys got US $ 10,000
3. Third-rate Musicians got US $ 10, 000 as transport fare recently
4. Politicians who defected from the Green Movement received US$ 10,000 each
Why didn't the bank get the police to investigate and prosecute those transactions? It's a funny world indeed. We want to tell Sambadeen and his people that this law is for those who can afford dollars and we are tired of the kind of excuses his spokesman gave on radio as to why they are acting only now. The war ended in 2002, and this government has been in office for six years. Don't talk to us "lek say we nar munku".
WHEN "INSIDE DE MEDIA" SPINS OUT OF CONTROL AT SLBC
We honestly believe that somebody somewhere should end the mediocrity at the state broadcaster before we all choke to death. The institution still has professionals who know what to do but they have been squeezed into some obscure corner by partisans who have no business in broadcasting.
The programme under reference was one of the bright spots on an otherwise bleak programming picture at New England. But for reasons of political correctness, it has fallen into the hands of people who need basic lessons in selecting panellists and moderating a discussion programme. We recommend Robert McLeish.
In the last programme they decided to focus on a matter under police investigation - nothing wrong with that at this stage. We are talking about the Tam-Baryoh - Logus Koroma text message issue. And suddenly a question came up: "Where is the IMC in all this"? The whole programme was blown off course. It became a kind of free-for-all attack on the media regulator. Only one panellist noticed the uninformed side-tracking and attempted to restore professional balance to the sinking boat.
So where was the IMC in the text message "case"? Were they honestly telling us that the text message "case" at the CID is an IMC matter? Are they also telling us that just because a journalist is involved it must be an IMC matter? Journalist Arthur Caulker has been in jail for so long for alleged fraud, why didn't that panel ask for the IMC? Is the panel also telling us that all text message cases about relationships should be looked into by the ministry of social welfare?
We sat there hoping the moderator would see through the mindless dribble and restore normalcy but we were shamed by his inability to get the picture. Instead of asking about the IMC, why didn't the SLBC man ask whether Logus's "case" qualifies as libel or defamation in the first place? That's what the marginalised professionals at SLBC would have done.
And there was this suggestion for the "setting-up of a Commission to look into the poor relationship between the media on the one hand and politicians and the public on the other" which our moderator failed to dismiss for being vague and escapist.
The performance of some people on that perpetual panel has strengthened the case of many who believe that this free-for-all entry into journalism must stop. It's time for people to have intellectual process to be in the game, particularly if they are going to be on national TV.
LIGHT RETURNS TO REGENT BUT THERE'S STILL A PROBLEM
After nearly a year, the people of the mountain village of Regent celebrated the return of De Pa's electricity to their area. But there's is a problem and we can't understand why the NPA is deliberately heaping more suffering on the people of Regent.
The NPA is insisting on collecting so-called METER SERVICE CHARGE from the people for the entire period of the enforced blackout. So all the people who went to recharge their prepaid facility were asked to pay the SERVICE CHARGE or have it deducted from their recharge cost.
Can the NPA please explain the logic behind collecting a so-called SERVICE CHARGE for meters that were actually not in service? Oluniyi Blackout is sitting in his office while the people of Regent are being ripped off in the name of SERVICE CHARGE. Instead of the NPA compensating the people for all their suffering with generators and fuel, they are collecting money from them.
Service charges may be legal fees but they come with the assumption that there is a SERVICE. There was no service for one year. The NPA is incapable of being fair.
(C) Politico 14/01/14
