TWITTER, The Gossip (30/06/16)

WHEN FIVE STARS DO NOT ADD UP, A CASE OF RADISSON BLU AND THE TOURISM MINISTER

What’s in the number of STARS a hotel has or is said to have, you may want to ask. Well everything, it seems. Including room rates - and in the case of Sierra Leone, not necessarily facilities. The case of the RADISSON BLU Mammy Yoko Hotel is an interesting one. The tourism minister says the hotel is dressed in BORROWED STARS. Kikikikiki! By the way who is surprised that the rooms are Radisson Blu Freetown cost far more than they are worth - too exorbitant! Certainly we are not surprised! Too obvious for anyone not to know that! However, an official of NASSIT, the state institution which owns over 80% of the shares at the hotel, has reacted disapprovingly saying such a statement by a minister could have far-reaching implications to the extent of room rates being deemed too high. Wonders will never end! So the concern of the hotel owners is not whether the STARS are up to five but rather IF WORD KOMOT NA DOE the room rates will be affected? That only suggests the minister is probably right! So let us, as Minister Tunis has said, reclassify all the country’s hotels EN LEH WE SEE EN KNOW UDAT NA UDAT. So if you know your STARS are no fake General STARS, and you are a Brigadier General or a Major General or even a Lt General, why worry! And by the way Mr Minister here are a few suggestions for you to consider:

1. Extend this reclassification to the Freetown and provincial Guest Houses too. Some of them are good only to be called goat or cockroach or rat pens.
2. And ban “short hand”, “long hand” joints also called guesthouses so that married women can have their husbands back, and those teachers and other dirty old men who take schools girls to these places will leave these poor innocent girls in peace.
3. Sequel to second above, registration of guests must be enforced with the submission of a photo ID card for both a guest and the “drifted”. Not long ago a public official was stopped in a French-speaking West African country as he attempted to take a minor into a hotel there. That minor was “saved” because the guards insisted on her photo ID to certify her age. We are seriously considering whether to publish the man’s name in an exclusive story we plan to publish. Our lawyers are considering it. It happened about four years ago or so, but we still feel the need to let it out in the interest of the public. E BI TINK SAY YANDA NA SALONE, ALL TIN GO. NO PROPER SYSTEM.

We shall make more suggestions in due course, Mr Minister. Not just about Radisson Blu Mammy Yoko.

WATER, WATER, WATER, WHERE ARE YOU IN THE RAINY SEASON?!

Where has all the noise gone?! Where has all the ostensible pretence gone!? Just a few weeks ago, before nature brought the rains, we were being hoodwinked into believing that some meaningful meetings were taking place to address the perennial water problem in Freetown. Like with almost all other things in this country, the fire brigade approach in the only approach, apparently because it creates the atmosphere as if our leaders are doing something when they are actually doing nothing. The piping network in the city is obsolete in some parts and nonexistent in many others. During the recent water crisis, which the “water” minister told the BBC was the worst in the country since records began, we were made to believe that something was being done. With the rains here with us now, DEN DON FORGET BOT DAT OH, FAMBUL DEM!!! Exactly as they respond to the mudslides, flooding, etc which happen almost every rainy season. We have told you that we can recycle our scripts about these natural disasters (IN FACT THEY ARE GOVT-ALLOWED DISASTERS) and they can still be published next rainy season as just having happened - just change the numbers and the dates. Yes, that is how the politicians keep fooling us! Yet we never learn. All we want are freebies from politicians. Freebies that are actually ours.

OKADA DEBUL MUST CHASE THE TAXI DRIVERS TOO

There is a breath of fresh air, no doubt, in most of the central parts of Freetown because of the excellent work done by Pallo Conteh - whom we have christened OKADA DEBUL. Commuters are basking in their newfound relief and drivers of both private and transport vehicles can now ensconce in their car seats and not always be on the edge looking left and right and up and down for the next Okada that is coming crashing into them.

But beneath that veneer is the exploitative tendencies of taxi drivers. With their nemesis off the road in the central parts of town, the drivers have doubled their fares in all but name. For what used to be a one-way route they are not splitting it into two even without some of them saying so. Stop a taxi at Kingtom Bridge heading to the town centre they will ignore you unless you charge yourself “a go pay two way”. Model to PZ, the same. Please OKADA DEBUL move in on these extortionists because the so-called 100 LOGUS BUSES seem like 15 on the streets on Freetown. USAI DEN ALL DON GO OH, PAPA GOD!  IN FACT NA 100 BE KAM? HMMM.

BAD NEWS FOR STRAY DOGS, WE SAY FOR THEIR OWNERS TOO!

Well, official figures say some 500 deaths in Sierra Leone every year are caused by dog-mediated rabies. Well now a national campaign to eliminate the disease gets underway next week Monday as a PRAY DAY gift to one of the countries with the highest concentrations of stray dogs, starting with Freetown residents. We suggest the following:

1. All dogs must be registered and their owners issued with an ownership photo ID with a photo of the dog. Kikikiki.
2. There should be regular visits to these homes and the dog owners prosecuted if they cannot give account of their dogs - alive or dead.
3. Veterinarian officers should be assigned to areas in towns or villages to be treating the dogs.
4. No one should be allowed to own a dog if they don't have a pet sleeping room, especially in the rainy season. After all if you cannot feed a baby then don't have a baby. Same for dogs.
5. All dog deaths must be recoded by the municipality or local council in the area before burial.
6. Import duties should be removed on canine foods.
7. All children in schools should be given an anti-rabies vaccine.

We promise you with more. Save a dog today and save someone who could have died of rabies. MORTAL MAN TINK SAY WE GET SENSE PASS ALL D ANIMAL DEM WAY GOD MALE, BUT WE FOOL. hahahahahahah! See you next week.

THE INTOXICATING COLOSSUSES CALLED ROUNDABOUTS 

Improved roads, no doubt, in many parts of the country. And amazingly many feeder roads in Freetown have been worked on. We may have issues with the way some of the contracts are awarded and the costs attached to some of the road rehabilitation work - that is for another day - but on the whole the roads have spectacularly improved. What baffles us however is this: whenever we drive around town we cannot help but feel livid at the issue of the roundabouts (turntables). From Wilberforce to HillCut Road Junction, from Congo Cross to Aberdeen, etc, the roundabouts are massively and unnecessarily colossal. Rather incomprehensibly the roads around them are so narrow that you have to be extremely careful in minding your steering wheels or you ram on the railings. What is the point in having such a massive turntable - with no recreation at the centre? Why not reduce their sizes and allow for cars and vehicles to move about freely. We are not only journalists, we are engineers as well. So we challenge you to this also.

(C) Politico 30/06/16