{"id":6902,"date":"2010-03-27T11:25:02","date_gmt":"2010-03-27T15:25:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sierraexpressmedia.com\/?p=6902"},"modified":"2010-03-27T11:25:02","modified_gmt":"2010-03-27T15:25:02","slug":"the-week-behind-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/?p=6902","title":{"rendered":"The Week Behind Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

The week ended on a sad note. Most people had hoped that the President\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s direct intervention would have poured oil on the troubled waters of the doctors and nurses strike. All would agree that the doctors and nurses have a very strong case; on the other hand unlike members of other professions, theirs is an essential service and they are dealing with life and death. We have seen the very negative effect of the strike action on patients during the last two weeks. By being intransigent my younger colleagues have not followed the path of wisdom\u00c2\u00a0by giving a defiant response to the President\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s intervention. If I was the\u00c2\u00a0strike leader I would have said to my colleagues, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ladies and gentlemen, we have made our point; the President has given an undertaking that there is a package on the way for us. Out of reverence for him, and in the interest of our patients, we should call off our strike now. If come April 27 we do not get a satisfactory deal, we could reconsider our options.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/span><\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0It won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be a popular speech; the more radical members will refer to it as a sellout. But \u00c2\u00a0a leader should also guide. There is the expression that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153if you want to lead the orchestra you must give your back to the audience.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In any industrial action, one must strive to have the public on one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s side. I hope that by the time this piece is read, common sense would have prevailed and that the strike would have been called off.<\/p>\n

Let me repeat what has become anathema to the pro APC lobby. It is hypocritical and unhelpful to the President to go flattering him when the reality is staring\u00c2\u00a0all in the face. One example is those who continually cry that the SLPP was kicked out of office because it failed the people; that President Ernest Bai Koroma had inherited a battered economy. In the first place we were not kicked out of office; we were cheated on\u00c2\u00a0the results, Period. In the second place we have continued to educate such uninformed with facts and figures that WE LEFT A HANDSOME AMOUNT IN THE VAULT AND A VERY HEALTHY FOREIGN RESERVE. In July 2006, barely a year to the 2007 Presidential and Parliamentary elections the erstwhile Managing Director of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz visited Sierra Leone. Among other things he had this to say at a news conference. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153<\/em> One of the most successful of what we call post-conflict countries- those countries that have emerged from war and \u00c2\u00a0conflict. One of the things we measure in the performance of countries, are the particulars in the area of governance and delivering \u00c2\u00a0aid and services to their people and the country has a performance rating that is among the best post-conflict countries in Africa.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em> Never mind their loose talk of a battered economy,<\/p>\n

So the news IS TRUE, Steve Mattia who gained notoriety in the local government council elections in 2004 and even worse in the general elections of 2007 is the APC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s (aided and abated by a dying PMDC)\u00c2\u00a0 new Election Commissioner. Christiana Thorpe now has an ally at her elbow. In i991 when President Joseph Saidu Momoh announced that the country would be returning to multiparty democracy I said in my statement, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mr. President, I must tell you that your popularity had dropped to an all time low. But with this announcement I assure you with confidence that it will begin to climb again.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Immediately after that the party began to lay the ground for rigging\u00c2\u00a0the 1992 election by putting its own people in the Elections office. Here we are again, with the party laying the foundations for 2012. Ha ha (apologies to Peep)<\/p>\n

The Bank of Sierra Leone has announced the introduction of a new set of currency notes in the very near future.\u00c2\u00a0The Bank knows best, but as a layman with no qualification in economics, here is my innocent question for the Governor.\u00c2\u00a0We already have double digit inflation; our exports have not balanced our imports. In the midst of such a situation, would putting new notes on top of the old ones, would we not have a runaway inflation before the old notes are withdrawn?<\/p>\n

Friday’s Mamei Salone en pikin says that from the time of Sir Milton on to Tejan-Kabbah and with the exception of Joseph Saidu Momoh, the Mendes had killed all the Temnes until the arrival of Ernest Bai Koroma. that in the 1898 rebellion it was the Mendes who massacred all the missionaries and the members of other tribes while Bai Bureh only massacred the missionaries. Your Excellency, this Paul Kamara who is on a desperate campaign for you to nominate him as chairman of the Youth Commission. God help mama Salone.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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The week ended on a sad note. Most people had hoped that the President\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s direct intervention would have poured oil on the troubled waters of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":75801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[671,1],"tags":[2576,1701,2577],"class_list":["post-6902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-uncategorized","tag-bank-of-sierra-leone","tag-nurses-strike","tag-steve-miattia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}