SENGEH NEEDS OUR SUPPORT TO FIGHT ELECTRICITY THEFT
We are appealing to all the good people of Sierra Leone to standby Sengs as he leads this fight against people stealing electricity in this country. Right now there are a few people on social media in particular trying to distract the current push against electricity theft by attempting to throw the whole thing into some kind of religious struggle. It is NOT. We will not allow that distraction to succeed.
We cannot be complaining all over the place over being left in darkness by EDSA while acting to stop Sengs from acting against those that are partly responsible for the blackouts. It makes no sense.
Our sources say a list has been handed to Sengs, detailing those that EDSA believes are stealing electricity by different means. We also know that Principal recently called in the EDSA boss and told him to go after his debtors and get his cash. He is under constant supervision to make sure he delivers or he would go the way of the governing boards of EDSA and EGTC. So that fight MUST go everywhere – a church, a mosque, a temple, an entertainment spot, dwelling homes, government offices, everywhere.
Sengs can adequately defend himself, therefore we don’t need to do that for him but we are quite sure he mentioned places of worship because he was shocked to find them on the list of defaulters. We too are shocked in our little corner. This is the time for people to pay up. This is not a religious thing at all.
A number of people and organizations have been called in to EDSA to pay or do credible payment plans in the last two weeks. At least two cases landed at the CID in the last 48 hours that we know of where people refused to go to EDSA to pay up. Many ordinary Sierra Leoneans are paying their EDSA bills daily.
When religious leaders are tried and jailed for other crimes, do people complain of religion being attacked? We want all the monies people owe to EDSA. We must avoid another round of the disgrace of a Turkish company switching off the lights in Freetown.
Targeting Sengs is wrong. Sadly much of the attack is coming from inside the Green Movement. Anyway, guys let’s PAY UP NOW.
THIS MCC COMPACT THING WILL GO ON FOREVER. SORRY!
We said it in this column not too long ago and we have no choice but to say it again: This MCC thing will run forever. We hereby put forward two reasons for saying that:
1. Uncle Sam will keep subtracting and adding all sorts of qualifying criteria until we wake up one morning in 2035 and decide to give it up. By then alternative possibilities will be severely limited or non-existent.
We pointed out the last time that the June 2023 elections were far away when this whole MCC Compact thing was almost at the stage of completion. Now, the outcome of the work of a tripartite committee put in place following the elections has been added to the criteria. There is no guarantee that our inability to conserve our forests will not be another criterion once we clear the tripartite committee bar.
2. There are many Sierra Leoneans, especially in the opposition that have made it a prayer point to fight even the remotest possibility that the MCC money will roll into the electricity project in Freetown. They are focused on whatever political gains the Green Movement will get from that instead of doing their best for their country to get money from Uncle Sam. This is the state of our democracy and patriotism today.
Our brothers and sisters are spending money; they are sleepless, lobbying CONGRESS to block the money either exaggerating things happening here or telling outright lies about their country. We should probably note that sometimes those in power in Freetown play into the hands of these people but for them to go as far as praying for their country to lose money is simply unbelievable.
We have a delegation now in the US talking to MCC people. We are more likely to tell them WE TOLD YOU SO, than them signing a paper any time soon. As we say in journalism, WATCH THIS SPACE.
ON SLFA’S WATCH, FOOTBALL VIOLENCE IS OUT OF CONTROL
Let’s even forget about what happened in Portloko last week at the FA Cup final and make the point that violence is now a reality in our game and the SLFA has not done anything to convince us that they are serious about bringing the situation under control. The current leadership is so concerned about remaining in power after June 2025 that they are letting people get away with anything for their votes.
Two things are the main drivers of football hooliganism and the activities of the rival camps now looking for power is not part of the two – at least for now.
1. Refereeing Standards: Our referees are consistently performing poorly. There are a few good ones but the vast majority are always poor. They are not bad on the field because they don’t know how to apply the rules of the game. They perform poorly either because they are easily influenced by cash or because they support certain teams. Referees are human, so yes they support teams but they can easily make full disclosure and recuse themselves when their teams are involved or just do their jobs and think about their personal interests later. It’s as easy as that.
Complaints are mounting across the league about bad officiating but the referee’s committee continues as if things are normal and the SLFA looks on, thinking it shouldn’t interfere. We should note that it’s not because a few fans or an administrator complains about bad refereeing that the SLFA should bring the roof down. That should be expected in this game of high passion but why is everybody complaining? And why is it that none of our referees are called up for serious CAF duties?
2. SLFA and the violent fans: Why is the SLFA not strong enough to ban certain known hooligans from attending their matches? Why is that so difficult? The SLFA should compile a list of such people, backed by incontrovertible evidence and make it available to all clubs to keep such people out of the stands. Southern Arena is owned by one man so he can easily deal with that but for community properties, the SLFA should be able to go to the High Court to put such bans in force. We just need a few examples. Maybe we should take a look at how the British fought football hooliganism all those years ago. We cannot continue like this.
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