KING MESSI RAN SIERRA LEONE ‘LIKE A BUSINESS’
When he came to State House in 2007, King Messi told the world he would be running our country like a business. He didn’t quite flesh out what he actually meant and how the good people of Sierra Leone would be able to evaluate the success or otherwise of this new business every year. The people then concluded that the whole country was now a business entity with King Messi as CEO and the rest of us, glorified shareholders.
Now after almost ELEVEN years running our business, King Messi has withdrawn to FORTRESS MAKENI and the shareholders are completely unable to get to him to discuss his end of service report including income and expenditure because by the look of things we have to re-capitalize the business with huge debts.
The new CEO has just published the report of a forensic audit of the company accounts and the outcome suggests massive corruption among a good many of the directors hired by King Messi. In fact the report also points to many unanswered questions that should be directed at King Messi himself. It was against this background that the shareholders asked King Messi to return to the boardroom to answer some questions. Then this happened:
1. King Messi told the shareholders the representatives of the new board should travel to FORTRESS MAKENI to talk to him. He said as a former CEO, it was demeaning for him to return to that boardroom to be questioned by the shareholders of the company he ran for all those years. He, it was who designed the rules that required board members wanted for questioning to go to that same boardroom.
2. King Messi also refused to go to the company’s regional office inside FORTRESS MAKENI. He asked the shareholders to send a few guys over to his mansion to speak to him on his own terms. The shareholders became absolutely livid at that suggestion but in the end agreed to go there. We could clearly hear some shareholders say all they wanted was to interview King Messi and then decide the next steps. The stage was then set.
3. On the day the few shareholders arrived in FORTRESS MAKENI to question the former CEO of our company, they witnessed something we have never seen before. They saw very angry people blocking the road leading to the residence of King Messi where the meeting was supposed to take place. The angry young people unleashed unprintable words at other shareholders, the company and the new CEO. Meanwhile, inside the mansion, King Messi was there with his indicted directors having coffee pretending they knew nothing about what was happening one hundred yards away from the mansion.
4. The few shareholders that traveled to FORTRESS MAKENI to speak to King Messi were forced to withdraw and return to the main boardroom in Freetown to fight another day. King Messi smiled, very pleased with the way things turned out.
5. Then King Messi went on the world media saying he waited and waited but the representatives of the new CEO actually didn’t turn up for the meeting. His extremely poor spokesman told VOA there were no mask devils and hundreds of angry young people blocking the way of the shareholders as they tried to go interview the former CEO. A VOA presenter told him he had seen videos of the incident. The rookie spokesman replied: ‘I don’t know which video you watched.’ Come on YAHAH TUNIS, who taught propaganda? The whole world saw the pictures released by your people. Try another trick. Don’t insult our intelligence.
Fix the Congo Cross Bridge Guardrails
It is over a month now since a truck carrying over 300 bags of cement went crashing down Congo Cross Bridge leaving its driver seriously injured. The vehicle crashed the guardrails before plunging to the shallow waters below. Since the accident, that part of the rails that was ripped off have those familiar crime scene tapes still loosely tied there. Why shouldn’t the government department responsible have the gap sealed permanently again with iron rails, rather than leaving it exposed so dangerously.
The bridge which is strategically placed between central and west Freetown serves motorists, commuters and pedestrians alike. It is surely on a very busy route. News was rife the other day that a blind man almost fell off the bridge as he walked along the sidewalk close by the side of the damaged rails. Even before this incident, people have been asking why it has taken so long to repair the damage. Do we have to wait until somebody plunges to their death before action can be taken? And what is more, people are also asking that all the guardrails on the bridge be replaced with sturdier ones since those there are too fragile and in no way fit for a bridge that is accommodating such huge traffic every day.
Roaming mad people and the Irony of Kissy Psychiatric hospital
People with serious mental health issues are seen in the streets of Freetown and other cities and towns across the country, prowling about so threateningly. It is a sight that most of us would find just too difficult to behold and it’s even tougher for close relations of such people. Decades ago, we were accustomed to seeing mad people being picked up from the streets and taken to the then Kissy Mental Home and out of public view. The place over the years gained notoriety for its policy of chaining patients and subjecting them to very rough treatment. Conditions there at the time were just appalling.
Everything about the home deteriorated rapidly over the years, forcing many people to restrain themselves from getting their loved ones admitted there. Things have changed for the better this time around with American not-profit organization called Partners in Health stepping in to give the home a new face and a new name that seemed to have buried the stigma attached to the place.
Principal this year witnessed the re-opening of a modernized and well refurbished facility called the Kissy Psychiatric Teaching hospital. Our take though is that the place is up and running with impressive facilities but people are beginning to wonder whether the place is being well utilized. They ask, because the mad people are all about, and they are not seeing any effort whatsoever, to take them to the facility for treatment. That’s the irony: having a top facility and seeing many people with serious mental problems still around with no care for them.
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