A GAME OF MUSICAL CHAIRS AT 10 DOWNING STREET
We wanted to wait for another six weeks to see if the game of Musical Chairs would continue with Sunak standing in front of the lectern outside 10 Downing Street to tell the media how wonderful an opportunity it was for him to serve as PM for a few days and then clearing the way for another Tory Prime Minister to enter the building. We have to hope that Sunak would survive until the next general elections but we may be wrong. We’ll see how things play out.
We always thought there was a message in the fact that Liz Truss failed to land a devastating knockout blow on Sunak at the leadership election. So here we are less than two months later several forces have combined to get Truss out of 10 Downing Street. We are talking about those people who voted for Sunak translating their preference for him even with Truss as PM into continuous opposition to her tenure, the reaction of the Market to her mini-budget and her desperate actions in the days leading to her fall. That includes the sacking of Kwarteng, believing that a line would be drawn under the affair; apologizing for her so-called mistakes on national TV and bringing in a Chancellor who would reverse all her policies just to steady the markets. Anyway, this chapter in British history will be great to read in the coming months.
For us in this little corner, we can only admire how a country with STRONG INSTITUTIONS can continue to function despite the political turmoil caused by the changes at the top. We don’t have a cabinet system of government here but even under the system we have here we cannot afford such disruption. This country will simply collapse because our institutions are weak or non-existent.
Anyway, let’s keep our eyes open during the next SIX weeks. At the end of SIX weeks from now we should be able to determine if it was TIME for Boris to RETURN or not.
TELCOS PULL PRICES BACK BUT WE HAVE QUESTIONS TO ASK
Things are back to some kind of normalcy, well the normalcy we had before the Ministry of Finance decided it would now implement the tax on internet data forcing ordinary folks like us to pay more than 153% of the usual tax. For 48 hour, the whole thing became crazy. It would take the intervention of Principal and a series of meetings for the increase to be PUT ON HOLD, meaning it might be allowed to stand after all.
The new Communications boss at Big House was quick on his favorite social media platforms to attempt to calm the situation by announcing that Principal would take charge of the loud cries. And the cries were really loud. Anyway, what should anybody expect when the interest of the elite is threatened?
Now, we want answers to the following questions:
1. Can the TELCOS tell us how much money they made in the 48 hours during which they implemented the new FLOOR PRICE? We ask for a reason as some of us want to tell Principal to go further by asking them to refund our money immediately.
2. The Ministry of Finance is going to parliament soon with another budget and another Finance Act, what would they be saying about the tax this time? Could it be that the implementation was PUT ON HOLD until a new Finance Act is passed in a few weeks?
3. All those MPs from all sides of the HOUSE approved this threshold that almost sparked a war but some were disingenuous enough to turn around and blame NATCOM. This time we will be with them in the room to see if they would merely release HOLD on the crazy 18% tax or keep things as they are.
4. We have nothing to say about our Civil Society Organizations. They are NEVER where they are needed.
AFTER PUBLIC SMOKING BAN IN SALONE WHAT NEXT?
We are extremely happy about the ban on tobacco advertising and smoking in public throughout Sierra Leone. In fact we wonder why the bill lasted so long at Tower Hill. We don’t have precise figures but we believe the lives of many non-smokers and smokers have been saved.
The next step now is to make that action by parliament truly effective once signed into law. There’s no point enacting some legislation for the purpose of satisfying an international requirement while the societal ill the law was supposed to correct continues as if it was business as usual.
Perhaps we are among the last countries taking action against the killer sticks. Principal should speedily sign this law and put the structures in place to demonstrate that he means business.
We also hope that at least some of our people who like to light up all the time would be persuaded now by all the restrictions to give it up. Some people will need help defeating the habit. We don’t believe this country is well prepared in that direction so it’s time to ask for international help.
There are a few more little bad habits we should attack and defeat quickly otherwise we will find ourselves going further down a steep hill. We may not need parliament for some of them because we believe there are laws in place already but some people in some big office should get serious about their job. Here goes:
1. Let’s act against those who like urinating in public. They are all MEN. We know we have problems with public toilets in the city of Freetown but that’s no excuse for MEN to be spraying urine all over the place. We should hit them hard in their pocket with instant fines in the same way the road safety corps fine drivers who break the rules.
2. Those that go to the second level and relieve themselves in dark corners should be put in an even more difficult position. Property owners should be brought before the courts for renting out their properties without providing good toilets for their tenants.
3. Throwing rubbish on the streets is another major menace to deal with. This is the city where people collect mounds of rubbish in their homes and then dump them on the streets in the dead of night.
We can’t really understand why any sane person would behave that way. There are also those who easily throw litter from car windows as if that was a normal way of life. This MUST STOP.
4. We don’t know how this will be done but seriously we should help some young women dress properly on the beach at weekends when they go jogging. Frankly some dress in a ridiculous way leaving us to wonder whether their mission is really about jogging or creating some side attraction. We know this is not Iran but we are just concerned.
MONTHS AFTER PRINCIPAL’S PENINSULA VISIT: NO CHANGE
We’ve been counting the weeks and months since Principal paid that unprecedented visit to the Peninsula to see what relentless deforestation has done to our water resources in particular and the whole environment. He spoke passionately about the need to conserve the forest and not do things to dry up the main dam that supplies water to Freetown. Principal promised that those who sold land and authorized buildings within the so-called GREEN BELT would be brought to justice and the ordinary people who were around applauded.
We now want to know what Principal or the people around him have done since those pronouncements were made. From our little corner, we are beginning to think that it’s business as usual once more. We say so because we are living in a country where each time such pronouncements are made people pretend to be falling in line in the first few days after but they soon return to the old ways with even more vigor. Is that what is happening right now in the peninsula?
Why can’t those charged with the responsibility of giving effect to what Principal said take us to the same place once more and prove to us that they have done what they were asked to do? In fact Principal was urged to send some people in big offices packing because they are the ones behind the whole environmental mess in the Peninsula. Are they still in post? The more things change, the more they remain the same.
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