... THE AGENDA FOR PROSPERITY!! A ROAD MAP TO THE FUTURE

Keynote Address by His Excellency the President Dr Ernest Bai Koroma at the Launching of The Agenda for Prosperity 12 July 2013

It is with great expectations that I today launch our Agenda for Prosperity. For the next five years, this Agenda will be our road map towards meeting our goal of becoming a middle income country and donor nation within the next 25 to 50 years. This Agenda is the firming up of the aspirations of our people. We made tremendous progress during our implementation of the Agenda for Change. We built roads everywhere, attracted billions of dollars of investment in agriculture, mining and other sectors and ensured one of the fastest growing economies in the world. We commenced the creation of a favourable environment for the private sector to thrive, established a free healthcare program for pregnant women, mothers and children under five, and more than doubled resources allocated to education. We improved electricity supply, provided funds for local government more than any other government before, ensured the reduction of poverty, and continued the consolidation of our democracy through greater respect for human rights, gender equity, and a freer press. We still face challenges, but we are a government dedicated to doing more to sustain the transformation of our country. That was why when Sierra Leone turned 50 in 2011, I constituted a Committee on Development and Transformation, charged with the responsibility to take stock of the progress we have made as an independent nation over the last 50 years and to chart the way forward for the next 50 years. The Committee organised the Sierra Leone Conference on Development and Transformation, which came up with a number of outcomes. I took these recommendations on board when I asked for re-election; my party, the All Peoples Congress endorsed these aspirations when we asked for the peoples mandate for the next five years.   This Agenda for Prosperity is therefore the outcome of the pact between the people of this country, my party, my government and myself to do more. We will do more to complete residual projects in the Agenda for Change and to address recurring and emerging challenges. We will do more to address unemployment, particularly among the youth. We all need to do more to better manage our natural resources for the good of all Sierra Leoneans, we need to do more to add value to our primary products, and we need to extend, expand and sustain the Free Health Care and Scaling-Up Nutrition initiatives. We will reform the education system to meet the emerging needs in the job market, we will finish on-going projects in roads, energy and water supply, and we will build much needed infrastructure, including the new mainland airport, railway, roads and ICT capabilities; provide a social safety net for the vulnerable population; promote good governance; ensure that the public sector is capacitated to deliver; empower our women and ensure equal opportunities for both men and women; and above all, we will sustain our fight against corruption, and provide the enabling environment for the private sector to thrive. We prepared this Agenda for Prosperity to guide our collective aspirations to doing more to sustain the transformation of our country. We hope to draw on lessons learnt and to merge innovations with the strong economic growth we have recorded in the last five years. This new imperative calls for smart work, resilience, and discipline. It calls for the assertion of our best in our relations with each other, with work, with government resources and with our collective inheritance. We are the best nation in religious tolerance, and the friendliness of our people to strangers is second to none in the world. We must carry these attributes of being best to the productive sectors of agriculture, mining, tourism, business partnerships, financial services, education, and healthcare. We must ensure that our economy is diversified to promote inclusive and sustainable growth. We must anchor our Agenda on efforts at being globally credible and internationally competitive. This may require partnerships with internationals in building up capacities in our judiciary, our foreign ministry and other key state institutions. To be successful in the global environment we need to draw upon the best and committed within the country, the best and committed within the Diaspora and the best and committed at the global level. Implementing the Agenda for Prosperity will require concerted efforts, collaboration and coordination among Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). Emphasis will be placed on monitoring of projects to ensure that results are achieved on timely manner. We will continue to attract foreign direct investment by forging strong partnerships with the private sector, especially on large-scale projects. The Agenda for Prosperity is the country's one vision and one plan. Its implementation will be guided by strong commitments by Development Partners as well as the Government. In this regard, Government is developing a mutual accountability framework that will be jointly monitored and reported on. Our goal is to strengthen the partnership between Government and Development Partners as well as ensuring that the voice and opinion of each and every Sierra Leonean is heard in the implementation as was done through wider consultation in developing this national plan. As we embark on this epic journey to become a middle income country, let me remind fellow Sierra Leoneans that we are today re-committing ourselves to asserting our best. Prosperity is not a gift on a silver platter. Abundance of natural resources is only half the story; the reality of prosperity only comes to a people that go for it. We must go for it with determination. We must sweat it out with our hands, with our brains and with our minds. We must set out to embrace the values of innovation, of cultural renewal in the workplace and respect for public goods. Most importantly, all Sierra Leoneans, at home and in the Diaspora, must realise that success primarily depends on what we as a people do for ourselves and not on what others do for us. Ask not what others have done for you, but what you have done for yourself, your community and your nation. The possibilities of growth, renewal and transformation reside in every Sierra Leonean. We must assert these possibilities to seize the destiny of prosperity. I am very optimistic that we will be successful; I believe that we will all do more; and that together we will achieve the goals that we have set out for ourselves in our Agenda for Prosperity.

