News

By Mustapha Sesay

Following the enactment of a new minimum wage Act last year, which takes effect this month, thousands of Sierra Leoneans are bound to lose their jobs, employers have said.

A number of employers, among them security companies and domestic service providers who spoke to Politico, said they could not afford the new Le 500,000 minimum wage, but would have to lay off some of their staff.

By Septimus Senessie in Kono

Local Government Minister has said that she is “highly displeased and unhappy” with the fourteen paramount chiefs in the Kono district, south of Sierra Leone.

Finda Diana Konomayi-Kabbah was responding to grim reports on the Ebola situation in the district while addressing ten of the fourteen Paramount Chiefs in the district at a meeting she organised in Koidu town on the eve of the last visit by President Ernest Bai Koroma and his vice, Sam Sumana.

By Joseph Lamin Kamara

The Academic Staff Association (ASA) at Njala University College has written a letter to the Minister of Education, Science and Technology indicating that they have not been paid December salary and other emoluments owed them by the college administration.

By Mustapha Kamara Jnr

The World Health Organisation spokesperson in Freetown has disclosed that the Centre for Disease Control will soon provide vaccines to possibly prevent nurses and others leading the Ebola fight from contracting the virus.

Speaking to Politico, Winnie Romeril, revealed that WHO was working with the centre in the United States together with Johnson and Johnson Company in the UK to fast-track researches that would expedite the provision of vaccines to help prevent new transmission of the Ebola virus.

By Bampia James Bundu

Chairman of the Political Parties’ Registration Commission, PPRC, has warned against political parties violating constitutional processes while conducting their congresses and preparing their financial reports.

Addressing political parties at the commission’s headquarters in Freetown, Hon. Justice M.E. Tholla Thompson, said that his commission would change its approach in regulating and supervising political parties this year.

The founder of FANT SL, a Danish charity using football to improve the lives of young people in Freetown's slum communities, Eric Rasmussen is in Sierra Leone with two journalists and a medical doctor from Denmark "to help in the fight against the Ebola virus."

According to him, the team which will be in Sierra Leone for ten days, will work with eight vulnerable communities in Freetown with employees being football coaches and community organizers.

By Crispina Taylor

Member of Parliament for constituency 068 in Bo District, Southern Sierra Leone, Paran Tarawally, has accused Airtel, one of the country’s leading mobile phone operators, of treating consumers’ complaint with levity.

The lawmaker was making an observation in a matter of over-billing that was brought before the Parliamentary information committee against the operator by an aggrieved subscriber.