CABINET RESHUFFLE: GETTING USED TO THE NEW REALITY
Things are now beginning to settle down following the reshuffle of the cabinet by Principal last week. Many people have been asking about the reasons behind the creation of two new ministries and the sacking of people generally regarded as close friends of Principal. We are hearing now from usually reliable sources that Principal did not discuss the reshuffle with any of those who played the kingmaker role in the appointment of the cabinet that emerged after the elections. We assume only Kotor Juldeh saw the list before the announcement. In other words there were zero leaks.
The ministers who were sacked went to cabinet the day before their sacking with no clue of what would happen 24 hours later. They woke up on Thursday morning as ministers but by lunch time they were out of government. We were told that one of those who were shifted to another cabinet position was busy sending instructions out when one of his boys walked up to him and showed him the press release on his mobile phone. He then made some quick calls to people at State House but nobody picked up or called back. He packed his bags and went home for the day. By night fall Principal was out of the country on official matters. This was indeed a day of fast moving events.
So is there a way to prepare for the shock and dislocation that cabinet reshuffles of this nature cause to cabinet ministers? This is a difficult question to answer. We certainly have no experience of being ministers in any government but let’s make some points.
1. Never enter politics without first having a career in life. With this your will serve without being a sycophant just to maintain your job and without looking over your shoulder daily in fear of being sacked.
2. Try as best as possible to remain your normal self as far as possible and don’t start rejecting calls from those who were close to you all the while before your elevation or lying about being busy with meetings.
3. Some ministers make themselves gods in their ministries such that even their deputies have to behave like their children to get anything, including their dues. That’s wrong.
4. Prepare for the sack daily. Don’t turn your offices into second homes. How does it feel to wake up on the morning after your sacking to realize your official vehicles, security detail and all that long chain of allowances are all gone and you still have to move a whole load of stuff from your former office?
5. Frankly if you want absolute certainty in life, don’t accept any ministerial position.
WEAK MANAGEMENT STYLE COULD DESTRYOY LEONE STARS
Naughty behavior by footballers is not just a Sierra Leonean thing but the frequency with which our national footballers are behaving silly in front of the world media is taking worrying dimensions. We can only ask the management of the national team to decisively deal with this naughtiness on the inescapable conviction that people holding national offices and enjoying our taxes should remember to behave themselves and be humble at all times. We demand a lot from our politicians. We are now doing the same with our ambassadors in football jerseys.
Imagine this: Musa Tombo pulls out of a training trip to the east of the country on the excuse that he lost a relative. Once the compassionate leave is granted, he runs away to play community football in a nondescript league somewhere in Freetown. As a consequence of social media outrage he is suspended from the national team.
Enter Kei Kamara one of the top players in the squad. He flies in from the US and insists that Musa Tombo be recalled to the squad, when the request is rejected, and rightly so, he storms out of training, disrespecting the technical staff and by extension all of the good people of Sierra Leone. This looks like a small training ground incident but it is not. It is a very serious affair that must be the subject of some serious disciplinary action. Kei wouldn’t dare do that in America where he plays club football. What does he take us for? This is our case for the good people of Sierra Leone.
1. The original suspension slammed on Musa Tombo must remain in force. National footballers are role models who should be honest with sense of purpose.
2. If Kei Kamara does not publicly apologize and pledge never to interfere with team management and discipline, he too should be suspended. Sierra Leoneans like his commitment to the national team and his great goals but he is beginning to test our tolerance levels by taking us for granted.
3. All our players should be told that we are paying their salaries and providing all their needs on and off the pitch. They have not brought us any trophies in a long while so they should simply play the game and keep quiet.
4. Some people are even beginning to reconsider their support for internationals that come out here with big egos trying to bully the technical staff around. We may be forced to insist on playing a whole team of locally based footballer who respect us instead of bringing players from abroad who think they are better than the country.
5. If the technical staff of the national team make stupid compromises with those trying to impose their attitude on team selection and management, we may soon have a situation in which those same players would demand that a technical team be sacked or even for an SLFA president to resign. Act now!
COMMISSION OF INQUIRY TURNS ATTENTION TO ASSETS
Even before the Commission of Inquiry reached this stage the good people of Sierra Leone secured RIBAR HOTEL in the middle of Koidu town without a struggle. When Afro Boy and his men turned up asking questions about the ownership of that property, nobody stepped forward. Afro Boy waited for months, still nobody showed up. In the end the hotel was handed over to the people and now we have to think about what to do with it. Afro Boys wants it converted into a maternity hospital. We absolutely agree. But we are ready to consider other options.
There are now all sorts of possibilities as the Commission of Inquiry begins to look into asset declarations delivered at the beginning of certain political careers and those submitted at the time of leaving office. People who should know have told us the nation should brace up for earth-moving revelations.
The point is that our sources have also told us that a lot of information is pouring into the COI headquarters right now about properties hidden in strange places in the names of questionable people. Any of those properties can end up like Ribar hotel in Koidu – meaning nobody turns up to claim them or the people claiming ownership now are not able to prove to the COI that those structures were not the proceeds of crime which should be confiscated and returned to the good people of Sierra Leone.
Unlike the ACC which now has even more powers, the COI can only make recommendations to the government based on evidence. It is then the responsibility of Principal and his cabinet to accept or reject those recommendations on behalf of the good people of Sierra Leone.
We will surely be at the COI to see things with our own eyes. In the meantime we make the following suggestions for the attention of the authorities in case we end up with plenty Ribar hotel type of situations at the conclusion of the COI.
1. Abandoned properties will become homes for our people living with disability who are packed in squalor along Pademba road near the prison and PWD compound.
2. We will create drop-in centers for destitute people to pass by at least once a day for hot meal.
3. Some of those houses will be used as police stations for the communities in which they were constructed. We want to do proper community policing.
4. We can sell them and put the cash in the government coffers.
5. Or we demolish them and build something else for the people. In fact some of those lands were illegally acquired.
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