THE FCC – MOUNTING ACCOUNTABILTY ISSUES
We have all been watching the drama unfold inside the Freetown City Council run by the Almighty Mayor Kemokai. Her backers at home and abroad believe she is under attack because of her puritanical approach to Sierra Leone politics in general and they also see her as the best or only person to TRANSFORM FREETOWN. We have no problem with people believing what they want to believe but we live in Freetown and we are not amused by the infighting inside the Tolongbo Council and we think it’s unfair when people talk about Freetown having been transformed by Mayor Kemokai.
The Mayor is fighting to remove her deputy from that position and possibly from the FCC. He is accused of doing some shady things. We hold no brief for the deputy Mayor but we will insist on due process being followed. We remember the case of Hon. Emerson Lamina now leader of the Coalition for Change party in the current parliament. As a Tolongbo Mayor in Kiodu, Kono district, he was accused of stealing money and pushed out of office by a Tolongbo government. The issue was investigated by a committee set up by Tolongbo. They found NOTHING against the man but he was never REINSTATED. He would go on to set up a new political party and win a resounding victory in the 2018 parliamentary election in the same place.
So there is just the odd chance that this is another Tolongbo trick to get the deputy Mayor out. Going on radio and engaging in hand to hand combat at council meetings serve no useful purpose. We insist on due process and we find it a little strange that our TWO SIM Mayor is not keen on following the procedures as explained the other day by a lawyer who should know about local governance in Sierra Leone. We are waiting for our Mayor to adopt her default position on issues going wrong inside her council. She would always blame the central government. Is the central government to blame now?
Is it that the opposition coalition body is not interested in the infighting going on in that Tolongbo council? Their spokesperson accused SLAJ the other day of not doing this and that, what does she have to say now about the civil war in the FCC? We will allow her a few days to think about this.
MEANWHILE HOW ABOUT THE PEOPLE OF FREETOWN?
In the midst of all the unnecessary infighting the people of Freetown have had to suffer in silence. Political struggles are part of the complex business of running organizations and countries but what has been going on at the FCC, controlled by ONE political party has defied comprehension. At the heart of it all has been the inability of Tolongbo to deal with the problem decisively. In a country as politically polarized as this, it’s always easy for our mayor to run to social media to blame particularly the central government for all her failings but that message is only likely to impact her base. The result of the current dysfunction in the FCC is clear to see in Freetown.
1. Sanitary workers who try to do the almost impossible task of cleaning Freetown went on strike. That in itself is not strange but when such low level but very important workers had gone on strike, it had always been about them wanting more money. While the Mayor was telling Tumac Radio her council was up to date with payment, the workers were complaining about salary arrears running into between THREE and FOUR months.
2. To press their demands home, the workers brought their raw materials to the doorsteps of FCC. That was clearly avoidable.
3. Let’s just walk along Hillside bypass road and see mounds of rubbish packed near electricity poles in the middle of the road. Let’s also check out the open drainage between Saint John roundabout and Dundas street. We don’t want to touch many places because these two to make our point that Transforming Freetown starts with keeping it clean and that is the job of the FCC.
REHABILITATING FIVE HOSPITALS IS GOOD BUT…
Let’s start by congratulating the government for putting a lot of money into the rehabilitation of FIVE hospitals across the country. Any attempt made to improve our health care delivery service – employing nurses and doctors, buying advanced equipment and improving the physical infrastructure is commendable.
We have read Pa Demby’s call for local people in the areas where the rehabilitation work is taking place to monitor the process and demonstrate ownership.
It’s good to say that in public and be in the headlines but it’s a different thing to stand by the local people when they clash with some contractors when monitoring gets into full gear. We hope Pa Demby will remember his words when complaints begin to land on his table at Youyi building.
It would appear as if Pa Demby is now in full control of the Ministry of Health and here’s why we say that:
1. Pa Demby had that public fight with the professional head of his ministry that was a bit of a disgrace because government papers were flying all over social media as both sides ignored official protocol to win the battle for the hearts and minds of the people. Despite his fight back the Chief Medical Officer is gone on leave, NEVER to return
2. Pa Demby reversed all the postings the defeated CMO made. The minister wanted to tell the rest of the people in that ministry that he was the boss.
3. In the last reshuffle of government, his two deputy ministers were shown the door out of the ministry, a further sign that Pa Demby was the real guy in the eyes of Principal.
4. So now he is rehabilitating hospitals but we want to urge him to attend to some basic things particularly at Connaught in Freetown including providing gloves for his staff at the Triage. He should treat that Triage as some kind of emergency even though the people who go there do not necessarily fit A and E case definition. People stay too long in that place and it’s always a bit too congested.
5. Let’s also train the medical workers there to know how to deal with the ordinary people of Sierra Leone who go there for treatment. We will hold this here for now and visit again in the coming weeks. Sometimes among the many people in that Triage are journalists who just visit to see how things work for the people.
CUSTOMERS AND SHORTAGES FROM BANK WITHDRAWALS
We notice that the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank is strenuously denying that their customers lose money when they make withdrawals from them because even neatly wrapped and sealed bundles of money suffer pilferage. The man who made the complaint on social media sounded genuinely hurt.
The SLCB thinks it’s a ploy to damage them and we understand why they were so quick and strong to defend themselves. This is a bank that has survived everything since the 70s including a devastating civil war and has carefully developed the brand even in the middle of powerful competition from the many new kids on the block. So, of course they have a right to fight back. Here’s what we think about the whole affair:
1. Whether that video was deliberately done to hurt the SLCB or not, we believe that the complaint about pilferage is genuine. We have experienced such ourselves but doing such video to damage SLCB is wrong and unpatriotic.
2. We can’t however hold SLCB responsible for that. It’s a very dangerous thing to do and this is where the person making the complaint on social media absolutely missed the point. How do we know that people we trust with processing withdrawals do not pilfer the bundles between the banks and our places of business? Let’s just think about that.
3. As far as we are concerned this ought to have been a complaint to the Bank of Sierra Leone because they supervise all commercial banks. This is something we have complained about in this column a few times. So it’s a general problem. It’s not always possible to count huge amounts of money in front of a teller. There are always long queues and until the promised NEW LEONE comes into force, we will have to do with big bundles of money in bags.
4. Had this complaint been well made, devoid of name calling and obvious bias it would have helped all banks to take the necessary steps to deal with the problem but we have serious issues with creating the impression it was an SLCB problem. It is not.
5. Anyway, let’s have the new notes so people can quickly count their withdrawals before leaving bank premises.
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