 

CAPTAIN VALENTINE STRASSER! SHOULD THIS APC GOVERNMENT PROVIDE HIM WITHSUSTAINANCE?

 SHOULD THIS APC GOVERNMENT EXTEND A HUMANITARIAN HAND OF PITY TO CAPTAIN VALENTINE E M STRASSER? WHY?

 The debate that this APC Government should extend the Olive Branch of forgiveness, and play a humanitarian 'Big Brother Role' to the wealfare of Captain Valentine E.M Strasser has once more surface again.
In the Facebook Forum, 'Sierra Leone Issues' Alex Alex (not sure that is his true name) discusses "A Reminder of the things Maada Bio did before he brings the SLPP to power... MAADA BIO, BRUTUS, STRASSER AND JULIUS CEASER"- a piece sympathetically wrapped over the proposition of whether it is time to give sustenance to Captain Strasser.

What Alex Alex did not discuss is the Treasonable act - the criminality surrounding the 29th April 1992 Coup d'état. In fact I will even call it  a 'Coup de main' because it was a sudden and overpowering attack on President Joseph Saidu Momoh's Government erroneously classed as a "Glorious Revolution" by the renowned (now Late) journalist Siaka Massaquoi former President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalist (SLAJ). In describing the overthrow of the government and what was put in it's place, Massaquoi introduced the NPRC by telling the world that "These young men were all in their twenties, the youngest of them, Lt. Samuel Sandi, not yet quite twenty" ...  He went on to describe the overthrow as "a courageous act, a remarkable feat"...and narrated the numerous previous coup attempts which the APC had survived in the past.. and claimed that 'The BOYS' knew what was in store for them if they [had] failed; Death! Yet they went ahead driven by so called  "love of country and people" neglecting their immediate duties they were in the Army to do.  They saw themselves as brave and courageous men of the future Sierra Leone and Massaquoi  acclaimed them  with the words "This is the stuff of which heroes and patriots are made".   So where has this Glourious, courageous Revolution taken Strasser?

In considering the current fate of Captain Valentine Strasser, one must not forget that "The Military action of 29 April 1992 was not a spontaneous affair" as Massaquoi puts it. A planned and sustained preparation started many many weeks before it happened; fragmented information revealed that it all started a day before the 1992 Eid-Ul- Fitri - 4th April 1992. But in fact there were more than two rival plots running side by side with one or two individuals feeding in both camps secretly- 'double - crossers'. They were not even truthful to themselves right from the start hence the demise of  Lieutenant Colonel James Yayah Kanu. There was a rivalry between the Tiger Battalion led by Lieutenant Colonel J O Y. Turay- (who were defending  the Eastern Border of Kailahun) and the Cobra Battalion led by Lieutenant Colonel James Yayah Kanu (who were defending the Kenema and Pujehun Districts. These soldiers had great responsibility to defend the State but they preferred ambitiously to play 'god' with their misguided "love for country and people".

 So they took power, the International community gave them a lot of money which were squandered without trace. Strasser it was  reported built many houses for friends and family; we know of the sale of Passports and how thousands of dollars were laundered through Hong Kong and London into the Trustee Savings Bank Accounts in Channel Islands by Bio and the share of the loot by Dr Abbas Bundu and all the NPRC sharers. So what did Strasser do with his own money? ALL THAT LOOT!

President JS Momoh

A Reminder of the things Maadaa did before he brought the SLPP to power..
MAADA BIO, BRUTUS, STRASSER AND JULIUS CAESERby ALEX ALEX  - Sierra Leone Issues- Facebook 16 July 2013 ; 13:48

Maada Bio

Captain Valentine Strasser

 Back then in 1996, Bio overthrew his boss Valentine Strasser on the pretext that the latter wanted to cling to power beyond the stipulated time (Strasser’s own explanation was that he had categorically stated that he would go, and so Bio decided to step in). Bio had insisted that Strasser had an ambition to overstay in power. But the questions then lingering on the minds of the public were:

Was it not Strasser, out of his own volition, even at a time when people were calling him ‘the redeemer’; that came out with a timeline, insisting that they would hand over power within three years? Did Strasser not follow the guidelines through by forming the Independent National Electoral Commission? Did Strasser not establish the National Commission for Democracy and appointed Dr. Kadie Sesay to be its head? Did James Jonah, the Chief Electoral Commissioner, not sound very confident about Strasser’s sincerity to the democratic process just days before he was overthrown?

Did Strasser not lift the ban on the 1991 Constitution and on all political activities? Did he not preside over the registration of up to seventeen political parties including the APC and the SLPP which many were calling to be banned? When the junta decided to form a political party called the National Unity Party (NUP), was it not John Karimu – instead of Strasser - that was put forward as presidential candidate? If Strasser was that ambitious, why did he not reduce the age minimum requirement that disqualified him from the contest in the first place?

