DIRE WEATHER WARNING FROM THE MET OFFICE
What we are witnessing in the early days of this year’s rainy season should leave us in no doubt that we are in for adverse weather conditions this year. We are getting daily reports of storm blowing away roofs in communities in different parts of the country. The met office has told the nation to expect floods in Freetown. We are not exactly used to floods in this city but we know what happens when our drainage system easily collapses after just one hour of rain. In times past, houses on the hills were washed away in mudslides; children were sometimes swept down the hills. This is definitely not something to wish for but all the signs indicate that we should be prepared for anything.
There was a study a few years back that identified this land that we love as one country most at risk of being battered by adverse weather conditions as a result of climate change. We may be hearing a lot from our buwa-bisiesh Mayor and her so-called delivery team about flood mitigation plans and this and that but the kind of flooding envisaged this year is something even countries with a lot of experience dealing with such matters can never be prepared for.
Our new disaster management office should be all over the place now preparing us for the inevitable. They should spend a lot of time in the media telling people how to prepare and where to get help. They should talk about coordination among all the units involved in the so-called flood mitigation effort. We know they are a new agency but there is work to do and it’s very urgent.
We are living in a country where everything is politicized so that even when people are told to move away from disaster zones in their own interest they throw it in the political arena and many shameless politicians are normally there to try to score cheap political points.
Instead of going now into those flood-prone communities to prepare their people they are waiting for the disaster to occur so that they can turn up and make big political speeches, drop a few bags of rice with TV cameras rolling and present themselves as the most caring. At least we now understand what those gimmicks are really about.
PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT ELIZABETH STREET NOW
What’s the matter between the people of Elizabeth Street in the west of Freetown and the SLRA? We ask because for more than twenty years that short but vital street linking central Freetown to Kingtom Bridge has been abandoned while all other roads around have been paved, notably their neighbor, Berwick Street. As far as we know the people of that place, including a tribal head have complained to all the relevant channels for consideration and those promises have never come to fruition.
While we join the people of Elizabeth Street to urge SLRA to pave that street immediately, we also want to call attention to the shoddy work King Messi’s government did with the lower parts of Edwards and the whole of Steward Streets in the same area. They paved the upper side of Edwards Street and pretended the lower part did not exist. We are quite sure both contracts covered the whole streets but some contractors decided to do things their own way, creating an apartheid system on both streets. Now rotten vehicles have been abandoned there.
Engineer Kanneh of SLRA has a very easy job: fix Elizabeth Street and complete Edwards and Andrew Streets and bring the people living on these streets in line with their neighbors at Guy, Victoria and Berwick Streets. They are all Sierra Leoneans who pay their taxes.
STADIUM MANAGEMENT WAKE UP AND WORK
This is just to call the attention of the stadium management to some very bad development at the back of STAND 15. The drainage system there has collapsed. We are talking about the area used as car park overlooking the swimming pool. The gutter is completely blocked and rotten water is flowing freely around that area. It’s a very nasty sight to behold. We know the whole stadium is up for renovation soon but as long as people are still using that facility, we must ensure that they remain clean at all times.
From what we saw the other day, the areas looks abandoned. It’s as if stadium management personnel have never seen the place for a long time. Something we doubt very much. Our sense is that they have simply given up doing any serious cleaning while they wait for the Chinese rehabilitation team to arrive in the coming months. Frankly that’s not a good idea at all.
Maybe we should take a walk round the compound and see if there are other places to highlight for the attention of the stadium management. We don’t want the Chinese team to come out here and start asking questions about our relationship with hygiene. Please!
THE NRA AND THE LAND AT WILKINSON ROAD
Hmmmmm we have just read the reaction of the NRA to a report in one newspaper about how the board of that institution plans to get out of those rented apartments they’ve been using all these years. So the main allegation is that the NRA board was about to approve a deal to buy parcels of land along Wilkinson road for more than two million United States dollars. The NRA agrees that they want to have their own building but they say the whole report was “concocted” by the newspaper to embarrass them. We don’t want to argue with the idea of that story being “concocted” because all we want to say is that the press release has simply opened the NRA up to many more questions.
Can the NRA now tell us what sort of negotiations they are engaged in over the purchase of a piece of land anywhere in Freetown? Let’s forget about Wilkinson road for the time being. Is it true that the NRA board is negotiating to buy land for the purpose of building an office? Just answer that question and also state the amount of cash involved. This idea of accusing people of wanting to damage the reputation of the NRA is not going to stop people asking questions.
NRA is one agency of the government that is doing really well so why would anybody in this country try to destroy it at a time when development partners are pressing countries like Sierra Leone to collect their taxes and stop depending on others for budgetary support. In fact Global Times was only calling attention to the fact that while we all want a respectable organization like the NRA to occupy their own building; we should careful how we use our tax money to achieve that. That’s all.
By the way, why didn’t the board of the NRA approach the Ministry of Lands to arrange a lease? Are they barred for getting land from the government? What is it about Wilkinson road that some on the NRA are said to be pushing so hard get land there?
COURT STOPS SLFA FROM USING THEIR OWN MONEY AGAIN
From one scandal to the other, the SLFA of Queen Johansen is hanging on by its finger nails while the rest of this country just can’t wait for the elective congress to being so we can rid our game of a scandal-hit administration that lost its way from the minute they were illegally crowned. When we read the details of the court order it was as if we were watching a Nollywood movie. We are tired of asking Queen Johansen and team to resign. In fact there is no need to do that anymore because a permanent resignation ticket is coming soon.
To say the truth, we saw this coming. We also know that there is another complicated money wahala involving a travel agency. We are reading the papers now in readiness for a blockbuster publication on the indebtedness of an SLFA administration that has exceeded its time in office in a crude and disrespectful way.
Can the Queen please tell us where she will get money from to conduct the congress?
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