WATER RESOURCES MINISTER HANGS ON BY HIS FINGER NAILS
We are still trying to come to terms with the miracle of Mr. Waterman surviving the last cabinet shake-up. What a real miracle that was! How did the Waterman survive? Since taking up the job, this man appears to have gone to sleep, waking up occasionally to waffle a few words that get reported by the media and then he goes back to bed wrapped up in his nice duvet from Qatar.
We know water has always been a problem for Freetown. In fact we know the usual arguments about Guma Valley being too small to serve the expanding and heavily populated city, building of houses in catchment areas and all that. So our new minister should spare us any such talk. We want water. Full stop!! His survival tactics will be discovered soon and he may well return to his home in the diaspora before Christmas 2019 because:
1. Principal will realize that his policy to appease those who contested the flagbearer race against him is not a good one. That’s why even the cross-carpeting Ivan Rogers put his name forward. This compensation thing must stop. We could have ended up with Franklyn Rogers as minister of DEVELOPMENT if he didn’t switch to the Red Camp in the last minute or didn’t tell that abominable lie about his house having been burnt down somewhere in Bonthe on the orders of Principal. That would have hurt more than having this drought.
2. The water minister owes us an apology for all the trouble we encounter when we go in search of water and possibly compensation for those families whose children are raped or attacked as they move around with jerry cans looking for water at odd hours.
3. Water minister please resign. Your former deputy has been transferred to give him the opportunity to prove himself.
4. The Principal should know that not all that glitters is gold. The people are getting angry over this water wahala. Sack this man.
5. Is this ministry really relevant? We have SALWACO and Guma.
THE MAYOR OF THE SUN LOOKS GOOD ON SOCIAL MEDIA BUT FREETOWN IS STILL FREETOWN
Congratulations Mayor of the Sun. We read somewhere that you were “shining” in Trump Country mixing with colleagues from other countries. We even saw a photo of you taken in sunshine in a park. That’s great madam. When our politicians travel to some meeting anywhere in the world, they get their media teams back home to report about them “shining” or “excelling” at those meetings. As it was in the days of King Messi of Makeni, so it now is with Principal. So we are used to this “shine” and “excel” thing. Whatever they mean!
Now because our Mayor of the Sun is pretending not to have read the comments we made about the situation in this city, on her first anniversary in that big office we now re-state them as a reminder to our “shining” politician with that infectious broad smile. Again, we wish you all the very best. We pray that your Transformation Program will be an unqualified success. When that happens, Freetown will become a great city between the hill and the Atlantic Ocean where we will all live happily ever after. Amen!
But we still have some small matter to deal with back in our city. Let’s just put them on the table again so you can pick them up when you return to the office. Here goes:
1. Frankly, how can you allow that horrible mess to continue flowing in the middle of King Jimmy Bridge? Raw excrement pouring out on the bridge from God Knows Where and we have observed it for months and months hoping you will do something about it. Now we have another front opening up near big market. This is the reality of our Freetown madam.
2. Why did you have to look for extra money to mobilize a joint team of soldiers and police to clear the road from Lumley to Juba Barracks? That was a job for your police officers because you have people collecting market dues from those roadside traders who colonized the whole stretch, causing the worse traffic jam anywhere in Sierra Leone. Where are your police officers?
3. Moving beggars from the Cotton Tree area is a good effort but why have they all quietly come back with all the pile of rubbish near Taylor-Cummings Garden? Those near Bank of Sierra Leone hardly moved. A difficult problem indeed but how do you intend to deal with that? How much money did you spend trying to unsuccessfully hide them in some corner?
4. Now in your second year in office, we ask you kindly to invite as many of the people of Freetown to attend an open session of your council meeting. We want to be able to engage with our councilors. We will then squeeze in a question or two about pigs roaming freely in some parts of Kroo Bay and Kingtom and that big hole in the middle of Siaka Stevens Street, by Charlotte Street - near Mercury.
5. Please sell our football team – Freetown City Football Club. They are not winning matches despite the huge fortune we are spending to get them to participate in the Premier League. By selling the team you will also save us the disgrace of our team manager receiving cash from the opposing manager to buy “cold water” a few hours after losing a match against them.
FREETOWN – MASIAKA ROAD TO BE COMPLETED AT THE RAPTURE
At the current pace this toll road construction project will be completed a few days to the next general and presidential elections in 2023. Meanwhile our friends and their local counterparts are behind the walls of the toll-gate compound counting the daily collection with glee and laughing all the way to the bank. The agreement that brought our friends from so far away is in the hands of the Red Camp and was never crafted to get the best for us. When Ogar Biobele and friends pass through the toll gates any time soon we will hear another round of horror stories. Slowly but surely we are getting totally fed up with the crazy turn this has taken – our patience is running out.
Instead of focusing on finishing off the few kilometers of road, our friends from far away are very much concerned with collecting millions and millions of Leones on the backs of our people, so now we call on the New Direction administration to do the following with that little rogue project on our main arterial road:
1. Please publish the project documents approved by that RED Camp dominated parliament. The people DEMAND that. We want to see what King Messi did on our highway and who the people continuing his work there are.
2. We want to know the exact completion date, even if it’s a new one.
3. How involved are the local people along the road in the monitoring of the project and whether they have been appropriately compensated for their land and troubles encountered during on-going work.
4. We also want independent experts to check the quality of the road being constructed. We don’t want another Wilkinson road swindle.
5. Please open the gates of those toll road compounds to the public. We want to know what else is taking please there apart from receiving and processing cash bound for that faraway country.
CHILDREN IN NIGHT TIME STREET TRADING: WHO CARES
Recently, Principal and his wife took very commendable actions to highlight and deal with the problem of children in this country. We have launched the HANDS-OFF OUR GIRLS campaign and the ensuing State of Emergency on the question of sexual offences has ended with the sexual offenses law having been toughened to even include life sentence for certain offenses. These are serious matters and we applaud Principal and wife for that. But we have to bring this to their notice. He should know this by himself but because his vehicle moves at high speed to and from work, he is not likely to capture the details of the suffering facing the nation’s children.
1. We have Free Quality Education but we have a generation of children who despite the efforts of Principal are missing out. They are accompanying their parents living with disability on the streets begging daily while their counterparts are in school learning something. Are we saying we can’t do anything about that?
2. Lumley, Wilberforce and Jui junctions are teeming with children selling things late into the evening. We don’t think this is correct. If we have laws against child labour, let’s implement them or we raise our hands and give up.
3. Elaborate media campaigns on the issue are fine but they can change only a few minds. In fact some people easily dismiss such campaigns as elite talk. So spend money in the right places and monitor the outcome.
4. Community and religious leaders have a responsibility to end child labour and exploitation. Principal should call all of them to State House and tell them to wake up. They all came to Bintumani for the launch of the Hands off Our Girls Campaign with their wives but what have they done since? Has anybody checked?
5. Principal sir, what chance do you think children so exploited have against those who are enjoying the Free Quality Education right now? You have said many times that you care for all so let’s take all the children out of market places. Please.
© 2019 Politico Online
