Feature

By Milton Margai

In a society where the police are compromised and are woefully failing in the battle against crime and the maintenance of law and order, mob justice has the potential to thrive. The photos below are those of young people killed recently in Sierra Leone in unlawful circumstances. One is an alleged thief killed by a mob. The other is the corpse of a bright secondary school boy gunned down in cold blood during a ‘riot’.

By Aiah P. Thomas

By Francis Ben Kaifala, Esq

For most emerging economies, and developing countries, one of the common denominators of the problems they face is the high rate of illiteracy. Sierra Leone being one of those countries, it will be almost a cliché to repeat that it has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world – believed to be in excess of 70% on most indices except the UNDP index which sets adult literacy rate for both sexes at 42.1% and conversely sets illiteracy rate at 57.9%.

By Ezekiel Nabieu

The prospects of the gradual loss of the Krio language until it will no longer be recognized as a language per se is frightening, to say the least. It will be a sad day when we may no longer communicate with members of other ethnic groups except through interpretation.

In our last issue we carried an article written by Francis Kelfala on the state of the banks in Sierra Leone and the apparent liquidity crisis that accompanies the month of December.  In the following article, the Public Relations Officer of the central bank, Beresford Taylor, reacts to the issues raised.

By Beresford Taylor

I read your very interesting and thoughtful article, entitled “Our Banks and the Month of December”, published in the Politico Newspaper of 12 November, 2013 under the Column, Perspective.

The long preliminary investigation (P1) into the matter of State V. Dr. Roland Foday Kargbo, John Kapri Gbla, Henry Abu, Peter Lamin Dumbuya and Peter Brima Kargbo, which commenced before Magistrate Komba Kamanda in Magistrate court No.2 Freetown on July 10, 2012 is winding up. The case is against former officials of the defunct Help a Needy Child International (HANCI) who worked with a U.S-based adoption agency, Main Adoption Placement Services (MAPS) to pull a number of alleged illegal adoption counts of trafficking, and 7 counts of perjury.

By Francis Ben Kaifala ESQ.