News

By Bampia James Bundu

Executive secretary of the Sierra Leone Chamber of Agribusiness Development has warned that there is a possibility for people to starve after the Ebola virus will have subsided in the country.

Ahmed Nanoh told a press conference in Freetown that the Ebola outbreak had “rendered farmers useless and agricultural materials are languishing”, adding that the outbreak had scared farmers away from their farms. He said the farmers had been and continued to receive conflicting messages about Ebola.

Inspector General of Police says his officers are ready to provide adequate patrol and security for the three-day lockdown which begins tomorrow aimed at containing Ebola.

Speaking to Politico, Francis Munu said their support would be wide-raging to include providing dispatch riders to be able to move blood samples of suspected cases, to managing toll-free call centre numbers.

He said they had requested burial teams to collocate with the police at their stations so that "we will provide escorts for them to areas where deaths have been reported" as well as for burial.

By Mabinty Kamara

There was confusion yesterday at the Sierra Leone Muslim Congress Secondary School at Kissy in Freetown where thousands of people turned up to receive food supplies ahead of the three-day nationwide lockdown.

A community-based organisation, CIDO was due to distribute bags of rice to more than 1,600 residents of the area who had been registered by the organisation which is an affiliate of the UN World Food Programme.

By Joseph Lamin Kamara

Officials of the Maada and Fatima Bio Foundation have been trying to quell a row over the legal status of the organisation which was launched last month under a storm of protest from the Ministry of Children's Affairs which accused the chairman of the foundation Julius Maada Bio of defying government directives.

In a letter written to the Foundation, the ministry called the organisation "unregistered" asking that the launch be deferred until it had followed "necessary procedures..to rectify this anomaly."

By Chrispina Cummings

Parliament has complained over the way the media has been reporting on the Ebola outbreak in the country. The complaint came as the House summoned SLAJ and the media regulator - IMC - to a meeting on Tuesday.

Deputy Speaker, Chernor Bah warned journalists to refrain from propagating “hate messages” saying “it is very difficult to marry issues of human rights and that of state of emergency”.

At a recent press conference President Ernest Bai Koroma was heavy in criticising the international community for their slow response to the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. With the Chinese sending in medicine, equipment and personnel, Cuba sending 160 health workers and Britain planning to deploy military medical team to set up treatment centres and personnel to run them, has the president had a change of tone against the world community? A question Umaru Fofana put to him.

By Mustapha Kamara

As a way of putting resources together for the containment of Ebola in Sierra Leone, Action Aid has utilised Le 350 million for the purchase and donation of food items, cleaning equipment, stationery, fuel and protective gear for Ebola affected persons across the country.

Action Aid’s executive director, Mohamed Sillah, said the donations, which started early this week, had already been done in Kambia, Bombali, Tonkolili, Bo, Moyamba and the Western Area.