LUMLEY PEDIATRIC HOSPITAL IS REAL GAME CHANGER
The people of the western part of Freetown received an early Christmas present the other day when Principal formally opened the Lumley Pediatric hospital. The Japanese government paid for the building and all the state-of-the-art equipment in the building. It’s a fantastic place.
The pressure on the Ola During hospital in the east side of Freetown has been lifted in a significant way. Many Sierra Leoneans who saw a few pictures of this hospital on social media praised the Japanese government for providing the cash and the government of Sierra Leone for seeing the project through.
From our little corner, we have a few points to make as the facility starts receiving patients.
1. We have to make sure that all the equipment in that building are well maintained and they must stay in that building, properly accounted for at all times. We don’t want to see them in certain private clinics or with Belgium Sellers. Please.
2. Health workers there should not introduce unapproved user fees. We know what obtains in other government facilities where people pay a lot of money for this and that and get no receipts.
3. Please, we don’t want to hear about any expensive rehabilitation work on that hospital for at least TEN years. That means we have to keep the place clean, repair faulty taps and toilet seats quickly. If we mess up that place, the Japanese will write a whole book on how donor money makes little sense in Sierra Leone
4. We are not doing badly on the maternal mortality index but this hospital represents another massive opportunity to drastically bring the figure down in the short run.
5. Finally, let’s complete the job by removing all those shacks in the vicinity of the hospital. We have to do that now. Let’s not wait for the Freetown City Council, they will NEVER get to Lumley.
IN THE POND, OUT OF THE POND: RED BOYS AND THE TRIPARTITE COMMITTEE
There’s a lot of drama in politics. In fact, the whole thing is actually a drama with each scene carefully laid out to create the impression that the interest of society is always at the heart of things. To be honest, there are some people in politics who are genuinely there to serve humanity. In that same game there are many others acting roles only because they want to make something for themselves. And they are in ALL political parties – in ALL countries.
Sometimes we enjoy the drama but there are times in the life of this nation that we can do with very little or no drama. What Tolongbo did the other day absolutely didn’t go down well with many Sierra Leoneans. After serving for SIX months on a committee to re-work our electoral laws so that future elections would produce less and less drama, Tolongbo announced they were SUSPENDING their participation because ECSL didn’t give them access to disaggregated results of June 2023.
Suddenly after a few hours of meetings with international bodies Tolongbo announced that they were back with the committee. Do they now have the materials from ECSL? Were they only looking to have meetings with international actors?
We call on all the people in that committee to do what ECOWAS told them. They should lower all partisan interest and work in the interest of Sierra Leone. Raising tension here and there every few weeks creates uncertainty and harms the economy.
The Americans who paid for the work of the committee are waiting to help again with the IMPLEMENTATION of the conclusions. The last thing the embassy in Freetown wants is to have to send a report to the State Department saying the political parties in Sierra Leone have messed up the whole tripartite discussions, TAX DOLLARS gone down the drain.
Let’s complete this job!
HAS FCC COMPLETED THE FLOOD MITIGATION PROJECT?
From the look of things it’s either the FCC has abandoned their much-hyped Flood Mitigation Project or they have run out of cash and are now busy trying to collect more market dues. We are at the very start of the rainy season and from what we witnessed the other day, the capital’s drainage system is completely blocked, mostly by plastic waste and the flash floods are once again a real possibility as the rains continue. We have had such floods in Freetown towards September. It may happen earlier this year.
We get the fact that it costs a lot of money to clear the drainage system but the FCC can avoid this yearly waste of money – let’s call it that if they plan and act well ahead of the rains. We hear a lot about climate change these days but the weather in Sierra Leone is largely predictable.
For the umpteenth time we call on the FCC to work closely with the central government to make sure ALL companies polluting our city with plastic waste pay for us to clean up after them. The FCC knows them but we find it hard to believe that they are too scared to take those companies on.
The FCC recently announced an elaborate program to end street trading in certain areas but as far as we know, that program has died a premature death. The only reason we can come up with is that the FCC thinks those involved in street trading are a key demographic in their political game so they don’t want to hurt them. They only announce such a ban on street trading to impress those who have no idea what our MAYOR is up to politically. We deserve a better Freetown.
WHEN WILL THE ABANDONED FA CUP MATCH BE REPLAYED?
Bo Rangers have won the Sierra Leone Premier League and are planning a big celebration in the sweet city but they have one small task to attend to in Freetown still – they have to take on East End Lions for a few minutes to conclude the FA Cup final match that was abandoned because of crowd trouble. We don’t want to go over the details of what happened in Portloko. We can only describe it as a disgrace for which the SLFA announced punitive measures.
Without saying it in as many words, the SLFA concluded that Bo Rangers were the aggressors and fined them big money. They have contested the crazy fines.
Today we ask why the SLFA has gone quiet about that replay. We are coming to the end of the football season when the players are mentally switching off. It serves us all extremely well to get this FA Cup over and done with right now. We know the appeals body has completed its job but the SLFA is yet to release the findings. Why is that? Have we missed something?
Somebody told us the other day that SLFA workers have been locked out of their office by a court order so there’s nothing they can do. Maybe that’s true. We shed no tears for TD Brima and his colleagues. They had more than enough time to deal with that issue but they were busy pussyfooting. This is a mess of their making so they can go ahead and enjoy it. We are doing some work around this court case and the others that are around the corner. Watch this space.
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