JUST AFTER AFRO-RUSSIA SUMMIT, SALONE CLEARS MCC HURDLE
The US Ambassador in Freetown arrived at the official residence of Principal last week with some really good news – finally Sierra Leone was able to pass the crucial threshold to qualify for huge US government money under the Millennium Challenge Corporation program. This success is supposed to free up big money for the electricity and water sector in Sierra Leone. Coming after that Afro-Russia summit where Putin promised to invest in Africa’s energy sector, we should now tell Principal to stay away from Russian money because we have something bigger than what Putin is planning to send down this way. And the MCC money is a GRANT. No more debts for our grandchildren, at least not from a heavily-sanctioned country that is looking for a way to break out of that choking grip.
Anyway back to the MCC money because we have some questions about the cash we are expecting to receive soon. Please let nobody tell us to go to any website because the people who, after a few years, will accuse the government of stealing all the money do not read websites. Like us, they need the information in its traditional way, broken down for their understanding not in official aid jargons and so on.
We want people to look forward to the completion of the projects instead of telling lies all over the place about monies being stolen by some politicians. So here are the questions we want our own government to provide us with answers to:
1. When will the cash be lodged in our Treasury Single Account? It’s very important because we have to stop people running around accusing people of being thieves. How will this grant be administered?
2. Are there any strings attached to the MCC? Please let us know now. Are we going to have planeloads of consultants coming down here to show us what to do? We don’t have people with good experience but let’s just know how this thing will happen.
3. How many Sierra Leonean jobs will be created in the beneficiary sectors?
4. The quality of the fight against corruption under Afro Boy helped us cross the line but what else is he going to do to make sure a single cent from the project money is not stolen?
5. What will the energy sector look like following the completion of the projects covered by the MCC money? In this era of technological innovation, please tell DSTI to give us a 3D impression of what would be the new reality.
We are waiting…
SLFA WANTS 7.3 BILLION LEONES FROM GOVERNMENT FOR THE PREMIER LEAGUE
This SLFA is one mighty bundle of contradictions and reckless twists and turns. We started from them going on the media to reject money provided by the government to run the FA Cup to avoid what they call “political interference”, to now asking the same government for an unbelievable SEVEN BILLION Leones of our taxes to run an even bigger competition, the Sierra Leone Premier League. Does that make sense even to those people at Kingtom who made the request?
We want to warn Principal that the good people of Sierra Leone will not accept this government giving a cent to this SLFA. What the people want to see now is an SLFA executive that is popularly elected by their members in a congress that is open to all those who want to run for various positions. The current executive should have left office about two years ago. They have further extended that controversial mandate by another six months. They are undemocratic hence cannot continue spending our money. By the way, how did they arrive at this figure? The last very successful league cost us only half the amount they are asking for now.
With SEVEN BILLION LEONES we can achieve a lot in this country.
1. Surely we can buy more chairs and teaching materials for the hundreds of community schools up and down this country serving the most vulnerable of our children.
2. We can use some of that money to equip our peripheral health units. We need a healthy population to enhance productivity.
3. Some of our so-called new roads constructed by King Messi are in very poor shape right now. We can resurface them or do spot improvements to make us look like serious people.
4. If we should give any money to the SLFA it should cover the running cost for the elective congress. We live in a democracy so we cannot continue to encourage FIFA- sponsored dictatorship in a sector that is so vital to the vast majority of the young people in Mama Salone.
5. Finally, how can we fund a Premier League Board that has as member, an MP who sits on the parliamentary oversight committee for sports? Why can’t the good Sierra Leoneans on that board tell the MP to resign? He is at war with his own interests.
SPECULATING ABOUT THE HEALTH OF KING MESSI
Only a few months back we were in this same column warning against people speculating about the health of particularly our political leaders. At the time the political opposition were all over social media saying all sorts of things about the health of Principal. Things like he had suffered a stroke and had been secretly taken out of the country in a wheel chair, some said he had suffered a heart attack, others that he would need to stay out of the country for an extended period to be treated for an unspecified illness. And the most blood-cuddling thing about all of this was that many in the opposition wrote and spoke with glee what they knew was clearly a pack of lies.
So last weekend they found themselves on the back foot because some mischief-maker went on the same social media to speculate about the health of King Messi. This is a guy who messed up a lot of things in this country and may well be continuing to do so, but the last thing we would wish for him is for evil to befall him. We want him to live a long and healthy life. Like all of us, King Messi will die when God rings the bell. He will not then send lawyers to represent him at God’s own commission of inquiry.
Once again we absolutely hate this crazy thing of people speculating about the health of others on social media for purely political reasons. Live on King Messi. We will be in Makeni to see you take the kick-off in that football tournament organized in your name by your boy.
WHAT’S THE LATEST ON THOSE YELLOW CARD BOYS OF JENDEMA?
Hello ACC, where are those people you arrested from the border town of Jendema for allegedly extorting cash from two white guys recently? After the initial noise surrounding you sending in your Scorpions to arrest the health workers, things have just gone quiet. Do you have a case against them? Let them have their day in court now.
We don’t want to push too deep into this matter for legal reasons but we make bold to say that if Afro Boy sends his guys into our satellite hospitals, Ola During hospital in particular, they will come back with a bag full of health workers demanding money from patients for services fully covered by the state. Let them also go along the road to Guinea and see what they will get. The people are tired with all types of corruption. Afro Boy has done very well with the really big guys who have been stealing from their grandchildren. Now let him chase the little crooks. We say so because the little crooks have daily contact with the people and that gives their own brand of corruption a very sharp edge that can kill the people. Long live the ACC!
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