AFTER BURKINAFASO, LOGUS KOROMA AND ROBIN FALLAY MUST SPEAK OUT
The strongman of landlocked Burkinafaso is fighting hard to adjust to life outside the presidential palace. Deep in his heart, Blaise Compaore always knew his own people would one day rise and demand for him to go - he lived by the sword, he knew he would die by the sword. Compaore thought the best way to change that destiny was to have complete control of the army and the criminals he called MPs in that country. Sorry Mr. Strongman, the people have now set in motion a process that could result in them having proper control of their country and Blaise is in hiding - very embarrassed to hand himself in as a refugee in Ghana.
The third-term debate has come to a violent and telling end in Burkinafaso. Now we want to hear from failed minister Logus Koroma and the greatest opportunist of all time, Robin the Son of Fallay. These guys unashamedly started our own third-term debate and are committed to continuing it even after their initial effort ran into a Tsunami of protest and a grudging non-denial, denial from State House that De Pa wanted a third, fourth, fifth or even sixth term. In fact our own Blaise Compaore, Muhammar Ghadafi, Omar Bongo or even Robert Mugabe. They have to admit now that the event in Burkinafaso is very bad news for Logus and Fallay. We want them to challenge us on this.
Both Logus and Fallay are now enjoying the sweets of national office and the campaign has faded a bit. We believe the Ebola attack has dealt a fatal blow to that endeavour. Both men should now talk to us again about their third-term idea. A third-term bid for State House is impossible - but we will defend their right to go their own way on the issue.
FIRST AUSTRALIA, NOW CANADA. WHICH COUNTRY IS NEXT? Ayyyy SALONE!
We wake up every morning to a string of bad news about Sierra Leone, tied to the Ebola menace that has killed and infected many of our people. All Sierra Leoneans are being stigmatised because of Ebola. Recently Australia announced it would reject any Sierra Leoneans travelling there - well those flying in from the homeland. Now the Canadians have joined in.
Australia and Canada have a large number of Sierra Leoneans who arrived in those countries as refugees from the civil war that devastated this country in the 90s. Apart from those, very few Sierra Leoneans are traveling to those countries for study or visit. So we believe that the decisions taken in those countries are playing up to their domestic audiences more than anything else. The trouble is: Sierra Leone is their pawn. It's a disgrace.
So we are waiting for New Zealand or Papua New Guinea to announce a similar travel ban, completely against WHO advice. When tiny Seychelles took advantage of our situation to call attention to their tourist industry, we thought it was a joke. It will take many years to roll back the bad publicity countries like Canada and Australia have given to our country by their illogical action, based not on science but on politics.
We are more than disappointed that our foreign ministry has never said a word in public against Sierra Leone being treated in this way. All the minister cares about is building a Red Movement office in Kamalo and campaigning to be president of the African Development Bank. We wish him the best.
ROKEL BANK LOSES Le 99 BILLION? LET'S JUST CLOSE THE PLACE
Maybe we should all put our hands up and accept that Rokel Commercial Bank is a bank in big trouble and could go the way of IBTI. When they announced a Le 99 billion loss recently at their Annual General meeting we were shocked that some of those people who mismanaged the bank's resources in that way were not in jail by now, like their counterparts in the United States. A loss of Le 99 billion? This is unacceptable!
The bank hasn't come back to us on the issue of its debts. Rokel Bank bought newspaper pages recently and published the names of many people including some nondescript characters who owe the bank a lot of money. Have those debts been paid up in full? Or have some big political hands pulled you back. We don't even know the collaterals the debtors put forward before they got the loans. Ordinary mortals like us have never been able to go to our banks to get loans. SOME SIERRA LEONEANS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.
Right now we believe the confidence of people with small savings at Rokel have been badly shaken by this loss. We have heard assurances from the present managers of Rokel but they should understand why people are scared. The situation is not helped by the presence of all these other competing banks which have many problems of their own but are not in the same position as our dear Rokel.
We could have helped Rokel invest Le 99 billion in worthy programmes on behalf of the people of Sierra Leone but...hmmmmmmm!
SALONE FOOTBALL AUTHORITIES TREAT PARLIAMENT WITH CONTEMPT
Looks like parliament must now dig really deep to tell football authorities that they are very serious about cleaning up the stinking mess in Sierra Leone football. Their last meeting with the SLFA and the Ministry of Sport was a complete damp squib. As far as we are concerned, those officials were properly summoned so we found it hard to believe that they turned up for such an important meeting with the people's representatives with scanty or no paperwork at all. That's crazy.
There was this SLFA official in jeans and a faded second hand T-shirt bought on the streets of Freetown. It was right the MPs threw him out of the place. He should be made to do a formal apology to the Speaker of Parliament for such contemptuous behaviour.
See, we have a ministry that cannot afford enough papers to prepare documents for parliament. We hear their suppliers have cut off the pipeline because the ministry's debts are piling up. May be we can be of some help to the ministry here - let them run a paperless office. Go digital so that you can save the little you have just in case you are summoned to parliament next time. We think that with the Pope in that ministry, they must be ready for such call ups very often - the guy is too meddlesome. He once called the bluff of MPs by telling football stakeholders who complained to the parliamentary committee to go and see LORD HAW HAW
As for the SLFA boss, we want to see her in person - Ebola or no Ebola. How can she AWOL? Parliament is a very serious body and must not be treated as such. She must answer the call of the people's representatives.
© Politico 04/11/14