Yet, as Mark Anthony would say of Brutus in relation to Caesar (“You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown, Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious…”), Bio said Strasser wanted to hijack the democratic process.
But the central question for Bio was, ‘how’? How did Strasser want to derail the process? Did he call Bio into a room and told him about it? If that was the case, why did Bio not act until that fateful day of 16 January 1996 after Strasser had overseen the passing-out ceremony of new recruits of the then Sierra Leone Army at Bengeuma Training Centre, where he categorically stated that they were going out of office, warning the soldiers to henceforth stay away from politics and stick to their constitutional duties?
Why was it that just after that speech, Maada Bio and his henchmen summoned a Supreme Council meeting, insisting that it should not be held at State House but at Cockeril military headquarters, where they lured Strasser, captured him (still dressed in the same uniform he wore at the passing-out ceremony), handcuffed him, and dumped him in Guinea?

How, just how, did Strasser want to derail the democratic process that warranted a most ignominious treatment at the very hands of those whom he had given more power than he had retained for himself (just imagine promoting Bio from a mere Lieutenant to Brigadier General within four years, while Strasser - a very modest man - merely retained his Captain rank throughout)?
                             
MAADA BIO’S TRAGIC FLAW IS OVER-AMBITION
                                                                                       

 Maada Bio is a real Shakespearean tragic hero. His fundamental
flaw is vaulting ambition. And he’ll never realise it – not helped by an array of self-made advisers - until the bitter reality dawns. The bitter reality that will dawn on him on November 17 and beyond.
He suffered a similar fate in 1996…. Because, after the people had realised that Bio’s overthrowing of Strasser was a charade and a self-seeking enterprise to perpetuate himself in power when he initiated a ‘peace before elections’ campaign at the eleventh hour, seeking a postponement of the elections; after the people realised that all along Bio had a very healthy relationship with the rebel RUF because his elder sister was one of the strongest pillars of that movement, and with whom he was now colluding by pretending to be bringing peace so that both brother and sister could have been two of the most powerful rulers of Sierra Leone; when the people realised that Bio had awarded fake contracts for helicopter spare parts and military hardware to his brother who never delivered the arms when we needed them most in fighting the rebels, with allegations that these arms were actually supplied to the rebels; when the people actually saw Bio buying delegates for the postponement of the elections; and even when Bio issued a statement at Bintumani II categorically not guaranteeing security on polling day; yet still the people of Sierra Leone rose to the occasion, sacrificing limb and life to deny Bio’s ambition from going through.

They overwhelmingly rejected the ‘peace before elections’ charade at Bintumani and went ahead with the elections, even when Bio’s boys – true to his ‘no security guarantee’ promise - disrupted some parts of the voting by shooting at Wilberforce Barracks and in Bo. On the same Election Day, the RUF, of which Bio’s sister was leader, cut fingers of voters mainly in the Northern Province for not accepting Bio’s ‘peace before elections’.


TEJAN KABBAH PUTS THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE: BIO’S CHARADE
 No one has put it more succinctly than President Tejan Kabbah in his book ‘Coming Back From The Brink in Sierra Leone’. He wrote “The NPRC junta having enjoyed the fruits of power for four years clearly demonstrated that it was not interested in holding any elections at that particular time. It mounted and orchestrated a campaign with the slogan peace before elections.


Through this campaign, the NPRC even attempted to ingratiate itself with the RUF by demonstrating to the latter that it was prepared to delay the holding of elections and would forge a power-sharing arrangement with the RUF…..Again, in order to prove its point that elections would not be held successfully before peace was achieved, the junta orchestrated acts of terror and intimidation of the electorate in several parts of the country just before and during the elections….

In spite of the on-going rebel war, and notwithstanding the defiance of those who wanted to prolong military rule by vehemently advocating peace-before-elections, Sierra Leoneans following two national consultative conferences (Bintumani I and Bintumani II) took the courageous decision to go to the polls February 1996 to choose a President and Members of Parliament. There were a number of disturbances initiated by the anti-democratic elements aimed at disrupting the elections…”


Obviously, Maada Bio handed over power reluctantly and grudgingly (to quote President Kabbah’s common-knowledge statement) but not before causing the government to pay him huge sums of money while benefiting from a UN sweetener scholarship which was the carrot that backed the people’s mobilisation stick to pressurise him out of power.  


PEOPLE’S POWER: A MOMENT TO RELISH
  The people of Sierra Leone generally enjoyed the momentum then. For a people to remove a desperate army from power, with literally their bare hands, was a relishing moment – that goes beyond borders. Our country took the international spotlight. That sequence of events raised our profile internationally as a people ready to move forward as a collective democratic force. Bio went away from the scene with the loot.
He squandered all abroad, returned home and took some ‘condom’ contract before he challenged Solomon Berewa for the leadership of the SLPP in 2007 – asking the party to fulfil its own part of the contract they entered into to deny the UNPP’s John Karefa-Smart the victory in favour of the SLPP’s Tejan Kabbah in 1996, a school of thought holds.

