WHILE WAITING FOR MAYOR KEMOKAI’S CABLE CAR
By the time our mayor wakes up from sleep her cable cars will be operating above Freetown. To travel between Kingtom and Aberdeen for example there will be no need for a Keke or an Okada, between Eastern Police and Abacha Street will be the same just like between Aberdeen and Goderich and between New England and Wilberforce Street. At that time even the angels in heaven will join us to celebrate the good work of Mayor Kemokai.
We understand she’s been conducting feasibility studies around this city in the last few days. There’s no indication when the result of that study will be made available to the good people of Sierra Leone. We also have no idea when the mayor will fly out again to look for money or even when that money will be made available by donors and when the first cents will reach our bank accounts. That’s why we are not even talking about our first ever ride in a cable car for now. They look great on TV so our mayor wants us to be like other nations. Great dreams our dear smiling mayor.
So while we wait for all those processes to complete we have a few requests to make. We now plead with mayor Kemokai to act because we voted for her.
1. We need a clean city. She has to stop blaming the central government for all her failings and get the job done. To collect market dues while ignoring the job of cleaning the market centers is certainly an issue for mayor Kemokai.
2. We need a few public toilets in the city. We don’t want to interfere with our readers’ breakfast so we will not be brutal with the details but we invite the mayor to take a look around Freetown and understand why we need some public toilets immediately.
3. We have just been reading the recent ACC conclusions on the management of the FCC. We know the whole thing might just end up before a judge so at this stage we can only call for a bit more openness in the running of our council. Remember we are preparing for the coming of our cable car.
4. Our mayor likes publicity. She enjoys being in the limelight but on her own terms. We plead with her to make it possible for the people of this city to also smile on social media and that is only possible when the few things mentioned above are addressed.
ATTACKON MARTIN WUSHA CONTEH IS UNACCEPTABLE
Why SWASAL had to set up a committee to investigate the attack on their colleague when a criminal investigation is already underway beats our imagination. Martin has reported the matter to the police. He’s been asked to see a doctor and we believe statements will eventually be obtained and a determination will be made on how to proceed with the matter of the assault he suffered inside the premises of the SLFA.
The idea that SWASAL would order a parallel investigation of the same issues is something we don’t understand at all. SWASAL should abandon its own investigation and monitor the case with the police immediately.
What is SWASAL trying to prove? Don’t they believe that Martin is credible enough to be supported on the basis of what he reports to his own professional organization? How sure is SWASAL that their committee’s report may not end up making a mockery of this very serious matter? Does SWASAL think their investigation will be considered in the event of charges being filed against those who decided to assault one the best sport journalists in this country?
We honestly don’t know how Queen Johansen’s hostage is running that place with people who can order attacks on journalists because of critical reporting when on the other hand, he is very open to meeting and talking to journalists even on some of the fiercest sports forums in this country.
We make the point that the unprovoked attack on Martin Wusha-Conteh is not just a matter for SWASAL because he is into sports. It is a matter for the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists, SLAJ. Martin was assaulted because he refused to have his reports influenced by people who only like positive news. He has absolutely no record of violence. He is a clean professional. We stand with MARTIN.
WHEN WILL SALONE PREMIER LEAGUE RESUME?
The pre-season programs across Europe are on right now. Football clubs are engaged in friendly matches, testing out their new players, formations and so on. In such programs they would try to determine the strengths and weaknesses of their squads and take the necessary action to get new players. They also raise funds in the process.
To be fair to our people here, it’s a long stretch to compare them ball for ball with the big guys in Europe – the Europeans have been doing this for a long time and they have a lot of money in their bank accounts. In fact even our players are hoping to one day enter those leagues. This doesn’t however stop us from asking serious questions regarding the organization of our own league.
It’s beginning to look like all our clubs are on holiday and the players are all over the place. When will the Sierra Leone Premier League resume? There are a few more things to consider as we wait for this key question to be answered.
1. It looks certain that we will have a new Premier League Board. This has always been the case. The SLFA has not said a word yet about that but we know this for sure. Changing personnel for the sake of it leads to mistakes and painfully wrong decisions that end up hurting the game. People are always learning on this job.
2. Why can’t the SLFA now announce their new board so that they can start the learning process by meeting the old guys who struggled through the last league to get some orientation from them? The new board would then go off to look for money, register players in time and kick out some criminal match officials who are running around destroying the game.
3. The new board and the SLFA should also be very serious about deciding which venues are fit to host Sierra Leone Premier League matches. They must consider the quality of the playing surface and the very important question of SECURITY.
OIL MARKETERS PILING ON THE MISERY WITH BAD BEHAVIOR
The Oil Marketers of Sierra Leone – the people who sell petroleum products throughout this country are a different breed of people. It’s not as if we don’t know how wicked they can be but the level to which their wickedness reached recently has gone beyond belief. We are used to them taking advantage of every little movement in the global price of oil to cause untold financial and physical suffering to the good people of Sierra Leone. They’ve been doing this for as long as we can remember but in the last few months, since Russia attacked Ukraine, their wickedness has taken on frightening intensity.
Their new tactic is to blackmail the government into giving them FOREX to buy their products only for them to sell a few hundred liters, causing artificial scarcity, long queues, and a black market roadside fuel sale of fuel at an astronomical price. When ministers and industry regulators went round petrol stations on Monday this week they found huge quantities of all products but the stations were closed. The companies turned away people trying to get a few liters to move around. They want to once again force the hand of the government for another round of their drip, drip increase in the pump price.
Now, after long hours at a petrol station, they will sell a few hundred liters of petrol in one place and another few hundred liters of diesel in another. This wickedness must stop. We are completely fed up and we think the government must do something radical. We don’t care if it fits into any accepted world economic model. We just want to turn up at a petrol station and buy what we want.
1. To be sure that the full range of products are bought with our hard-earned FOREX, the government should pay directly to the suppliers and monitor the supply. We may be wrong but somehow we think when we provide money for a certain quantity of products, our Oil Marketers do something else.
2. Let’s station an agent of the regulatory agency in all fuel stations to monitor the sales during this period. We no longer trust these Oil Marketers.
3. Fuel dealers tell us their tanks are empty but just behind their wall is a thriving black market selling the products at twice the official pump price. How can anybody explain that?
Copyright © 2022 Politico (13/07/22)
