WELL DONE SO FAR MASADA. BUT WE HAVE SOME CONCERNS
After a really slow start dogged by politically-inspired challenges by an inefficient Freetown Waste Management Company, MASADA is beginning to hit top marks. Well done!
We know that cleaning Freetown is a very difficult job. And with an American-accented manager, we wonder how those illiterate old men doing the actual cleaning are coping. But she knows her stuff and she sounds great on radio. Good work!
But here are a few of our concerns: There is actually no guarantee that all the petty BORMEHS you are clearing now would not be packed with garbage again before June. There is the question of alternative dumpsites and the very culture of people in this city who just can't manage their own waste properly. So there's no culture of properly disposing of waste in this city.
So you may have cleared Jomo Kenyatta Road bridge and other places but what stops people sneaking in the dead of night to dump more. We feel sorry for MASADA but we are all shamed by our own attitudes.
We humbly plead with MASADA to take a second look at the bill board they erected at the Jomo Kenyatta road bridge. That's a cheap, bad job. The colours simply crashed and there are just too many words. People hardly stop by to read those things. Make it prominent and brief enough for people to read even at 50Mph.
And finally there's this small matter of that orange one-piece uniform your foot soldiers put on. Somehow we think it's part of the American connection. Every time we see those uniforms, we are reminded of inmates in some state penitentiary in Ohio. Please change. Anyway, good work MASADA.
COMIUM'S DAY OF RECKONING IS NIGH: ONE WEEK TO GO
The long-suffering customers of COMIUM mobile phone are desperately waiting for the return to normal services promised by COMIUM executives who were summoned to parliament the other day. If at the end of March COMIUM fails to deliver as promised, the government should be left with no alternative but to open the way for financial administrators to move in.
COMIUM is heavily in debt, its staff are on strike frequently and actual call services have collapsed in many parts of the country. Other mobile phone companies have blocked COMIUM calls and even COMIUM to COMIUM calls are more difficult to make than finding the missing Malaysian plane.
We urge our MPs not to allow COMIUM to get away with this very poor service for much longer. Send in liquidators at the end of the month if COMIUM fails to live up to its promises. Customers have suffered for too long.
IS SLFA STILL A COMPANY UNDER CAP 249 OR NOT?
The SLFA has kept itself in the news for the last one year, not because our teams are doing well abroad but simply because they have been unable to run things like their counterparts do all over the world. They've been lurching from blunder to blunder and crisis to crisis. Just when we felt things were beginning to shape up came the news that the SLFA is no longer a company registered under cap 249 of the Companies Act of Sierra Leone.
With the stroke of Pope John Paul's pen, SLFA is now just like one of those small, squabbling and clueless organisations under his thumb. We understand the FA Queen signed up and went home smiling that an artificial turf would soon be laid out at the National Stadium to the glory of her precious name. Long Live the Queen.
This is an issue we shall delve into because we are now reading through all the necessary papers, including notes of those acrimonious meetings that culminated into SLFA becoming a company limited by guarantee. Really interesting stuff. Many of those who pioneered that project are still alive and are ready to speak out. We are willing to provide the platform.
The constitution of the FA for example is very clear about this but we have been informed that none of the stakeholders were consulted before the Queen acted as Pope John Paul piled the pressure to clear a hurdle he fought against more than 15 years ago. The stage is set.
We understand FIFA was very much part of this push again. We have an association that doesn't have a mind of its own. They allow a corrupt and widely discredited FIFA to force their hands into all sorts of untoward things, including conducting fraudulent elections. Mtsheee!
See you soon.
RIGHT HAND DRIVE VEHICLES MUST GO BY SEPTEMBER
If Logus fails to pull this one off, he will have no reason to remain in office. Even if he extends the time by one day, he should be sacked. Right hand vehicles, particularly commercial ones are a real menace. They disrupt traffic a lot and cause accidents - their sins are many. That's why we supported Logus to throw them out. But it looks as though the third-term agenda minister is beginning to waver.
We are getting very credible reports that many of such vehicles are still being cleared at the ports and licensed for operation by the Road Transport Authority. What madness is this? How can people pass laws and help defeat those same laws?
There is a popular saying in Sierra Leone that people should avoid falling foul of laws only in the first few weeks because after that it becomes a free for all again. We warn Logus and those at the SLRTA that we will not allow them to pretend all is well when right hand drive vehicles are allowed to operate after September.
By the way madam SLRTA how are things with the huge money your boys are collecting on the streets by seizing or towing cars? You are making fabulous money. And your own judicial process is so swift that if the real courts of law operated that way, this country will descend into chaos.
A man who parked his car along Siaka Stevens Street to urgently relieve himself at a nearby office, came back to find his car in chains. We could tell he really needed to empty his bowels but now his problems were compounded by a warden who only wanted money. Are your wardens taught anything like exercising discretion for cases like that? SLRTA money wahala don pass mark!
(C) Politico 20/03/14
