We wish you a Merry Christmas in advance our smiling Mayor Kemokai of FCC. Please don’t go home to the UK this year to enjoy a white Christmas. Stay with us in this “transformed Freetown” so that we can all enjoy your output over the last FOUR YEARS. We will come to that in one of our last editions for this year. For now we have something else on our mind.
As good citizens of this great city we are calling on you to withdraw those giants you have unleashed on property owners in this city so you can train them well in how to collect debts. We saw a group of them in action a few days ago and were left scandalized that guys like that were employed on our behalf. One of them was rough; the others were ringing a bell for God knows what and behaving as if they had captured a thief trying to take the Mayor’s robe away.
We have no problem with you collecting property taxes but do it the way it is done in your other country. We can’t have giants threatening people in the guise of collecting debts. The courts are open for people who refuse to pay up. In fact, what’s this thing about ringing a bell like the start of a primary school day? You have the right to deploy your tax collectors but the taxpayers have a right to comply peacefully or as a result of a Court Order.
Residents of Freetown also have a right to ask the following questions about their taxes
1. How come our city is so filthy with all the property taxes and market dues you collect? We have not added central government subventions.
2. Can you please tell us about the BIG MONEY you won recently for Freetown? Is the money in our coffers now?
3. By the way, is that DELIVERY UNIT still in place at FCC? We ask because of the small matter of your engagement with the ACC.
SALONE PREMIER LEAGUE OPENS WITH VIOLENCE
What we saw on the field of play in Portloko the other day completely shames this country, not just those who love the beautiful game. The image of the match referee being slapped and kicked as he ran for his dear life speaks adequately of the fact that despite all the talk about the modernization that the game has gone through all over the world, Sierra Leone football is still in the STONE AGES. And we add for good measure that this happened in Portloko yet again. Doesn’t that ring a bell?
People disagree with match officials daily, even in the ongoing World Cup tournament, players push and shove each other but beating up referees will NEVER happen in the modern game before someone's careers will come to an end with just a few lines from FIFA. Even as we write the PLB is yet to tell us what they have done about that disgrace. It’s always a great thing to act swiftly and not create the impression powerful people behind the scenes are trying to influence the outcome.
The SLFA and the PLB should not fool themselves. They must consider the following for the successful running of this league:
1. The PLB must ensure that the matches are played only in locations where players, officials and fans can be secured. The SLFA should be strong enough to ban certain playing fields. CAF has done it across Africa. Why can’t we do it here?
2. SLFA should be prepared to ban certain individuals from all matches under their supervision. They should be prepared to go to court to get that done legally because only a few hooligans are responsible for all the violence in our game. The SLFA knows some of them. There are very big names among them.
3. While doing the above let’s train our referees and kick out the politically-motivated and corrupt ones. We will say no more on this aspect.
EXPLOITING THE DISABLED BETWEEN TANZANIA AND KENYA
We just wonder what else humans have not done to exploit other humans, especially the disabled. The BBC Africa Eye just revealed a cruel trafficking of disabled people from Tanzania to major towns of Kenya for the sole purpose of exploiting them.
The masters of the trade and their agents take both children and adults from poor families and communities in Tanzania with the promise of helping them learn a trade to support their families back. We can only imagine how many people will fall for that given the economic realities of our times. However, when they finally land in the Promised Land of Kenya, they are subjected to inhuman treatment of the worst kind. Some may never see their families again.
They are unleashed on the streets to beg from dawn to dusk; come rain come shine and in the end, all the proceeds from their begging is collected from them. On days when the streets are dry, they will be mercilessly beaten for not bringing home enough cash. Why are people so wicked?
We don’t really know whether people are brought over from Guinea and Liberia to beg on our streets but we know that children are being brought into Freetown in particular from areas outside the capital for this same purpose. We recently raised concern in this column about the influx of beggars on our streets. We should be careful not to have such begging cartels here in Sierra Leone organizing things on an industrial scale.
We have many children begging on the streets with their parents when they should be in school getting an education. The FCC started a program to move beggars from the center of our city but it collapsed like a pack of cards within a few months. Since then the numbers have multiplied. We cannot allow this to continue.
QATAR 2022: GOODBYE AFRICA
The Morocco team is waiting to play a match no team likes playing under any circumstances. They will play a third place match against The Netherlands. Both teams lost their semi-final matches against Argentina and France respectively. The defeat of Morocco means Africa is out of the tournament – well we have to be sure Morocco players consider themselves as Africans. The other day one player had to apologize after he was told he only credited their quarter final victory over Portugal to the Arab World. We will not accept that. He knew what he was doing?
Anyway, officially, all countries found on the continent called Africa are now out of the competition. With a semi-final place, some are celebrating in the hope that the next time the world assembles in North America; an African country should lift the trophy. We’ll see how that goes.
We are hearing that FIFA will increase the number of teams from our continent. We welcome that. We only hope our governments will put in the necessary investment so that when we send teams to the World Cup they will not end up becoming whipping boys. Please let’s not assume that those promised places are for fallen heroes of Africa. We should all compete fairly to select the best.
Copyright © 2022 Politico (16/12/22)