 SLPP SUCCUMBS AND MORTGAGES PARTY TO JUNTA MEN
 The SLPP succumbed in 2011 during a delegates’ conference that invoked voodoo-ism, tribalism, and intimidation. But the people of Sierra Leone had told Bio in no uncertain terms that they did not want him to be their leader. He has not listened. But he will listen. (E nor wan yeri word -o, e go yeri word).


REPEATING THE 1996 FEAT IN 2012 – A RE-MIX

It’s the musicians who have this saying, ‘when the music is nice, you play it twice’. They are also the ones who know the value of doing a re-mix of a song that is nice, so that it can sound nicer. The people of Sierra Leone are now poised to do a re-mix of the music they played for Maada Bio in 1996. This one in 2012 will sound nicer…. Because, it is the final nail to Bio’s political coffin!

The circumstantial problem with Maada Bio as a tragic figure is that he always comes at the wrong time. In 1996, there were reports that Strasser was not actually part of the original coup-makers but was brought in as a compromise leader to avoid regional tensions.
But I tell you what, if the boys had actually given the power to Bio at the time, the people of Sierra Leone at that particular moment would not have minded, given the euphoria that had engulfed everybody then at the excitement of seeing a change from the old APC which had been in power for over two decades. That was the time Bio would have been the one to rule Sierra Leone. E faint late. When he now realized that indeed Strasser was actually going to let go of the power, he showed his true colours as the enfant terrible by trying the impossible. The people’s unequivocal rejection sent Bio packing.

A similar scenario – of wrong or missed timing - played on the democratic side of things for Bio. Had the SLPP agreed to choose Bio as presidential candidate in 2007, instead of Solomon Berewa, there was the possibility that Bio would have won the elections – mainly because, even though it was on the basis of fraud, he would not have agreed for Christiana Thorpe’s cancellation of the rigged votes to stand. As a man of vaulting ambition, Bio would have used the power of his party’s incumbency then, he would have pushed Tejan Kabbah’s appeals aside, and would have defied the whole world with a strong following of party lackeys, as his fellow NPRC bedfellows like John Benjamin and John Karimu had taken over the SLPP. Bio missed that opportunity. It was his last opportunity. The SLPP faint late.

 THE INEVITABILITY OF PRESIDENT KOROMA’S SECOND TERM
 The SLPP has now put Bio forward at a time when the APC has produced the most development-oriented leader this country has ever had in the person of President Ernest Koroma. I have said it before that, as things stand in Sierra Leone today, it could only take someone with an angelic character to beat President Koroma at the polls. In just five years, the President has demonstrated a strong sense of pushing Sierra Leone forward to the extent that even Heads of State (current and former) can fly from other countries to endorse him – President Kondeh of Guinea openly said it at Gbalamuya; and ex-President Obasanjo of Nigeria did it in Kabala.
There is no doubt that Sierra Leone is moving forward under President Koroma. Even top SLPP members have had to quickly defect to the APC before the SLPP suffers its worst defeat in its 60-odd-year history.
If Maada Bio had been the flag-bearer in 2007, his baggage of having stolen money and his participation in extra-judicial killings would have been drowned by the incumbency syndrome and the unwillingness of desperate party men to lose their positions. If the SLPP can today arm-twist Kabbah and Berewa to endorse a man they had publicly vilified and called a criminal, can you imagine how they would have imprisoned (like they did to Paul Kamara) or beat to death (as in the case of Harry Yansanneh) any journalist - not to talk of an ordinary man - who would have tried to call to question the inconsistency of calling a man a thief and then saying we should vote for him?

SLPP’S EFFRONTERY: POINTER TO THE END

 The fact is that the SLPP wants to take Sierra Leoneans for a ride. They actually think we are fools for them to have the effrontery of saying it was Maada Bio that brought democracy to this country. What a cheek! What Sassiness! We didn’t need a Bintumani II in 1996! We don’t need a Bio candidacy in 2012!
When we rose up to the occasion in 1996, the world hailed us for being able to take control of our destiny without any direct foreign intervention. Now, in our relentless effort to put behind the war-ravaged epithet that came to be associated with our country, we have another golden opportunity to boost our image internationally.

That is, when we go to the polls to tell Maada Bio that ‘you wouldn’t have done all what you did to us and then come back to say you had not hurt us enough. Now you want to torment us. Chutzpah! The children and relatives of the people you executed are still crying for justice – or at least to know where your victims were buried!’

