GOVERNMENT MOVES TO STOP ILLEGAL EXPORT OF RICE
Those planning to make big money from selling rice to neighboring Liberia in particular now have to re-think and look for another avenue for Christmas money. The commodity has been in short supply in that country and as soon as the international got hold of the story, our brothers and sisters put plans in motion to take some of what we have here to sell in Liberia at exorbitant prices. This was easily predictable. We have a group of people in this country whose whole life is tied around making money BY ANY MEANS, including leaving the ordinary Sierra Leonean starving.
At all times it’s impossible to bring a bag of rice across the border from Liberia. Their border force personnel would either confiscate the food or order you to take it back to Monrovia. So why should we try to smuggle rice across the border just because we want to make money out of the pressure that our brothers and sisters in Liberia are facing. That’s so insensitive.
Now after weeks of pretending they had no idea what’s going on with our south-eastern neighbor, the government has decided to order a ban on all ILLEGAL EXPORT of rice. Well we should simply say not a single grain of rice brought to or grown in this country should be taken out. The government notes the good amount of hard currency we spend to make the commodity available. We absolutely support the government on this.
1. Let’s keep the few bags we grow or import to this country out of the hands of wicked business people whose main objective is to make money by all means. We apply all kinds of subsidies to make that commodity available. Why should the Sierra Leonean tax payer be made to subsidize the staple food in Liberia?
2. President George Manneh Weah has work to do at home, let him get on with it. Buying rice from Sierra Leone is a short-term fix. The Liberian people deserve something sustainable.
3. Not too long ago we sent fuel to Liberia. It was approved and organized. We can do the same for rice to help our neighbors. We MUST however STOP Shylocks from profiting from the misery of our people in Liberia.
FURTHER PREREQUISITES TO TAKE WASSCE
Some of the prerequisites announced in the last 48 hours by MBSSE for prospective WASSCE candidates are not likely to go down well with both the candidates and school authorities. This is not the column where we go into the gory details of those announcements. We just want to say that anything done to clean up this WASSCE thing is good and we should all support it. Children have found a way of making a mess of WAEC and we have evidence to prove that some school authorities are complicit. Have school authorities not been arrested organizing SPECIAL ROOMS to cheat?
1. We have found it incomprehensible why a WASSCE candidate would travel from say, Bo, Kenema and Mile 91 and join a study camp outside Waterloo to take the exam in other of the schools in that area. We are talking about people who are leaving their home districts for the first time. Why? What’s so special in that place?
2. Parents would provide the money for their children to join those camps with all the risks around the whole idea. They would even give them enough cash to meet the requirements of the SPECIAL ROOM.
3. We have also witnessed children who are two years away from the legal requirement to take the WASSCE going round the process and taking their chances before they are academically prepared to take it. And the taxpayer foots the bill.
We urge MBSSE to continue pressing the measures home. This idea that everything in this country should be corrupted must be discouraged. We want hard work and fair competition
WHY DO MANY PEOPLE THINK KUSH IS A PROBLEM FOR THE GOVERNMENT?
KUSH appears to have taken top spot on the national agenda in a dramatic way in the last two weeks so that even on his campaign rehearsal tour, Principal found time to drop a word or two about the dangers of taking KUSH. Again, all of this has been driven by social media and inevitably by the over the top reaction by the RSLAF and the Force for Good. The two institutions sacked three of their personnel – two soldiers and a policeman who were filmed misbehaving apparently under the influence of KUSH and alcohol.
We are waiting for videos of SENIOR personnel of one or both institutions under the influence of KUSH to appear on social media and for their colleagues to tell us they couldn’t dismiss them for this and that reason. At that point we will be justified in describing these hasty dismissals as OVER THE TOP reaction to satisfy a cynical social media bunch.
Only the RSLAF and the SLP can explain why other forms of punishment weren’t applied instead of summary dismissals. We don’t want any tactical retreat when senior officers are caught on camera.
What we are seeing now on social media is that many are calling on the government to DO SOMETHING ABOUT KUSH. Well, we agree that there is a lot the government can and should do and we have outlined them here in the last few days but what are we doing as a people?
1. Why are we covering up for those importing and selling KUSH and other drugs on our streets? We know them but we are not turning them over to the police.
2. We know it can be dangerous because drug dealers have powerful contacts. So we ask why are you in the police, the judiciary and politics and at the same time helping drug dealers while making hypocritical public statements.
3. Parents who neglect their responsibilities so much that their children end up becoming drug addicts. Do you want the government to take over the running of your homes?
WHY ARE SO MANY PEOPLE BEGGING ALL OVER THE PLACE?
In answer to this question please don’t talk about hard times. We know times are hard all over the world such that those countries and institutions that supported initiatives aimed at helping the poor in our countries have pulled back to concentrate on their own at home. We understand that. But is that the reason why so many of our people are now on the streets daily looking for hand-outs?
The point is that we are not talking about some of the disabled who hang around the Cotton Tree and near traffic intersections. We are talking about children in school uniforms complaining of hunger on their way to and from school, teenage boys and girls always asking for transport money and totally drunk adolescents, in fact high on KUSH begging for food along the main streets. What’s going on?
1. This idea that just because people are living with a disability they should be begging for their survival on the streets is WRONG. There are many people in such conditions in this country who are bread winners running respectable homes. We call on charities working with these people to help them understand that they are downgrading their humanity by begging on the streets.
2. It is always easy to throw all of this back at the government and we understand that but there are many Sierra Leoneans living with disability who have pulled themselves away from such degrading existence by their will power and belief in themselves with very little government help. Why are the others different?
3. Let us properly coordinate charitable giving to these people so that like SICK PIKIN is doing, the benefits would flow seamlessly to the needy. We don’t know if this would end the street activity any time soon because some have turned street begging into a survival game but at least we may be sure our monies are going into the right places. Those who take their chances should get no joy. Let’s begin from Christmas 2022.
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