By Mohamed Fofanah
In the current history of Sierra Leone, COVID-19 has caused a huge disruption to the progress of this nation. Our lives, our economy and our education have been trapped in the midst of the negative consequences of COVID-19 pandemic. However, the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, in partnership with other health agencies, have been resilient and strong in the fight against COVID-19.
Meanwhile, NaCoVERC has been publishing the public health guidelines and the safety measures, which Sierra Leoneans must follow and observe. The Ministry of Health and Sanitation and NaCoVERC are working tirelessly to get to zero cases of Coronavirus.
NaCoVERC’s job has not been only to support the country in eradicating Coronavirus, but also contributes to the economic recovery and toward mitigating the short-term and long-time impacts of the crisis on the socio-economic well-being of all Sierra Leoneans.
Challenges are coming from the length and breadth of Sierra Leone; in the provinces, most of the health statistics and surveys do not sufficiently capture the appropriate range of the health problems encountered by the poor people living in dilapidated homes.
Moreover, the government has not been able to track and to pinpoint the most urgent socioe-conomic concerns for many households in Sierra Leone. Painfully, many households in Freetown and the provinces, in particular, cannot sustain three square meals for a day because they have been trapped in the midst of abject poverty, lockdowns and curfews.
The New Direction is good at braggardocio and they pretend as if they are omnipotent, but honestly they lack the knowledge in tackling problems of related issues in the country.
According to Dr. Katamada, “A man may know everything else, but without knowledge, he remains ignorant of the best intellectual and moral achievement of his people.”
Notably, the impact of COVID-19 crisis are likely to linger well into the future, and economic recovery will hinge on understanding which sectors and groups need the most support to get back on their feet.
Looking at the New Direction, from a critical perspective, there have been massive cases of corruption and mismanagement of the country’s resources through the improper ways of procurement processes. The New Direction needs to rise up and try to fix up the institutions that are not doing well.
According to the Audit Report and Chernor Bah’s investigative report, these two reports vividly pinpoint that the government institutions are the very parasites in mismanaging the country’ resources and crippling our economy.
Chernor Bah’s report points out shameful fingers against our current First Lady, Madam Fatima Bio. The report says that the First Lady has been receiving billions of Leones from the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) to promote her private projects and businesses. And the Chief Minister has also mismanaged billons of Leones without proper procurement procedures that will enhance accountability to the people of the country.
We are looking forward to the Anti-Corruption to look into the ongoing corruption cases. Corruption is a living organ; so you cannot ignore the current wrongdoings of the government personnel and institutions. So, it’s about time the Anti-Corruption should start investigating issues that are currently damaging the goodwill of the people.
What is new about the New Direction is totally in contrast with what the people were expecting. In the New Direction, there is massive corruption and mismanagement of resources, poor procurement processes, violence against persons with disabilities, tribalism, nepotism and sectionalism in high esteem, high rate of sexual harassment, too much unfulfilled promises from the government and no justice for the poor.
Others include starvation and deprivation, no job for the youths, constant blackout in Bo and Kenema, high rate of sexual harassment and teenage pregnancy, poor medical facilities, frequent launchings and turning of the sod by the president and government authorities, scarcity of water supply, high increase of local foodstuffs and foreign goods, lack of maintenance of bridges and feeder roads, deprived the constitutional right of Linkonwing students, massive failure in public examinations, massive malpractice in public examinations, low salaries of university lectures, too much of “lay bellehism” in the media, evil societies and artists, high rate of social media prostitution, high rate of drug abuses by the youth and too much of land grabbing.