Manjoroka NRA, Guinea & Ebola By Sorie Fofana Berth Cunningham and Peter Bennett were both recruited by DfID (The United Kingdom Department for International Development) to serve as Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner respectively of the Customs and Excise Department. They were each paid about £10,000 (Ten thousand Pounds Sterling a month) under a DfID grant to NRA (National Revenue Authority). According to the NRA Commissioner General, Haja Isatu Kallah Kamara, Mr. Cunningham had the propensity of not conforming to established corporate practice. In short, he was a nonconformist. When NRA complained about the strange conduct of Mr. Cunningham, his employers (DfID) claimed that “due diligence was not done on him before being hired”. That is unimaginable! Two months into their three year contract, Mr. Cunningham and his deputy were withdrawn and sent packing. They have left NRA for good. Two weeks after their unprepared departure, Mr. Cunningham has released a secret memo, that can best be described as explosive. He described the NRA management under Haja Isatu Kallah Kamara as “inept and corrupt”. Such a damning assessment from an expatriate staff, is bound to create great public disquiet. But the NRA Commissioner General yesterday told the Awoko newspaper that, she had been doing her job and she had met every target given to her by the Government. “In the past six months of this year alone, we have raised Le 1.84 Trillion while these people come here and try to paint us black”, Haja Kallah Kamara said. But the one million dollar question is: who paid petty traders (or so-called Importers) and junior Customs officials to stage a public protest against Mr. Cunningham and his colleague at Customs House? Mr. Cunningham’s secret memo is very explosive. It shows clearly that, there is a cabal of saboteurs at NRA HQ, that is bent on undermining the country’s fragile economy. It is, therefore, imperative that an urgent investigation into how payments made to NRA, through various commercial banks; especially at First International Bank are being handled. The issues raised by Mr. Cunningham need to be investigated by State House. Period! Guinea: Unfriendly Neighbours? It will serve no useful purpose to begin to apportion blame for the rapid spread of the Ebola Virus Disease in our country. The virus, which was first detected in a remote village in Kailahun, has now spread to all but one district in Sierra Leone. Even the capital city of Freetown has not been spared of this deadly contagion. When some of us expressed fear about the spread of the virus across the country, our views were ignored. Today, all of us are paying the price for leadership failure at all levels. Some of us had called for Kenema and Kailahun (the Ebola epicentres) to be quarantined long before the virus spread to other parts of the country. Again, those calls were ignored. The Ebola virus was imported into Sierra Leone from Guinea. Guinea had detected the outbreak of Ebola two months before the first Ebola case was detected in Sierra Leone in May this year. What did we do? Instead of closing our air, land and sea borders with Guinea and Liberia (which had detected the Ebola virus long before us), we decided to adopt a softly – softly diplomatic approach. The decision by Guinea to close their borders with Sierra Leone can best be described as an unfriendly decision. We have very close ties with Guinea and Liberia. Our President had met with his Guinean and Liberian counterparts in Conakry to agree on a common approach to stop the spread of the Ebola virus in the Mano River Union countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. The Ivorian President did not attend that meeting. I have been reliably informed that, nothing was agreed on border closure. What was agreed was for member states to adopt measures to control the movement of people. Border closure was not one of those controlled measures agreed upon in Conakry. The decision by Guinea, to close their borders, should serve as a lesson to us that, in times of crisis, diplomatic relationships must not take precedence over the survival of a nation state. Lessons have to be learned! Ebola Survivors The Ministry of Health and Sanitation must go all out and locate all those who have been certified and released from Ebola Treatment or Ebola Isolation Centres across the country. The Ministry of Health, as part of their sensitisation campaign on Ebola, must bring those survivors on the big screen, and, encourage them to tell the world about their own experience in those health facilities. By so doing, people will realise that, once they contract the disease and they go to health facilities in time, they have a good chance of survival. As a result of the Ebola outbreak in our country, some of our nationals have been quarantined. It is difficult for Sierra Leonean travellers leaving the country now. They have had to face a lot of indignities at international airports in Europe and America and even in Africa. This is an embarrassment to all of us. Let us unite as a country and end this menace in our society. This epidemic must not be allowed to destroy our beautiful country and our national resolve. This dreadful disease has undermined our fragile economy, and, has led to massive unemployment especially in the hospitality industry. Sierra Leoneans are known to be resilient and very prayerful. Let us pray for divine intervention. Sierra Leone will rise again!
Posted on: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 11:48:00 +0000
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