News

By Kemo Cham

Sierra Leone is playing host to a delegation from the United States as part of efforts to advance the Global Health Security Agenda(GHSA), the US embassy in Freetown has announced.

The visit which, started yesterday and would continue till 29, January this year would see the US Government team hold discussions with their Sierra Leonean counters, together with international partners on how to push ahead with the initiative in line with the country’s post-Ebola recovery agenda.

By Kemo Cham

Hygiene and sanitation issues have led to deadly outbreaks and continuously put people’s health at risk, a senior health official has said.

Madina Rahman, Deputy Minister of Health and Sanitation, said the situation had placed the country’s fragile health system under tremendous strain.

She was speaking at the official opening of a forum organized to chart the way forward in dealing with Sierra Leone’s growing problem of waste management.

By Kemo Cham

The United Nations country office has launched a nationwide campaign with a photographic exhibition geared towards propagating the new global development goals, dubbed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The SDGs are a set of 17 development goals adopted at the last UN General Assembly in September last year. They replaced the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which came to an end after 15 years serving as blue print for global development agendas.

The new goals had been set to be achieved by 2030.

By Tanu Jalloh

The Institute of Governance Reform today releases a report estimating that at least Le81billion worth of illicit payments were made to traffic officials in 2015 by nearly 60% of traffic offenders.

The method and conclusions the research which involved 500 motorists and traffic officers in Freetown also claimed that “government lost an estimated Le700 billion (32% of revenue) from license fees and potential fines for traffic offences that are not paid to authorised revenue collection agencies”.

By Kemo Cham

A group of senior musicians have dissociated themselves from calls by some section of the music industry propagating the controversial presidential term increment for Ernest Bai Koroma.

In a press release issued yesterday the Sierra Leone Musicians Union (SLMU) said they were more concerned with developing their members and that the group had no political agenda.

By Mohamed Massaquoi in Pujehun and Mabinty Kamara in Freetown
A landmark youth employment scheme designed by the government for unskilled young people has met with a major stumbling block after the sponsor failed to provide cash to sustain the scheme.

Mohamed Kamara, Public Relations Officer at the Ministry of Youths confirmed that some 2, 500 youth across the country, involved in the ‘YouthsEmpowerment Scheme’, being managed by the ministry, had gone for eight months without pay.

By Mustapha Kamara Junior

Government’s decision to regulate school frees being charged by private schools authorities in Sierra Leone has been greeted with a sigh of relief by aggrieved parents who feel the fees are exorbitant.

The government, through the ministry of education, had vowed to shut down any school whose fees were not commensurate to the educational facilities they provide.