TROUBLED SLFA ETHICS COMMITTEE IN MORE DILEMMA
The Ethics Committee of Queen Johansen’s SLFA has locked itself into an uncomfortable corner by doing exactly what the Johansen campaign team told them to do more than a month before they released their much derided statement about candidates they cleared to run in the awaited SLFA elections. The promised to be fair to all candidates but what they produced is a disgrace. It’s up to Isha Johansen to determine when that congress will take. She is the god of Sierra Leone football.
In that brief statement, they promised to release their full report within two weeks. Those two weeks have come and gone and the report is still on Drucil Taylor’s laptop and the Ethics Committee DOES NOT care what the good people of Sierra Leone think about them failing to meet their own unreasonable deadline. That’s why we haven’t seen even a few lines on whatsapp giving reasons for the delay and setting a final date for the release of the material. They just DON’T think we are serious enough about the SLFA presidency or the betrayal of our belief that they were an independent body that would do their job without taking instructions from the Queen.
All we want now is the full report from this so-called ETHICS COMMITTEE. We know that many of those disqualified on the orders of the voice in that leaked audio have lined up certain actions – soon the Ethics Committee itself will be on trial. Some people have to confront this wickedness in Sierra Leone once and for all.
When that audio was leaked to the world, the main speaker laid out all of what the Ethics Committee has just approved. At that time there was a statement from the man caught in the audio telling the world the whole thing was completely FAKE. There are many who believed him. Not us. Now the interim report put out by the so-called Ethics Committee is exactly what that voice said in the leaked audio. Is that coincidence?
We believe the so-called Ethics Committee should explain why we should NOT believe the following: that the report was all about getting queen Johansen to remain in office by disqualifying all powerful candidates, leaving her with weak people she can easily defeat or that they leaked their own report. The latter is too crazy to believe.
We may be wrong but most times people produce the full report before doing a summary for quick understanding of things but in this case we have what looks like the executive summary while the full report is still been done.
We know their self-proclaimed timeline had elapsed three times over but taking a few more days off to do a proper job would have caused no problems. Now the full report is NOT out and the so-called committee has gone dumb. We want the report guys. The SLFA is NOT Johansen’s property; it belongs to the people of Sierra Leone.
YVONNE KEMOKAI AND THE SERIOUS MATTER OF PUBLIC TOILETS IN FREETOWN
A frequent Western visitor to Sierra Leone has always stated that the country has all it takes to become a tourist paradise but highlighted a number of areas we need to address properly to make it happen. And one particular fault line he mentioned was the lack of public toilets in the city. We cannot agree more with his viewpoint. Let’s forget about tourists in the first place; public toilets are a must in cities and towns in even developed countries these days. One can count on the fingers, the public toilets within the business district area of this our capital and they are not hygienic at all. We definitely can’t recommend some of them unless things are threatening to get out of hands.
Also in visiting any of them you are in the first place put off by the often thuggish and intimidating looking men in care of those places. Which woman would dare go to such toilets with all the ever-growing reported incidences of gender based sexual violence? The conditions in those public toilets are a smack across the face of basic hygiene. Imagine the much vaunted desire for a tourist influx and the embarrassing state of no good public toilet in downtown Freetown. Even citizens coming to town often face very uncomfortable experiences to attend to nature’s call. Some are even turned away when in desperation they go to private residences to ease themselves.
Clean and safe public toilets must be seen at well selected place in Freetown. We hope public toilets are an integral component of the much publicized Council plan to transform Freetown.
Yvonne Kemokai is collecting taxes from the people and must be seen to be equally concerned about the needs of the taxpayers. Yes we have pristine beaches, breathtaking mountains and promising wildlife that many people would want to see. But as we pride ourselves in all of these, we have to keep those simple things as public toilets well and truly erected in Freetown which could be the first port of call for all tourists coming to Sierra Leone. Tourists or no tourists, we need public toilets please FCC!
MOVING CONTAINERS OF DEATH ACROSS FREETOWN
Sea Cargo Containers moving along the streets of Freetown have become a harrowing experience for commuters and motorists. They are often not chained to the trucks transporting them and that is murderous on the part of the transporters. Worse still, such is the derelict state of most of these trucks coming from the port that we begin to wonder how they got to ply our roads in the first place. Did SLRSA actually clear them to be on the road? The trailer trucks carrying these containers have crushed innocent people to death after tipping over due to the carelessness of those managing those vehicles including the reckless drivers.
High transportation fees are charged for every loaded container leaving the port but little or no consideration is given to the safety of the vehicles. Some of these are trucks that shouldn’t be running on our roads as they should have well stayed in their scrap yards in Europe. The city is on a hill and it is so scary to see these trucks struggling through crowded streets fully loaded. And to even leave those containers unchained to the truck is an offence that should warrant maximum penalty for such recklessness. Who is listening out there?
MARIJUANA EXPORT FROM SIERRA LEONE MUST STOP
We believe this country must do something decisive about the marijuana trade that is definitely on the increase in some parts of our countryside. And we should attach no emotions to whatever we decide to do. Here are the reasons why we should be very concerned:
1. When the police tried to smash a marijuana production and distribution enterprise somewhere in Tonkolili district about two years or so ago, much of the debate focused on the police tactics instead of the evil marijuana trade. We know that the death of a young guy in the process changed the narrative but that was a totally missed opportunity.
2. We will soon get to a point at which ordinary Sierra Leoneans going about their normal business in neighboring countries will be arrested by the authorities and treated like drug traffickers. This will really not look good.
3. Beyond our immediate neighborhood, a Sierra Leonean passport will trigger an immediate alarm at airports about drug trafficking. It’s that serious. This is very much on the cards if we allow people in certain parts of this country to convince themselves that their economic prosperity depended entirely on producing and selling drugs.
4. We also believe that there will come a time, maybe sooner than we project, when the drug kings in the areas we are talking about, will set up zones that will be no-go areas for our security forces. They will be armed and bold. They will be willing to attack our forces – something like Columbia or Mexico.
5. Does anybody know what is happening to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency? We certainly have no idea. Please send us what you know. See our contacts at the back of this paper. Thanks in advance.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online (09/04/21)
