WHY NOT SIMPLY ANNOUNCE AN AUSTERITY PACKAGE?
Things have gone crazy all over the place. We woke to news one morning that after months of underground sabre-rattling and public denials, Russia had indeed invaded Ukraine in an operation they titled SPECIAL MILITARY OPERATION. A huge Pandora’s Box was now open. The rest they say is history because we are living with the consequences of how the Western world reacted.
At the same the countries in OPEC have been busy cutting back oil production so that they can make more profit. Political instability is raging in the Sahelian area of Africa and people are on the move. The Mediterranean Sea is now a glorified graveyard for our brothers and sisters trying to reach the so-called greener pastures of Europe.
All of this may have influenced what happened in good old Sierra Leone beginning on Monday this week – there was a mini budget that announced the total removal of state subsidy on petroleum products and electricity tariff. Next day queues returned to our streets for the first time in many months and not long after that prices went up and we know how that would eventually hit our household income. It’s difficult to understand all of this but our business is to lay down the facts so our readers can see through what is happening.
We believe that GoSL should respond by putting in place some stringent austerity measures and invite the people to help monitor those measures. We don’t normally do details in this column but we know of two agencies of the state that have not received a penny from their quarterly allocation since January 2023. There may be more. Shouldn’t the people who expect those bodies to function as normal be told why some of them can’t even buy office supplies to do their work?
1. Stop all non-essential travel overseas for ministries and other agencies of government. In the same they were grounded just before the last elections.
2. These days for every small planning in some MDAs people retreat to luxury hotels for weekends. Let’s put a hold on that for now. Let MDAs use their conference rooms.
3. MDA bosses going out of Freetown should use their own vehicle and fuel. The state security detail can be provided but please keep the taxpayer out of those weekend trips.
4. Let’s get people to pay their taxes and let’s protect that money.
WATERLOO IS A SCAR ON OUR CONSCIENCES
We really can’t remember how many times we have come to this column to call attention to the situation in Waterloo. Waterloo and the areas around it need special security attention. ONS and their allies have visited the place to urge the people to help them fight crime in their communities.
In the last two weeks or so we have reported on the discovery of at least THREE corpses in the general area of Waterloo. These things happen in other places from time to time but what’s really happening at Waterloo?
We are not experts in this but the current security posture at Waterloo doesn’t inspire much confidence in people like us looking from outside. In other words we are not sure the police can adequately fight crime in that place. They are thin on the ground and very poorly equipped.
The other point is that the whole SLP would struggle to clean up Waterloo if the government doesn’t also introduce well targeted social programs aimed at defeating drug abuse, land grabbing and general criminality.
We hope the good people in Waterloo are not offended by this. That’s not our intention but somebody has to confront the issues as we’ve just done.
FODAY SANKOH’S HOST MR. KONAN BEDIE IS DEAD
The man who sheltered the RUF leadership throughout their brutal campaign to capture political power in Sierra Leone is dead. We are talking here about the former president of Ivory Coast, Henri Konan Bedie. This guy hosted Corporal Foday Saybana Sankoh and allowed him to set up an office to coordinate activities like fundraising and meeting political dignitaries, mainly international journalists and even recruiting fighters. Before Sankoh set up his base there many Sierra Leoneans only knew Ivory Coast as a country on the edge of the MRU with great footballers.
We complain a lot about how much Liberia helped destroy this country with their backing for the RUF but Ivory Coast was also a key plank of the RUF war effort with Henri Konan Bedie’s approval. He would himself be overthrown in a military coup and pushed into the margins of Ivorian politics.
We must note however that he helped set up a peace process that culminated into a peace deal signed in Lome, Togo that ended the war in Sierra Leone. So for that we wish him well in the great beyond.
Now, Ivory Coast is a member of the Mano River Union along with Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone and the country appears to have healed up significantly after its own civil war. The chicken finally went home to roost in Abidjan. Good night Mr. Henri Konan Bedie.
THE ANNUAL MONEY-MAKING SEASON OPENS IN SCHOOLS
The NPSE result is out and some secondary school authorities have declared their open season of money making. We are not going to touch private schools for now. They are in a league of their own in terms of the school fees and other charges they levy. On the whole private schools are doing well in public examinations but that doesn’t even begin to explain why they ask for such big money. Those who send their children do so because they can afford it so that’s good for them.
Our attention is really on government and government-assisted schools across the country, serving the bulk of the population. The authorities in those schools have drawn artificial lines demarcating grades below which they cannot accept our children in their schools, completely ignoring the ministry’s own pass grade.
We are not the ACC and but we have our own Scorpions working with parents in targeted communities. Our aim is to expose those schools stealing from our people and land in the ACC net. The ordinary people must also cooperate with us as we investigate this complex web of criminality. It makes no sense to pay, sometimes without even being asked and then run to the media to complain.
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