A MASSIVE CREDIBILITY TEST FOR PARLIAMENT
Our parliament is now fighting a war to save what is left of its credibility following a recent report in which a national survey named the institution as one of the most CORRUPT in Sierra Leone. That report has been widely quoted in local and international media and things are not looking good for our representatives on TOWER HILL at the moment.
In the last 24 HOURS a prominent MP has gone on the BBC to admit that the dark art called corruption is alive and well in parliament. That’s totally unprecedented. We are used to institutions under such attack closing ranks and fighting back. Indeed our parliament is always ready to fight back whenever their credibility is challenged but the punch landed by CARL and their allies in the study is devastating. It’s not a knock-out punch but it’s beginning to look like a game changer. In other words our parliament will never be the same again. We’ll see.
So here are a few comments on this issue and what we think should happen with that parliament going forward:
1. We can’t understand why some people are so shocked about this whole affair. We have heard numerous reports from people nominated by the president into different positions of how they had to do certain things outside the normal to be interviewed on time and confirmed in their jobs. This goes back more than a decade.
2. We remember the case of Joseph Keifala who was Mayor of Kenema city in the days of King Messi when that city was facing COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT for daring to remain loyal to the Green Movement. Keifala said his budget was held up at least FOUR times because he spoke freely about his refusal to give some cash to members of an important parliamentary committee. The Mayor refused to apologize for those comments and his city suffered so much that even garbage was not being collected.
3. The people of Sierra Leone should call constituency meetings all over the country to have a conversation with their MPs. All the MPs should be very clear with their people if they have ever received cash during pre-legislative meetings or confirmation hearings. We need some confessions. It would be like some Truth and Reconciliation process after which MPs will be asked to go and sin no more. By the way it should be open to the media so we can document those events around the country.
4. We should urgently review the constitution and include the RIGHT OF RECALL by which ordinary people would be able to recall their representative from that house after TWO YEARS should they fall prey to this monster of corruption on that hill. We must also NOW put in place an ETHICS COMMITTEE from outside parliament to monitor standards in public life in general. Let’s do this quickly.
5. We have to be honest with ourselves this is the proverbial storm in a tea cup. The next people who go to parliament for confirmation or some pre-legislative meeting will be treated in a very professional way. Eventually, we will settle in again and life will return to the pre-CARL report normal. During King Messi’s time, we heard that even the ACC did some un-ACC-like things to secure some approvals. So this storm will be over soon.
POOR QUALITY EGGS IN OUR MARKET, WE MUST ACT
When the price of an egg came down to 1,000 Leones from 1,500 Leones, people thought it was just the usual shift in the price of commodities based on market factors. Well reports have surfaced that the eggs that were going for that price, were not good enough. The taste is unreal and the smell itself questionable. We need to first ask, how did the bad product get into this country in the first place? Our land borders are supposed to be closed to curb the coronavirus pandemic and if those eggs passed through one of those entry points, then it’s scary, as one could imagine what else could have been allowed in. If on the other hand they came through our seaport, then some people there corruptly let the eggs through and never followed the mandatory health and safety checks.
There are some guys down at the Quay with files who will insist on importers showing certificates for bales of used clothing and yet we see expired foodstuffs flooding the market.
People are not afraid to dump garbage in this country because they know readily available accomplices are always out there to aid them in their dirty trade. We are very much concerned over this latest egg scare. Bad eggs can cause Salmonella which can lead to fever, vomiting and diarrhea. We may never know the number of people that could have been affected by this already especially in a country with a small percentage of people going to hospital.
We know our Poultry farmers here can’t match the demand of consumers, for they struggle a lot in keeping their business running. The poultry feed and day-old chicks are quite expensive and there are hardly reliable hatcheries here, with many local farmers having to go to neighbouring Guinea to buy and transport the chicks to this country. But that should not in any way get unscrupulous people to dump into the market food that is unfit for human consumption. We need the authorities to step up.
JUST ANOTHER MEANINGLESS MEETING AT SLRSA
On Tuesday a meeting was convened at the Sierra Leone Roads Authority Kissy road office to trash out the factors they say are responsible for the ‘’halfway journeys’’ devised by drivers to get passengers in the East of Freetown paying more. You know, the traffic division of the Police and Motor Drivers Union should stop fooling the people. The very two institutions gave a lot of publicity to what they dubbed Operation Restore Order, to stop the ‘’halfway journeys’’ recently, but the very exercise never lasted a week! Let us be honest, the WILL was just not there; the traffic officers and the leadership of the drivers’ union are never committed to enforce the exercise.
SLRSA officials genuinely called that meeting but we are saying all those factors the meeting highlighted as being responsible for the halfway journeys, just do not add up. Why should so-called efforts aimed at getting rogue drivers to comply to transport regulation instituted by the Ministry of Transport, not be sustained?
One interesting reason the meeting gave for drivers indulging in the cheating of commuters, is the enforcement of road traffic regulations by the police during peak or rush hours like pulling drivers over for basic questioning.
So that is to say commercial vehicles with defective lights, smooth tyres, and other defects that endanger the lives of passengers and pedestrians have to be overlooked! Would that stop the crooked halfway?
There was even the suggestion by the meeting for government buses plying the provincial routes to first do trips on the notoriously corrupt Bombay- Waterloo road before proceeding to their officially approved destinations.
Has the Road Transport Corporation which is in charge of the buses got the extra drivers, because we cannot expect a bus driver doing a long trip to the provinces to have his energy and mental strength drained out by first driving in the chaotic traffic scenes in the Western Area.
Our traffic police cannot tell us they haven’t got the power to stop the halfway nonsense. As for the drivers’ union, they cannot control their members and must stop fooling the people.
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