News

By Ralph Ese'Donnu Sawyer
Leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have re-affirmed their will to establish a common currency for the region and make good their commitment to the Monetary Cooperation Programme and the roadmap to that objective, according to Sierra Leone Press Attaché in Dakar, Ralph Sawyer.

The Executive Director of the Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law (CARL) has expressed concern over the reported lack of transparency by many local government councils throughout the country.

In an open letter to the Chairman of the Association of Local Councils in Sierra Leone, Ibrahim Tommy writes that contrary to the provisions of the Local Government Act of 2004, his organisation has received several complaints about the failure of councils to erect notice boards in their communities and update their constituents with revenues generated and how they are expended.

By Septimus Senessie in Kono

Handicap International has donated start-up kits to 31 physically challenged and vulnerable trainees after completing a year-long skills-training exercise in various vocations at the Konomusu skills-training centre in Koidu.

The kits include sewing machines, assorted bread baking materials, hair dressing kits, soap-making levers, carpentry, weaving and ceramics-making materials worth millions of leones.

A 30-mile feeder road construction linking 16 villages is underway in Nimikor Chiefdom, Kono District. The road, which starts from Bandafada, close to Motema and runs through to Kpukuya is expected to boost economic and agricultural activities in the chiefdom.

By Fasalie S.Kamara

The National Director of Health Network Sierra Leone has called on government to suspend the mining activities of London Mining Company in the Marampa chiefdom.

By Mustapha Sesay

A report launched in Freetown by the advocacy organisation, Network Movement for Justice and Development (NMJD) reveals that about 500,000 hectares of farmland, estimated at 21.5% of the country’s arable land is current under lease agreement with foreign agribusiness investors through a process campaigners say amounts to “land-grabbing”.