But the writing is already on the wall for Maada. If people like Pa Takieu Zombo of Gendema, who had remained faithful to the SLPP in all its years of existence, can now see reason to leave the party and join the APC; if former MPs, who just a few weeks ago were representing the SLPP, are now invoking injunctions on their party’s candidates; if all what is left as a form of support for Maada Bio is a group of Westside thugs, rabble-rousers, and political demagogues; then the people of Sierra Leone are ready, we are ready again, to tell the world that we have seen the light, we have seen the rainbow, we cannot go back, we will follow the footsteps of the American people by choosing an incumbent President that has outstandingly performed.

ON THE THRESHOLD OF MAKING HISTORY

 Friends, Sierra Leoneans, countrymen, we as a nation are on threshold of retaking our place in history, we are on the brink of changing perceptions about us. In 1996, the world hailed Sierra Leone. Now, after the war, a great opportunity has arisen to make a name for ourselves again. We will avoid violence and conduct free, fair, and transparent elections in which Maada will be taught a lesson. We are together saying, ‘yes we are capable of restoring our dignity.’
A country that was founded on the platform of freedom is displaying its brightest characteristics; we are closing the final chapter in our war history by burying in the mud one of those who played a very ambiguous role in it and greatly benefited from it. We are saying that the ‘Athens of West Africa’ has come of age and now willing to take its place in the comity of civilised nations.
President Koroma has already set the pace, cleared the path through innumerable international recognitions and improvements. We are now ready to protect that image on November 17. After these elections, the world will search again for our origins and find out that this was a country specially and specifically crafted to be a beacon of civilisation and a democratic light in this part of the world.

Just in the same way they sang on the streets in 1996 saying ‘Bio Bio Bio nar rebel’, now the women of Sierra Leone are singing that ‘Salone nor to farm – go back to Ghana’, ‘we nor want you.. you nor even able get visa for go America’….

MAADA BIO AGAIN THREATENS THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS
 Maada has seen the writing on the wall, but he is putting up a brave face like all tragic figures in history, be they Hitler, Saddam Hussein or Foday Sankoh. And the newest strategy after being alarmist all through the electioneering process (including a big lie that the government had brought in armed men from Liberia) is to issue a threat to the Chief Electoral Commissioner, Dr, Christiana Thorpe.
But it did not come as a surprise to many a political pundit. Maada in an interview in 2007 said he would overthrow the APC again. Now he is no more a soldier; and does not have access to the ammunition dump. So he has decided to use democracy to circumvent the process. But that will not happen. He cannot succeed. Just as he could not in 1996 when he threatened the people by saying the army would not guarantee security, and indeed they fired shots on elections day after similar firing at James Jonah’s house and INEC office – but the people still stood their ground.

In his latest threats of not being willing to accept the results, he is hiding under a proviso – and that is, ‘if the results are controversial’. Of course what he means has nothing to do with legal action, but evincing a confrontation. And I foresee he is going to try it.
The reason being that a free and fair election in the eyes of the UN, EU, AU, ECOWAS and all other observers would not be free and fair in the eyes of the Maada Bios of this world. After all, the 2007 elections, which he is using as a premise, were declared free and fair by all observers. Christiana Thorpe cancelled the fraudulent election results and all the international observers were satisfied with that. It has only been the SLPP - only them - that have been crying about rigged elections in 2007.
I believe now that the biometric voter system has been brought to avoid over-voting and child-voting, one likely ‘loophole’ that Bio may want to seize as an excuse for his abominable enterprise is when he would find out that even in his presumed strongholds President Koroma is going to beat him at the polls, or when some void votes would have been cancelled, or he could find his own reason as he did when establishing NPRC II.


 THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT SHOULD START TAKING NOTES

The International Criminal court (ICC) should start taking notes if they’ve not done so already. My conclusion is that Maada is like Odewale, the tragic hero in Ola Ritimi’s ‘The Gods Are Not To Blame’. When Odewale’s fate was announced, he thought he could run away from destiny – but he still ended up killing his father and marrying his mother.
Maada thought by wearing a democratic paraphernalia his ultimate end for the stealing of our passports, self-payment of millions of dollars, ambiguous role in the war, snatching others’ wives, and taking part in extra judicial killings would make him go away scotch-free. Well, with this path he has taken of threatening the democratic process, intimidating the respectable and respected Christiana Thorpe, I can see judgment day is nigh for the man who missed two ‘golden’ opportunities (1992 and 2007) to have comfortably ruled Sierra Leone but has been actually destined for a great downfall.
Like all his kind in history, Maada would see the end but would always deny its authenticity - just as Macbeth, having seen that Birnam Wood was ‘moving’, clung on to the witches’ equivocal prediction of ‘no man born of woman shall kill you’.
He realised rather too late that there’s something called caesarean birth. Therefore, even though Maada is seeing all the major stakeholders in his party deserting him, former SLPP strongholds which were no-go areas for the APC now publicly welcoming President Koroma in tumultuous excitement, he still puts on a brave face and will realise rather too late that Sierra Leone is not willing to go down with him to the path of violence and threats. We are not going back. We are moving forward!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

SO, SHOULD THIS APC GOVERNMENT EXTEND A HUMANITARIAN HAND OF PITY TO CAPTAIN VALENTINE E M STRASSER? WHY?

