LIFE INSURANCE FOR HEALTH CARE WORKER IS A FANTASTIC SCHEME
We congratulate Principal for recognizing the contributions of our health care workers to the well-being of the good people of Sierra Leone in general and particularly in the fight against COVID–19. This recognition goes well beyond the normal business of saying thanks to them and talking about them in public which was a major characteristic of King Messi’s struggles with Ebola. The insurance scheme now in place takes the business of caring for health care workers who die in the course of saving other lives to a new and impressive level.
The truth is, the people who received those huge amounts of money from Principal the other day would more than ONE HUNDRED PERCENT prefer to have their relatives alive to getting big money from the state. That’s a given! However, for the state to so appreciate the work of one’s dead relative in the service of the nation is NOT BAD AT ALL. We are sure all the next of kin who met the president on Tuesday are very pleased with their contribution to the development of Sierra Leone.
In recent times, we have reported a lot on health care workers grumbling, even going on strike over either not being paid or delays in their payment cycle and we are not even sure those issues have been permanently laid to rest. The important thing now is that Principal has just told our health workers that he is prepared to go the extra mile to secure their families should the worst happen to them on the Front Edge Battle Area against COVID -19.
The good people of Sierra Leone now humbly ask our health care workers to continue their good work and kick COVID-19 out of Sierra Leone. Well done Principal! We pray for you our GALLANT health workers. Your reward is HEAVEN!
WELCOME TO THE HOT SEAT MOHAMED KENEWUI KONNEH
In the end Mohamed Kenewui Konneh the new chairman of the National Electoral Commission was approved by parliament with a big majority. The main opposition party was expected to oppose and vote against him and they did just that.
At the confirmation hearing he told the Committee on Appointments that he was aware of the size of the task and public expectations and that all he would do when that time came around was “interpret the will of the people” as expressed in the ballot box.
The new NEC man is coming to public view only now. He is not like Sister of Cluny who had been in politics before the appointment or N’fa who until his appointment was a key player in NEC itself. Soon we will get to read or hear a bit more about the former ACC and AFDB investigator, now NEC boss.
We listened to some opposition politicians and their dire predictions about what would happen to this country should Konneh declare results that they consider as rigged. We have no place for rigging of any kind. Any such, with clear evidence, will be resisted by us. But for those threatening war and all that, we think their reported statements are unfortunate and they should withdraw them immediately. Are we in a democracy or not?
We live in a country where only yesterday the people were singing the praises of our judiciary when things happened in their favor. So what is all this fake war talk? We warn them to be careful what they wish for. When it comes to elections in this country, we are used to losers crying foul. Konneh will face that in his time in that place.
LANDS MINISTER AND HIS LOVE FOR SOCIAL MEDIA DRAMA
How did our lands minister live his life in the days when social media didn’t exist or wasn’t widely used? We ask because for him even routine office matters that his colleagues engage in quietly but effectively are made a social media phenomenon. Besides, he has this tendency to take a yard when only a mile is due him. In the early days of the NEW DIRECTION administration, he issued that infamous Ministerial Order Number One on a radio station extending the national cleaning curfew time. That was quickly reversed. In fact people ignored his ministerial order and gave him a sound beating on social media.
At the start of the war against COVID–19, the government announced measures including decongesting public offices, social distancing and no-handshake orders. The Emperor of social media quickly called in his deputy and shot a video showing him announcing his own measures in his office ending with a strong handshake with his deputy. So what was the whole thing intended to achieve then?
The other day the Emperor was disgracing a senior member of his party on social media, accusing him of witchcraft with his boys telling the world that pieces of dirt picked up close to his office were pellets from the underworld brought there by his own party colleague to kill him. Was that really a matter for social media?
Now in the week following that, our Emperor was at it again having a big argument with a colleague minister in open space with civil servants and ordinary people, including criminal land grabbers milling around. We know that other ministers would take note of their findings on a field exercise and then get their civil servants to set up meetings where details will be thrashed out between ministers. What is difficult about that?
We have to warn the Emperor that he is beginning to get on the nerves of many people including Principal. Surely, this is not the way to deal with serious matters, however well-intentioned he may be.
NOSTALGIC CRIES FROM KUWAIT/LEBANON MAKE NO SENSE ANYMORE
Please somebody should tell our sisters who went to Kuwait, Lebanon and other parts of the Arab World to look for work but fell on hard times out there to stop sending messages on social media asking the government of Sierra Leone to repatriate them. Our position is that we are fed up with their noise and we do not believe that amidst the huge challenges back home the government should spend a penny on repatriating them. Let them find their way back or ask their agents who organized their trips to take that burden. The ordinary taxpayers of this country have no business carrying that burden.
We have observed this completely wrong recruitment process taking place over many years now. The young people, mostly women, are taken from this country by shadowy agents on bogus employment promises and dumped in the Middle East against good advice in this country. A year or so later, they are all over social media talking about maltreatment by their so-called masters and pestering our diplomats out there to repatriate them. After one or two examples, the whole nation thought serious lessons had been learnt. Now we have an endless cycle of Sierra Leoneans being dumped abroad and the government spending on them money that should otherwise be put into schools and hospitals. This is very bad and should be discontinued. This government should do the following:
1. Ask the Ministry of Labour to undertake aggressive media campaigns highlighting the dangers of going to those places on the basis of those criminal contracts.
2. The shadowy agents who organize such recruitments should have their licenses withdrawn immediately. Some should be prosecuted and jailed for selling our relatives into modern day slavery.
3. Perhaps we should ask all of those repatriated in such conditions to refund the money we spend on air tickets, accommodation and meals.
4. It is the right of people to own passports and travel abroad for whatever reason apart from staging wars in other countries but we should be a little more careful in how we issue passports.
5. We need to help people get jobs here and so make these travels for pittance totally unattractive.
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