“MY COIN” SAGA REACHING BOILING POINT IN BO
Let’s say from the outset that we have NO SYMPATHY for those people who invested money in what the bank of Sierra Leone has just acted against by telling the world they are not properly licensed by the appropriate authorities to take deposits from the public. All BSL has done is act within its mandate and how that affects those who put money into an institution they knew very little about is not the responsibility of BSL. This was a private transaction that people went into with their eyes wide open so it’s up to them to take the outcome – win or loss.
We saw dramatic scenes in the compound of the Provincial Secretary’s office in Bo on Monday with people demonstrating by laying their bodies on the road blocking the movement of the vehicle of the Resident Minister in the south urging him to help them get their investment back from “MY COIN”. Surely this was done to feed the social media machine. That’s all.
We have to admit that the situation around “MY COIN” is still evolving and we may not have heard the last word yet on this issue. It may well be that the action of the bank is precautionary and the organization will now easily sort out its paperwork and return to business. We will however not be surprised if it turns out that this was just a disaster waiting to happen and that while those who demonstrated in Bo on Monday may be suffering now, thousands more people have been saved from suffering similar losses. We are living in the same country where WEALTH BUILDERS and POWER RANGERS left many people weeping even as we write, so we find it very difficult to understand why people would walk into any new scheme that looks very much like those old ones without looking over their shoulder.
Just some concern for BSL, why did it take so long to find out something like this was taking place in Bo city of all places. We respectfully urge BSL not to allow this kind of thing to happen anymore only for them to embark on elaborate Public Relations after the fact. If something looks too good to be true, then it’s probably too good to be true.
WAITING FOR FINAL STATEMENT ON LIMKOKWING
From the look of things Kotor Wurie finally has a handle on the long running saga of students not being able to pay their fees at Limkokwing and dropping out of their courses. We make bold to say that while the people from Malaysia came here with good intentions, they fell into the hands of a corrupt minister, according to the WHITE PAPER of the COI who used his power to create the mess we are dealing with now after the defeat of his political party and his subsequent death. We pray that the Lord will have mercy upon his soul.
The case against the private University called Limkokwing has been made a few times in this paper – it makes zero sense for the government of Sierra Leone to pay full fees for all students in a private University while paying for only a handful of those in their own universities. The worst is that the fees at Limkokwing are almost TEN times higher than those for the average student in government universities. Even Principal said this much at a recent town hall meeting at Bintumani in Freetown.
We recently received reports that Kotor Wurie has hammered out a deal to get the affected batch of students back to class while a sustainable approach is found to the very existence of the university. It is our understanding that the taxpayer will take the initial pain but that bad Memorandum of Understanding between Tolongbo and Limkokwing University will be dead and buried. We can only imagine how the Malaysian government would react if some Sierra Leoneans turned up in Kuala Lumpur, set up a University and asked the government of that country to pay crazy sums of money for their students. They will probably quickly deport those Sierra Leoneans and warn them NEVER to RETURN.
We definitely want closure now on this issue. Speak up Kotor Wurie.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online (16/06/21)