[My sincere thanks to Alex

PRESIDENT ERNEST BAI KOROMA COMPLETES MINISTERIAL APPOINTMENTS.

His Excellency the President has made the following  Ministerial appointments over the weekend prior to the innoguration next weekend.

 MINISTERS:
Dr. Matthew Teambo – Labour & Social Security
Mr. Alimamy Kamara – Youth Affairs
Mr. Paul Kamara – Sports
Alhaji Ibrahim Kemoh Sesay – Political & Public Affairs
Mr. Peter Bayuku Konte – Tourism & Culture
_____________________
MINISTER OF STATE:Mrs. Harriet Turay – Office of the Vice-President

DEPUTY MINISTERS:
Mr. Augustine Nyuma Kortu – Labour & Social Security
Miss Feremusu Konte – Youth Affairs
Mr. Ishmail Al-Sankoh Conteh – Sports
Mr. Karamoh Kabba – Political & Public Affairs
Miss Kadi Sesay – Tourism & Culture
_____________________
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT:
Professor Monty Jones – Special Adviser & Ambassador-at-Large
Alhaji Ibrahim Ben Kargbo – Special Adviser
Ambassador Dauda Kamara – Special Adviser
Dr. Sylvia Blyden – Special Executive Assistant to the President

SOME BACKGROUND ON THE NEW APPOINTMENTS provided by Dr Sylvia Blyden  in her posting in the Sierr Leone Issues Forum: read on:-

 "Most of the names like Alhaji Kemoh Sesay (former Transport Minister) are well-known and need little introduction but let me espouse on a few of the others.
Hon. Matthew Teambo & Hon. Alimamy Kamara are currently sitting as Parliamentarians representing Constituency 62 (Tonkolili) and Constituency 29 (Bombali) respectively. There will have to be conducted two Bye-Elections for their seats.
Peter Bayuku Konteh (aka Agbangba Jazz) was the erstwhile District Council Chairman for Koinadugu Local Council. He narrowly lost the APC symbol to the current winner.
Augustine Nyuma Kortu was the former Kailahun District Council Chairman. He hails from Kissi Kama Chiefdom. He had taken over the position when John Benjamin (erstwhile Kailahun Chairman) was made Finance Minister in 2005 but SLPP rejected to give him the symbol in 2008 and instead gave it to Tom Nyuma. He later defected to APC and contested for the same position in last General Elections which he lost. He is a trained Accountant by profession and has years of administrative experience.
Ishmail Al-Sankoh Conteh is easily one of the most recognisable names in youth activities in Sierra Leone. His name is synonymous with youth activism.
Miss Kadi Sesay is an APC Women’s Wing activist from the Northern Province (Tonkolili district). Feremusu Konte was the former Deputy Minister of Fisheries. She hails from Koinadugu.
Karamoh Kabba, a Kono indigene, returned from the Diaspora (America) to join the PMDC and later, he was appointed as Head of the Open Government Initiative at State House. On the way to Kono one time, his vehicle suffered a horrible accident and somersaulted. He lost all his personal belongings plus millions of leones inside the vehicle; money which had been meant for an OGI programme in Kono. He was vilified mercilessly by the opposition press who falsely accused him of stealing the money from the vehicle. Unfortunately, his OGI contract was then not renewed. On his total exoneration after an independent investigation, he was later appointed as Director of Political Affairs. He is more than well suited for the new job.
Alhaji Ibrahim Ben Kargbo and Ambassador Dauda Kamara are expected to bring their years of vast experience to bear on activities of the President at State House. They both enjoy the full confidence of the Head of State.
Mrs. Harriet Turay is a respected gender & civil society activist and is also a past president of the 50-50 group of Sierra Leone. She hails from Kono district.
And last but not least is PROFESSOR MONTY JONES who is easily one of the most influential Sierra Leoneans on the global stage. In 2007, he was named as TIME MAGAZINE’s 76th Most Influential Person in the world. His appointment as a Presidential Adviser with extraordinary and plenipotentiary powers to represent the President of Sierra Leone is expected to yield positive dividend for our country. Read the link below for more on him. God bless us all. God bless Sierra Leone."

