Residents of Waterloo in the outskirts of Freetown were over the weekend surprised at the flurry of accusation and counteraccusation between staff of the Western Area Rural District Council (WARDC) and radio journalists of Radio Viacity.
The furore was over the disbursement of Le 460 million for the improvement of local water services, provided by SALWACO.
The journalists said the residents had been once bitter over a previous sum of Le 700 million from the Ministry of Finance under the Direct Service Development Program for the rehabilitation of the District Quarter Dam and the Loco Dam. They were just being twice shy this time round by their eternal vigilance.
Staff of the WARDC were flustered over the publicity and threatened to take legal action against any journalist for the "false information". The Proprietor of Radio Viacity then went on the air and said his staff could not be threatened or cowed.
The previous contracts were awarded to Moliba Construction Company and Hasba Construction Company which were believed to have done a shoddy job of work not commensurate to the amount spent.
Under the Rural Private Sector Programmes of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, billions of leones given to council for feeder roads have been frittered away. One such road is the four-mile road from Waterloo to Fogbo awarded to a contractor called Jalmans from Bombali whose contract was terminated owing to poor and unsatisfactory construction. Curiously enough another contract was awarded to the same Jalmans under the Road Maintenance Administration.
The council’s vehicles have all been grounded while salaries have not been paid for four to five months.
And all this was going on while hundreds of millions of Leones were spent in the renovation of the Waste Management Wall that is about 50 yards.
Many Waterloo residents told Politico that they had no confidence in external auditors not to talk of internal ones. They say the plight of the council is too serious not to attract the attention of the Anti Corruption Commission.
(C) Politico 17/12/13
