Nomination for the 2007 Presidential elections started Tuesday with the Convention Peoples Party being the first to be provisionally registered.
Before announcing that they were provisionally registered, the Chief Electoral Commissioner Dr Christiana Thorpe asked the Presidential candidate Andrew Turay in the presence of his running mate Lansana Conteh how they intend to fulfill the aspirations of the people of this country.
Andrew Turay a consultant agriculturist by profession said “There was a paradise called Sierra Leone in 1961 when we gained Independence where there was light there was water there was everything. The British boys left everything behind for us a functional system but over the last 46 years who ever was in charge of governance systematically destroyed all of it today we do not have light in Freetown the double-decker buses are gone, SLPMB is closed the diamond corporation – SLST is closed, Delco is closed, the railway is closed, the airlines are closed everything is closed where are you going to get the jobs where are you going to get the money, how can you move?”
“The educational system is gone down, we were number one, now we are last so it’s a society that has been completely destroyed over the last 46 years. It is not for us it is for our own children yet unborn the generations that are coming if we do not get ourselves together and bring in competent people to resuscitate this country I believe that paradise is an illusion its far fetched for our children. I believe it is the responsibility of every Sierra Leonean to make sure that we put our shoulders to the wheel and help to develop this country.”
“Corruption is rampant because of poor remuneration it has to be corrected, governance has gone down to zero because people think jobs are there as long as you are employed you have to stay on that job for a life time we have to change the systems a lot of restructuring has to be done over the years Institutions like the Bank of Sierra Leone the Ministry of Finance a lot of them and governance must be reduced there are too many Ministries unnecessary Ministries being created to create jobs for politicians we must reduce government I believe in small government we must reduce government and make it efficient and pay our functionaries well.”
“Over and beyond this the private sector must be opened up, expanded, tax breaks must be given to investors who feel they want to invest in Sierra Leone – they must be protected to be sure that infact they have confidence in investing in this country again.”
“If we do not develop the infrastructure that would sustain the private sector they will not come so there are a lot of things that we have to do.”
“Education! Education! Education! To date after 46 years of independence Sierra Leone can only boast of 39 percent educated people which means 61 percent is illiterate if a man does not have skills how can you employ him the youths that are running in the streets of Freetown are not trained they are not carpenters you cannot hire them as carpenters they are not lawyers you cannot hire them as lawyers rule number one is education rule number two is education, rule number three is education and that is why when you compare ourselves to Malaysia, we say Malaysia is about 90 percent educated today we are not and it ties down to the human development index, because if a man does not know what hygiene is how can he practice good hygiene these are the basics so education is a must and we must educate this country for it to rise up above and get to the levels where it was.”“We have done an 81 page manifesto which we call a development plan and we’ve gone through all these sectors including the security forces and we’ve even attached a budget to it to tell us how much its going to cost to achieve our development and we’ve even identified the source of financing I think it’s a novelty in politics I’m sure no party has done it we are number one and that’s why we are nominating number one today.”
Nomination continues today.
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