Post Appointment photograph of President & appointee

 

 

LEAVE ANNIE WALSH SCHOOL ALONE .COM

Folks , this is the report of the news published in AWOKO Newspaper- Some kind friend e-mailed it to me yesterday. (SEE AT THE END OF MY  COMMENTS)  C                                                                                                                                                                                                      Sometimes Governments tend  to attempt some woeful policies which eventually hurt them in the end. We've just seen the embarassing backing down by the British Government  on Education Policy - viz- to scarp the GCSE. The Secretary of State , Michael Gove curt a 'humiliating U-turn' admitting the policy reforms were "a bridge too far".                                                                                                Whosoever advised our beloved President to embark on this road to MOVE The Annie Walsh School from their location of nearly 200 years does not apppear to love the President because that person or persons must realise the trouble this announcement will cause.   There are better options in the lacation of a Market in the Center of Freetown. Do we want to turn that area of Freetown into one gaigantic Market crowded village - once that Market is built, within a short time we surely will be bosting of one great Shanty sub-town and the whole of Kissy Road, Mountain Cut, Magazine Cut. Fireburn  will merge with Upper and Lower Bombay Streets to make one sub-district of a Shanty town. If Annie Walsh School is moved , will the Gibralter Church be moved too? If the Annnie Walsh School is moved, will The Holy Trinity Church with its Primary School be moved too? Will the policy spread to the Cathedral School and the St Marys School? Where will this policy end? Yes there is great need for de-congestion but wiser policy action is needed not this frivolous and disturbing approach. Government  and the City Council must now come up with policy action plan to move the illegal traders from the vicinity of The Annie Walsh- that is the focus that must be embraced now. It is clear that some action be taken , but not the one revealed by this news. I dare say I am not impressed by Mr Osho-Coker's letter. It evokes PROVOCATION- and I do not like it. I am seeing this separately from my personal point of view - yes as an APC dedicated member and I serve the Party  for very long but I separate this issue totally from the Party and the Government. THIS to me is not an APC policy but a government policy which I dislike totally. The Annie Walsh is my mother's school. It is the school my mother's Grand Aunty, Miss CLARA BELFORD, (that is the sister of my maternal Grandmother from Benguima) taught  for decades: many of my relatives and friends including Mrs Elizabeth Lavally-the former Deputy Speaker of Parliament, went to that school even the President's wife - The First Lady, and the wife of the Former High Commissioner of Sierra Leone to the UK Mrs Challobar and many other prominent women.  THE HERITAGE MUST BE PRESERVED. Kissy Street Market and the area surrounding it can be buldozed and clear to build a SUPPER MARKET: or a Shopping Centre- this can go all the way down to 'BIG WARF'; Or Cow Yard and its visinty can be used to build this market for the Market woman dem. or Maket man dem. BUT LEAVE ANNINWALSH ALONE .COM -                                                                                                                                                                                                                     PLEASE READ THE AWOKO REPORT BELOW. B                                                                                                       *****************************************************  
For the construction of a Modern Market Annie Walsh School to relocate.
 Sat February 9, 2013 01:01PM                                                                                                 

Bishop Julius O.P Lynch, proprietor of the Annie Walsh Memorial School has received a letter from the Secretary to the President, proposing the relocation of the school from its present location at Kissy Road for the construction of a modern market.
The letter written by E.B. Osho-Coker, to the Lord Bishop of Freetown and the North states, “as you are no doubt aware, when the Annie Walsh Memorial School (AWMS) moved to its present location on Kissy Road, Freetown in 1865, the environment was ideally suitable for a school that pursued excellence in all areas including high academic performance, sound discipline and a solid Christian foundation.
However, the passage of time, has witnessed a massive growth in the city’s population and
concomitant expansion of trading activities eastwards, the area occupied by the school has become an unsuitable environment for the pursuit of academic excellence.
As Government intensifies its efforts at waste management, improvement of road safety and decongestion through “Operation WID” the compelling need for relocation of the AWMS to a more ideal site has been identified.
The selection of the site will be at the behest of the proprietors of the AWMS and arrangements will be concluded with Government for acquisition of the land and construction of the new school. The land vacated at Kissy Road will then be utilized for the construction of a modern market to be occupied by traders that are being removed from the streets of Freetown.
His Excellency the President, has instructed me to bring this proposal to your attention, so that it can be initially considered by the Church and School authorities.
Please be informed that His Excellency looks forward to a favourable consideration of the proposal contained herein,” the letter concluded.
Bishop Lynch’s first reaction to the letter dated 29th January 2013, was to write the Secretary of the Improvement Relocation Committee of the Annie Walsh Memorial Old Girls Association (AWOGA).
In his letter, he stated, “I hasten to bring this letter received on 30th January 2013 from the Secretary to the President to your notice, for a speedy consideration of the proposal contained in the document. Kindly advise me, so that I can respond appropriately alongside our proposal for privatization.
He ended his letter on this note, “This matter cries haste and must be treated as such.”
However, most Old Girls are of the opinion that there is a need to maintain the present location.
Another school of thought lamented that “but it seems we don’t know what to do with our monuments, relics and historic sites.”
The lady further affirmed “Look at the old FBC building at Cline Town. So far, no effort has been made to preserve it, stressing on “it is our history..our story we need to preserve it. What do we show our kids tomorrow?
Tourists, visitors and Sierra Leoneans need to be able to go on tour to the old FBC building at Cline Town and even the AWMS on Kissy Road. That site needs to be preserved, not destroyed. Do we know what we want to do willingly? Look at what the Islamists are doing in Mali and the attention it got from the international community. Then to think, we want to willingly destroy our heritage”, she lamented.
By Samuel Dennis John

