By Crispina Taylor
Member of Parliament for constituency 067 in Bo, Sualiho Koroma, has said in parliament that Sierra Leone’s former minister of Health and Sanitation, Miatta Kargbo, should apologize to the nation for failing to professionally handle the Ebola crisis when it initially broke out in the country.
According to MP Koroma, who was contributing in a debate on the president’s speech, on Monday, the former Health minister knew that she lacked the capacity to handle the crisis then but failed to admit it, thereby allowing it to escalate and consume many innocent lives.
He said Kargbo had deceived parliament on several occasions when called upon to explain the ministry’s state of affairs with relation to the crisis, adding that the then minister kept assuring The House that everything was under control.
“That was complete criminal negligence on her part because she failed woefully in her response to the crisis which has lead to disaster”, the opposition MP said. He said he only brought the issue up now because the president’s recent speech to the nation was based on the present situation.
But another MP, representing constituency 096 in Freetown, Alhassan Kamara, said that he “totally disagree” with his colleague’s statement because “the APC as a government was prepared based on their capacity”.
Though the government acknowledged the fact that there had been serious challenges in the fight so far, MP Kamara noted that the Ebola crisis would never have gotten to the present point had it not been politicized by people. He said even some politicians were guilty of the politicization as some went to the extent of telling the public that there was nothing like Ebola in the country.
He went on that there was no universally established policy in the handling of Ebola which could warrant the former minister to apologize to anybody. He said she did nothing wrong.
© Politico 28/01/15
