SMOKING IN A PUBLIC PLACE IS BANNED IN SALONE
We are extremely happy about the ban on tobacco advertising and smoking in public throughout Sierra Leone. This is a good piece of legislation that this parliament has passed and we wonder why the bill lasted so long on Tower Hill. We don’t have precise figures but we believe the lives of many non-smokers and smokers have been saved.
The next step now is to make that action by parliament truly effective once signed into law. There’s no point enacting some legislation for the purpose of satisfying an international requirement while the societal ill the law was supposed to correct continues as if it was business as usual. Perhaps we are among the last countries taking action against the killer sticks. Principal should speedily sign this law and put the structures in place to demonstrate that he means business.
We also hope that at least some of our people who like to light up all the time would be persuaded now by all the restrictions to give it up. Some people will need help defeating the habit. We don’t believe this country is well prepared in that direction so it’s time to ask for international help.
There are a few more little bad habits we should attack and defeat quickly otherwise we will find ourselves going further down a steep hill. We may not need parliament for some of them because we know there are laws in place already but some people in some big offices should get serious about their job. Here goes:
1. Let’s act against those who like urinating in public. They are all MEN. We know we have problems with public toilets in the city of Freetown but that’s no excuse for MEN to be spraying urine all over the place. We should hit them hard in their pocket with instant fines in the same way the road safety corps fine drivers who break the rules.
2. Those that go to the second level and relieve themselves in dark corners should be put in an even more difficult position. Landlords should be brought before the courts for renting out their properties without providing good toilets for their tenants.
3. Throwing rubbish on the streets is another major menace to deal with. This is the city where people collect mounds of rubbish in their homes and then dump it on the streets in the dead of night. We can’t really understand when any sane person would behave that way. There are also those who easily throw litter from car windows as if that was a normal way of life. This MUST STOP.
4. We don’t know how this will be done but seriously we should help some young women dress properly on the beach at weekends when they go jogging. Frankly some dress in a ridiculous way leaving us to wonder whether their mission is really about jogging or creating some side attraction.
OPEN NEGLECT IN THE HEART OF FREETOWN
Take a look at these pictures. We took them a few days ago in the heart of Freetown. We observed the situation a few days later and things were the same. How can any responsible public works organization behave this way? We suspect that some clearing of the drainage was underway to prevent flooding but leaving gutters open this way anywhere in this country is as dangerous as it is unacceptable.
We are not able to ascertain that any injury has occurred in this place but we can’t rule it out. In some countries people who accidentally injure themselves in a neglected place like this would kill the responsible public works agency with compensation payments but such a thing is unheard of in Sierra Leone. That’s why they take so much risk.
We will pass by this place again to see whether any action has been taken to restore normalcy to this very busy area of Freetown.
SLFA PULLS BACK FROM EASTERN REGION MATCH FIXING PROBLEM
Thomas Daddy Brima is taking himself into a deep hole and he will struggle to get out of it. We do not believe he will easily find people to get him out. That includes those who are now pushing him into the hole by telling him there was no match manipulation or fixing in the eastern region recently in the so-called SUPER 10 league.
We don’t yet know why he is convinced that those calling for action are intent on SABOTAGING his administration. The facts about what happened in the east are clear and he should NEVER attempt to blind us all to those realities. We know that ridiculous results were recorded in two matches in Kono and Kenema, we also know that officials there apologized for the manipulation that took place, we know that a match official abandoned one of the matches midway when he realized that something unusual was underway and we have the words of Thomas Daddy Brima in that interview with the BBC.
Up to this point the new SLFA guy has enjoyed a lot of goodwill from the so-called football family. His current stance on the match-fixing thing would shift the position decisively against him. He wants to protect his votes in the east and in the process sacrifice decency in the game. We will not allow that to happen.
We will stop here for now and give him a little more time to reconsider his position.
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