POLITICAL INFIGHTING MAY DESTROY SCHOOL FEEDING PROGRAM
It emerged in the last 48 hours or so that trouble is brewing in one of the most important agencies of government under the Ministry of Basic Education. We are talking about the office that handles the SCHOOL FEEDING program. From what we’ve read, backed by our own investigations, we have reason to believe that unless the government acts quickly and in an unambiguous way, the education of tens of thousands of our children would be on the line.
So far, we want to applaud Minister Sackey for insisting on treating whatever disagreement exists among the big money political employees in charge of the program as a purely ADMINISTRATIVE matter. Not a matter for the Green party office. We urge him to stand firm because in the coming days and weeks those attempting to challenge his authority are going to turn to their tired tactic of hiring the usual assassins on social media to go after him. As long as his hands are clean and his moves are taken in good faith and in the best interest of our children, he has our support.
Talking about the school feeding program itself we have a few points to put on the table:
1. We know that a man called S I Fofanah was supposed to be running that place long before the man now complaining all over the place was brought in to Amara Sowa who is now at the UN. We have NEVER heard S I Fofanah complaining about “marginalization”. Our investigations reveal that he is simply there receiving his salary at the end of every month but the actual implementation of the program is in the hands of other people, including this chief complainant.
2. We remind Principal again that he should stop appointing people into such positions purely for political reasons. That kind of job is for highly technical people who love their job and have had good experience going through the ranks. Our man landed there because of politics so he doesn’t think administrative structures are important in addressing official challenges. That’s why he invited politicians to deal with the issue.
3. The last thing we want is for the foreign governments and agencies putting money into the school feeding program to turn attention elsewhere because of the potential of this unbridled infighting to destroy the program and waste monies they could have spent in countries where people put the interest of their countries FIRST.
4. We have to warn that if school feeding suffers and children are forced to drop out of school, we already have those to hold responsible on earth before they even get to answer more serious questions to their creator when that day comes.
5. By purposely leaking internal administrative letters to the media, those responsible have simply opened the way for doubts to emerge over the way the whole school feeding program is rolled out. Is there something inside that space that we need to know about?
BO RANGERS TAKE THE CROWN FOR THE THIRD STRAIGHT SEASON
Those in football – administrators and fans have to admit that it will take something truly special to stop Bo Rangers from continuously winning the Sierra Leone Premier League. We are getting to that point when winning the local league will not be so much a prize anymore for the Rangers. Their fans will expect them to challenge the rest of Africa. Maybe that time is now. Bo Rangers have a right to enjoy their current status but they now have to live up to the expectations of their growing fan base in the context of their continental ambitions.
As for the other clubs in the league, they can only now look south and see the model used by Babadie Kamara the inspiration chairman of Bo Ranger – injection of some reasonable amount of money, probably unprecedented in club football history, careful organization of the fan base and getting good players from across the country to believe in the project and joining up.
Going through this season, Bo Rangers should go back and look at critical matches and see how to improve their shape. It’s not as if they are good in all departments. They should be very well aware that in the next season other clubs are going to try to make them pay for their success on the field. Anyway, in the meantime, we are waiting to cover the float parade in Bo town.
GRAFTON POLICE STATION HAS A VERY BIG PROBLEM
As part of what we do we always visit courts and police stations and we are normally not surprised by what we normally witness but what when we visited Grafton Police station the other, we couldn’t believe the state of things there. The truth is that police stations are not leisure resorts but what obtains at Grafton Police station is a case for the IG and his senior management team and indeed the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone.
We were at that place for about TWENTY MINUTES checking up on some issue but the stench from the holding cell so engulfed the whole place that we were left very surprised that the police officers appeared so at ease in their place of work. We pulled one officer to the side and asked how they could possibly allow themselves to be made to work under such degrading conditions. The officer looked left and right to see if a superior was around and told us their persistent complaints have been ignored so they have to make the best of a bad situation to feed their families.
As we spoke, an inmate was brought out of the cell because he had told the officers he felt like throwing up. To our surprise, the young man was either quietly allowed to leave or he managed to escape. We saw officers checking here and there as we left the stinking police station.
We will visit again in two weeks and that’s enough time for the following things to be done:
1. IG Fayia Sellu should cause that place to be cleaned up so that his officers and the guests in the cell can breathe some fresh air. They certainly cannot continue like that.
2. The Human Rights Commission should visit Grafton Police Station and other such places to make sure rights are respected.
3. The other point is that the Grafton community has grown so big in recent times that the police station looks so unrealistic both in terms of size and the personnel deployed there. This is something IG Fayia Sellu should be thinking about.
SLFA STAFF LOCKED OUT OF THEIR HEADQUARTERS
We have been following the drama being played out between the courts of Sierra Leone and those people running football in this country – the SLFA. A legal dispute between some players who were branded as cheats - match fixers by the SLFA and the secretariat has landed the local football governing body in a fine mess. The courts have awarded a significant amount of money to two players who argued that their careers and reputation have been damaged by a bogus allegation levied against them by politically-motivated SLFA.
We are taking a very serious look at the whole issue and in the coming weeks we will deal with the real questions with evidence of why the SLFA is in such a mess of its own making.
By the way, we understand that more of the affected players are preparing papers to approach the courts. These are very serious times for the SLFA as they head into their congress very soon. Watch this space!
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