AUSTIN DEMBY AND THE REFORMS IN THE HEALTH SECTOR
The other day a group of carefully selected media people had the opportunity to listen to the Minister of Health at a town hall meeting organized by his ministry, specifically for journalists. It wasn’t what we media people call a classic news conference, that’s what made their approach to engagement with the media unique. It’s probably the first. The minister had a lot of issues to deal with.
The journalists who attended say they left with the impression that a lot is going on in that ministry in terms of building and equipping new facilities and upgrading the old ones. The methods of delivering health care are also changing – we just witnessed the introduction of an application designed to track and support pregnancies everywhere in Sierra Leone. We will get to know more as time goes on.
Inevitably, the minister had to take a lot of notes on some issues raised by his guests. We are not entirely sure he was hearing about those issues for the first time. Anyway, he was very polite in replying to queries. Well done sir! In case you lost your notes sir, we want to remind you of some of those issues.
1. People need to see health workers behaving in a very professional way, especially those we found at the triage of one satellite clinic not too long ago. They were busy talking about Nigerian movies, paying scant attention to patients. They can talk about anything when they don’t have patients to deal with.
2. People MUST get official receipts for every penny they pay for treatment. That way we are sure the cash goes straight into the government’s coffers.
3. Workers or their friends and business partners should immediately remove all those illegal FREEZERS they are using in our hospitals to sell water and soft drinks. It’s wrong because we are paying the bills for that. Let them keep their freezers at home.
4. Having nice buildings and equipment is fine, no doubt about that but keeping them clean AT ALL TIMES is absolutely necessary. Let’s manage hospital waste well to keep out rats and their friends.
5. We want Mr. Minister to please pay UNANNOUNCED visits to health facilities around and get a feel of the real situation. We wish you the best sir.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SONGO-MOYAMBA ROAD
Soon we will be driving on a very good road from Songo Junction to the MABANG BRIDGE. Thanks to the government of Sierra Leone and the European Union. We don’t know the intricacies of how the EU funds those projects but we were told that the funding was initially earmarked for the MABANG BRIDGE but they probably saved some of the cash from the bridge project to be able to do the stretch of road leading to the bridge from the Freetown Masiaka Highway.
The government of Sierra Leone has no choice now but to put up the cash to do the rest of the road from MABANG BRIDGE to the township of Moyamba. Let’s spend our own money to pave that road from the bridge to Moyamba town. In fact, why didn’t the government get the EU to do the other side of the road with the savings from the bridge project? We should now begin to pave roads starting from the villages, completing in urban centers. Let’s reverse the situation and see what difference it makes.
When that road is completed it will achieve the following
1. Open up Moyamba to the rest of the country in ways never witnessed before. People from all over the country will easily access the rich fishing grounds of Shenge.
2. Travel time to the southern headquarter town of Bo from Freetown will be cut by at least THIRTY MINUTES.
3. All vehicles heading south will easily avoid the third rip off point we call toll gate and those hungry police officers hanging around Mamamah general area.
4. Suddenly, sleepy old Moyamba town will spring to life as the people there frequently interact with the rest of the country through trade in particular. The local economy will get a major boost. We are looking forward to action from the government.
WHEN WILL THE NATIONAL STADIUM BE HANDED OVER?
This question goes directly to the Minister of Sport who has spent a disproportionate amount of time in that office receiving people making so-called courtesy calls and posing for photo-ops on the steps of Bishop Building. More than FORTY sporting disciplines took the minister through that ritual over several months because she allowed a few of them to pop in at the very start of her time in the office. She could have saved time by putting them all in one place for an hour. Anyway, she probably wanted to keep herself in the limelight. Politicians really enjoy that.
Now, apart from visiting the stadium for her own courtesy visit to the Chinese people renovating the National Stadium, what else is the minister doing to make sure we get that facility back before the end of 2024? It’s the only one we have as a country and the work is way behind schedule.
We are paying crazy amounts of money to host countries in continental and world football. Morocco is making a lot of money each time we go there to host matches. It really makes no sense to ordinary taxpayers like us, to take our matches there when we can easily fly ONE HOUR to Senegal and use their excellent facilities. We suspect Morocco makes a lot of sense to those in the SLFA – they know what we mean by this.
Madam Minister, we need this stadium NOW. If the Chinese contractors have to recruit more staff and work flat out 24 hours a day, let them do so. We will not accept any proposal to take this job into 2025. Stop those endless courtesy calls now and brace up. We will be back.
SUNAK IS GONE AND A NEW ERA BEGINS IN THE UK
This was definitely the most extraordinary election indeed. The polls were correct from the beginning – Sunak and his party knew things were very bad for them but they had to keep fighting to the bitter end. The party that got a landslide in 2019 has just been thrown out of office. In just a few years, during which they changed Prime Ministers about FIVE times, the TORIES squandered all the goodwill of the people. The soul searching is well and truly on now. We expect a full blown civil war in the Conservative party to select their next leader.
Here’s what some aspects of this really big picture looks like today.
1. Paul Kagame should immediately ask his treasury to send back the money he received in that ill-advised Rwanda deportation plan. The UK needs every penny to sort out issues at home. We hope Kagame has not spent the money suppressing his opponents as he goes into one of those sham Yayah Jammeh style elections conducted simply to tick boxes. The housing units he built can be passed on to low income earners in Rwanda.
2. Those airlines that were on contract to fly asylum seekers to Rwanda should simply adjust themselves to the new reality. There will be no more of such flights because the new government thinks the whole plan is AN EXPENSIVE GIMMICK. Those already in Rwanda are the unlucky ones.
3. Many prominent Tory MPs, including that Prime Minister who lasted only 49 days in office have been defeated in rock-solid Tory constituencies, underlining the extent of the electoral rout. They saw this coming. They knew Sunak was totally unable to get them over the line but they had changed so many Prime Ministers that were now ashamed to approach their 1922 Committee to start another round.
4. From what we see now, surely it was a great mistake to bring that party-gate man back into the campaign at the last minute. He should have been allowed to enjoy his Caribbean holiday even with hurricane Beryl sweeping through the region.
5. Far right politician Nigel Farage has now entered parliament after trying EIGHT times. He is the Trump of the UK. The world is in for a lot of talking. At last Vladimir Putin has somebody in the great House of Commons who has gone to some length to understand the so-called Special Military Operation in Ukraine.
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