MINISTERIAL APPOINTMENTS

SierraLeone

President Dr.Ernest Koroma second  Five Year Term;  

New list of Cabinet Ministers, as at  Friday 04 Jan 2013

 

1. Minister ofFinance

DR. KAIFALA MARAH (formerly Chief of Staff at State House);

Two Ministers of state, (Finance)
a)  Momodu Kargbo,
b ) Alhaji FBL Mansaray

Deputy Finance Minister – MABINTY DARAMY

2. Minister ofForeign Affairs
DR. SAMURA KAMARA(formerly Finance Minister)

Deputy – EBUN JUSU

3. AttorneyGeneral & Minister of Justice

FRANK KARGBO (retained)
Deputy Justice – ARROW BOCKARIE

4. Minister ofLocal Government
MS. DIANA KONOMANYI (New comer - her first Cabinet Post)

Deputy – IBRAHIM HADIRU KALOKO

5. Minister ofHealth and Sanitation

MS. MIATTA KARGBO(formerly Presidential Adviser)

Two deputies:
Deputy – DR. A.B. FOFANA
Deputy – FODAY SAWI

6. Minister ofInternal Affairs
Joseph B. DAUDA (formerlyForeign Affairs)

Deputy – SHEKA TARAWALIE (formerly Deputy  Information Minister)

7. Minister ofInformation and Communications

Alpha Bakarr Kanu(formerly Minister of Public Affairs)

Deputy- Theophilus Nicol

8. Minister ofWorks

ALIMAMY PETITO KOROMA(retained)

Deputy – BABAGALEH JALLOH

 9. Minister ofEducation

MINKAILU BAH (retained)

Two Deputies:
Deputy- OSMOND HANCILES
Deputy – MAHMOUD TARAWALIE

10. Minister ofEnergy

OLUNIYI ROBBIN COKER(retained)

Deputy – BASH KAMARA

11. Minister ofWater RESOURCES (A newly separated Ministry from Energy)

MOMODU MALIGIE

Deputy – RANDOLPH FODAY BAYOH
 

12. Minister ofAgriculture

DR. JOSEPH SAM SESAY(retained)

Deputy – MARIE JALLOH
Deputy – LOVELL THOMAS

13. Minister ofTransport & Aviation
VANDI CHIDI MINAH(retained)

Deputy – IBRAHIM MANSARAY
14. Minister ofLANDS, COUNTRY PLANNING & ENVIRONMENT
MUSA TARAWALIE (formerlyInternal Affairs)

Deputy – AHMED SAYBOME KANU

15. Minister ofDefence

 RTD. MAJOR Alimamy PalloConteh (retained)

16. Minister ofFisheries/ Marine Resources

 CAPT. M.A. PAT SOWE(formerly Lands Minister)

Deputy – CHARLES ROGERS

 17. Minister ofMines

 ALHAJI MINKAILU MANSARAY(retained)

Deputy – IGNOSI KOROMA

18. Minister ofSocial Welfare, Gender & Children’s Affairs
 MOIJUE KAIKAI (formerlyMinister of State - Southern Province)

Deputy – MUSA BAI ATTILLA

19. Minister ofTrade & Industry
 Usman Boie-Kamara (former SLPPopposition Presidential aspirant)

Deputy – ALIE B. MANSARAY

20. ResidentMinister Northern Province

 Alie D. Kamara

21. ResidentMinister Southern Province

 Muctarr Conteh

22. ResidentMinister Eastern Province

 WILLIAM SMITH

23. OFFICE OFTHE PRESIDENT

Secretary to President-E.B. Osho Coker

Chief of Staff - Dr. Richard Konteh (formerly Minister of Trade)

24. (OthersMinisters still to be announced)

Ministry of Youthand Sports-

 Ministry of Tourism

Ministry ofLabour-



Congratulations to all the Newly appointed and Re-appointed Ministers. This is a Cabinet of Youthful men and vibriant women with vigor and potential.  I hope and look forward to their HARD WORK and DELIVER positive results in line with The Agenda for Prosperity. Those who expected but are not appointed must wait patiently for their day to arrive. Respect the President's choices. LUNTA!