HELLO SLRA: PIKE STREET BRIDGE IS IN A VERY POOR STATE
Good Morning Mr. Director General of SLRA. Hope things are going well with you and your organization despite all the challenges. We know the challenges are many indeed but we want to call your attention to the dangerous situation along Pike Street, close to the Corrections Services Barracks. We have put a picture of that important bridge.
We don’t know where you live in Freetown but even if you live in the West of the city, we cannot tell the route you take to and from work. We can say the same for other senior people at the SLRA. So let’s assume for the sake of the point we want to make that you’ve NEVER seen this serious situation on Pike Street Bridge or indeed your attention has NEVER been drawn to it. Please allow us in the most respectful way to open your eyes to potential trouble waiting to happen on this bridge. In journalism we say a picture is worth a thousand words so just take a close look at this bridge. Sir, you can also ask your staff to visit this place and prove us wrong because these days some people have made it their business to spread fake news all the time. This situation on that bridge is very bad sir.
We don’t know how this is likely to affect the whole structure. It may well not lead to another Savage Street but surely this is not good enough and we certainly don’t need to negotiate a loan with the IMF to fix this. In fact the upper side of Pike Street leading to Jomo Kenyatta road has deteriorated so fast that by the end of the rains we might come back to this column with a different story.
We know there are many roads competing for your attention but just drive through this place and experience what we are talking about. Good Luck sir.
HEAVY DUTY TRUCKS CRASHING FREQUENTLY
We don’t yet know how many people were killed when a heavy duty truck crashed into a wall along Regent road just after the drive leading to Choithram’s Hospital. Road crashes happen daily around the world so that only truly horrific ones make the headlines these days. We are taking this up here because we have at different times complained about the road worthiness of many of the heavy duty trucks we see on our roads. We have also complained about the habit of some of the drivers of these kinds of vehicles to use roads that are completely prohibited to heavy duty trucks.
There is no information yet on where that vehicle’s journey originated from but there are areas that are prohibited to such vehicles in the general area of IMATT, the end from which the vehicle was driving from. The police at Regent refused to talk to us on those specific issues as they normally do. We need all the information to make sense of what really happened.
At the scene we were told the vehicle appeared to be out of control as it descended a small hill probably because the brakes had failed and the driver thought all he had to do was to crash the vehicle into that wall and prevent a catastrophe should the vehicle develop further speed approaching the junction leading to NATCOM. This is what came from people standing around but we want to hear directly from the police and it makes no sense to refuse to talk to the media on whatever pretext until another crash occurs.
In recent times heavy duty trucks have been involved in several crashes in Freetown in particular leading to the loss of lives. We hold the SLRSA and the Police responsible for allowing very bad vehicles with such destructive capacity to be on our roads. Surely there are things to do to stop the loss of innocent lives to these kinds of vehicles. Do them we MUST.
IS BORMEH REALLY RELOCATING TO HASTINGS?
The exact time lines have not been set but Tamba Lamina is confident that Bormeh will soon cease to exist in its present location. He says the landfill site will be relocated to an area called Hastings outside Freetown. As always with such ministerial announcements, it’s good to wait for the details to emerge and then take in the views of those for and against any such announcement.
As far as this announcement is concerned the two local councils affected have a big say in how things proceed after the announcement. Soon we will hear from Mayor Kemokai in Freetown. She will go on social media and tell the world that she wasn’t CONSULTED but if the programme is done successfully, she will be the first to run down to Bormeh take some pictures of herself smiling and cause it to be widely distributed on social media. That’s Mayor Kemokai.
The Local Council Chairman in Waterloo who covers Hastings is not so much in the news except that recently he was reported as saying he would bring TWENTY buses to that place to help with transportation difficulties. We are still waiting but meanwhile young people in that place recently destroyed two government buses for only God knows why. Anyway, we’ve been thinking about a number of issues:
1. Pa Lamina is finally trying to remove that shame left in that important part of our city all these years. Tolongbo Mayors, past and present have said things about solving the Bormeh question. They thought building a fence along the street to cover the shame was enough. Now we need to carefully consider what Pa Lamina is proposing.
2. We don’t know the exact area in Hasting where landfill is going to be relocated. The local people are going to have a say in that, with the Local Council Chairman there having a lot to do with the final decision. The fact that the opposition is in charge there and we are moving close to elections will be a major factor in this.
3. Also the landfill in Waterloo which is just close by is a total mess. It’s worse than Bormeh. Isn’t that something the people of Hastings will consider before allowing Pa Lamina to go ahead with his project?
4. Pa Lamina may also have to deal with a demonstration of some sort at the present Bormeh site. There are many people who make a living scavenging in that place. They are not likely to tolerate any talk about moving the thing. Pa Lamina should call in some NGOs to recommend alternative livelihood strategies.
5. By the way, what are the plans for the old Bormeh should we eventually move to Hastings. There should be serious development in that place to discourage people from throwing rubbish there even after relocation. How about that?
THE NEW LAND OWNERS OF BUREH BEACH AND KENT COMMUNITIES
Turad Senessi has gone down in the history of this country as the only Minister of Lands to have impartially distributed land for the benefit of ALL SIERRA LEONEANS by means of raffle draw. Under his leadership, Kortor Juldeh has handed over documents for parcels of land won by ordinary Sierra Leoneans in a raffle draw done transparently in the compound of Youyi Building in broad daylight. We have NEVER witnessed such a thing before in this country.
It is no secret that people are fighting and killing each other over land all the time, the courts are overflowing with land cases taking years to conclude and even after that, court orders are sometimes impossible to execute because at that point people deploy what we can call private militia to stop the wheels of justice from rolling on. So land is a potential source for big trouble particularly in Freetown. That’s why we congratulate Turad Senessi for this idea of using a raffle to select FIVE HUNDRED ordinary Sierra Leoneans for the parcels of land they received recently.
The process itself wasn’t as smooth as it ended that day:
1. There was serious resistance from inside ruling party circles to the idea of doing a raffle. Many guys wanted a straight forward sharing of the land as compensation for helping the Green Movement come to power in 2018. Our information is that Turad resisted and Principal backed him. That’s why this happened a week ago. There is no place for partisanship in this.
2. Many of those who turned up for the raffle are among the many Sierra Leoneans who believe that nothing can be so transparent in this country and that the process was already manipulated to benefit party people. It was only when winners were announced that they confessed to having made a mistake doubting the sincerity of Turad Senessi.
3. We have not heard or read any criticism of the process so far. We wish the new land owners all the best while calling on the ministry to MAKE SURE THE LAND OWNERS STICK BY THE CONDITIONS OF OWNERSHIP of a piece of state land. We know why we are saying this.
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