SCHOOL BUS PROJECT FACING SERIOUS CHALLENGES
A few months into the running of the school buses and we are facing a potentially serious problem with the project. The buses have been grounded in Koidu, Kabala and Makeni because the councils in these three towns so far think they cannot meet the salaries of the drivers and conductors set by the ministry of transport in Freetown which recruited them in the first place. The point is while they are grounded the children are made to return to the days when they had to fight to get a transport vehicle to and from school. In today’s terms that represents something below SQUARE ONE.
This is a very serious challenge to the Free Quality Education project which is a flagship of the New Direction. Something like this is bound to get alarm bells ringing throughout Sierra Leone and it will also serve as a reality check for Principal because so far things appear to be going well with his idea of developing the human capital of Sierra Leone as the basis for takeoff. Now how do we deal with this salary issue with the bus drivers?
1. If Makeni City Council for example can’t pay ONE MILLION Leones to the bus drivers, which we believe is reasonable, how much are they paying their existing drivers? Salaries are really bad in this country. We are here grumbling about ONE HUNDRED US dollars a month as salary.
2. We want the government and the council to stick to this amount because unlike the other council drivers, the school bus drivers are not able to do illegal work with the buses. We don’t condone corruption but we know corruption is taking place in our councils and they appear powerless to deal with it.
3. Why did Kabineh Kallon get involved in recruiting drivers for the councils? Mr. Minister you have a lot of work to do at Youyi Building alone. What is so strategic about recruiting a school bus driver?
4. The council should not expect to make any profit from these buses. There is nothing wrong with them paying some amount of money monthly towards the welfare of their children.
5. We call for urgent discussion on the running of these buses so the kids can return to comfort zone – but the ticket price MUST NOT CHANGE.
BIG MACDONALD BOSS SACKED FOR HAVING AN IN-HOUSE AFFAIR
So the boss of fast food giant MacDonald’s went to work in the last few days as normal only to be told the board of the US company has decided to sack him because he was having an affair with a staff of the company against laid down ethical rules. The guy earns an unbelievable ONE MILLION Pound Sterling a month. It’s crazy money by any standards. How come this guy decided to risk that? Anyway, if Principal woke up one morning and issued an Executive Order to implement such a policy in our public service, some offices would be completely empty within weeks – in fact DAYS.
The MacDonald’s boss, who is a divorcee, quickly wrote a letter to his staff accepting his dismissal and blaming himself for breaching an ethical code he knew about at the time he accepted the job. Well he knew the evidence against him was overwhelming and he probably didn’t want to go through a messy court process to expose the gory details of his affair.
That said we want to have our say about this aspect of the ethical code.
1. We don’t have the details of how this guy went about this affair with this staff member but it will be good to know if the lady in question received any preferential treatment in terms of postings or promotions within the organization which could have been influenced by the affair. That’s very important to know.
2. Did the affair affect commitment to work? Did they use company time to go have their quiet moments?
3. We know life is not all about money but why did this guy risk such big pay package by having this affair? Surely, the lady could easily have resigned her job when she decided to date the big man. With a six figure salary, life would still be great.
4. Many people meet their future wives in their places of work. That’s a fact. So why didn’t the Big Mac board present the man with the option to ask his lady to leave quietly? The ethics code is fine but to dump a man credited with turning around the company’s fortunes in this way is not great. But we understand that in this METOO era, those things are nonnegotiable.
5. So will the lady at the center of this drama continue in the job even if she is allowed to? Which company is going to now employ a man with this reputation with all the media attention on him? They will be so scared he would mess up their brand. Maybe if the two get married, he can move on with his normal life elsewhere. With our amended Sexual Offences Act, this should be being implemented in Sierra Leone. But OOOO YAAAAH!
WE NOW KNOW THAT MUSA TOMBO IS HIS OWN WORST ENEMY
When this guy tore up his contract in Sweden, returned home and immediately went into a local cookery shop for a big bowl of rice and Krain Krain with mobile phone cameras pointed at him, we always knew something was desperately wrong with him. How else can we explain this? After going through such traumatic events as described by his friends at the time, surely all Tombo needed was to quietly go home and rest and then discuss the failed contract with his family and manager and move on. However, within a week or so of his inglorious return he was seen playing six-a-side football in some small corner.
Musa told the world he was returning home to help the national team qualify for the coming World Cup. That was a very stupid reason to give because the team is packed with foreign-based players, some from the very country Tombo left in a hurry. The latest action by this man confirms what we said following his failure to hold down his contract in Sweden. For the records we restate some of them here:
1. Tombo is a promising footballer but his biggest undoing is his inability to understand the world around him and how to adapt to his environment.
2. Even on the football pitch Tombo is certainly not the most intelligent. He gets the obvious goals but nothing spectacular to mention.
3. He struggles to fit into any organized system. He was totally unable to cope with the training regime in Sweden and all that goes with such international contracts as regards personal lifestyle.
4. Here he has a contract with EE Lions but he is always seen playing in small leagues and picking up injuries. For how much longer will EE Lions cope with this nonsense before sacking this man?
5. If Tombo plays against Lesotho, we should simply say goodbye to discipline in the national team. The guy tells a big lie just to stay out of the national team for a friendly match only to be found playing somewhere in the east of Freetown. What does he take us for? This rubbish must stop.
© 2019 Politico Online
