Damn the partisan Local Council elections which have in most part arrested development of Councils in the so-called party strongholds and ironically in swing localities. I wonder what report card a Council like the Freetown City Council will show during the next campaign. It has been like the Former Minister of Agriculture who promised to export locally produced rice in three years, and that bogus pronouncement was made in 2009. At the time he left office some 8 years later, government was spending millions of dollars on imported rice to give to the forces. Sierra Leoneans are still eating imported rice. Government’s projects are yet to feed its people!
If a man all alone claims to have killed a snake, that snake might even turn into a python, after all who was there to testify? It is like a man crying in the rain, he alone knows he is crying. Until our local Government elections are held on non-partisan basis, we might not have effective and efficient performances from most of them. Social accountability for many types of Council does not just exist. The Freetown City Council is one that has done great disservice to the citizens of this country.
Do you remember the vuvuzellas hollering they did before the Sewa Grounds Market project? One can hardly put one’s finger on any big project that the City Council has started and satisfactorily completed since the local government was reinstituted in Sierra Leone in 2004. The Sewa Grounds Market Project is one good example. Just check out the trumpeted Sewa grounds Market which started around 2009 and was abandoned after some three years for a brand new contract to a similar project. Who really cares about the money wasted? What do they know about accounting to tax payers?
Should we talk about Victoria Park? Whatever they started doing there had long stagnated and they are struggling to save their face. These days it seems the place is a city farm where they keep burning overgrown grass. The annoying visible signs of the mess at Victoria Park are those three ugly and lousy lion carvings which look like geniuses of hunger, even the war years never produced. Imagine the Council holding on to the only park Freetown can boast of, locking it out to the public. That place was the resting place for the growing Freetown’s walking population that can hardly afford transportation fares.
Hey the Freetown City Council next boasted of building a market for Wilberforce. They said they will demolish the old one. This reminds me of the Eastern police Clock Tower which is now a mere tower because all the clocks there show different time zones either in North America, china, Russia or somewhere in the Antarctica. My God this is too dysfunctional to describe. But they will be there anyway.
The issue of garbage clearing in Freetown had for decades remained a very sore one. The challenges have been monumental and myriad. This is why the idea of sourcing the garbage clearing aspect of sanitation was a great relief to that near moribund outfit. First it was waste Management Company and recently, Masada. They landed with a very sexy slogan which goes: MASADA: Finally a clean smart solution. Well I can tell you for free that although they seem to be doing their best, far better than those before them, they are yet to prove themselves. Did I hear you say they have issues with the City council over payments? The challenges besting Masada are really not their own making. You need to go to the Lands and Country planning to find the answer. Even as I write somebody just said on radio that even when the slums in the Congo town are threatened by disaster, that Ministry is issuing building Permits like tickets at a stadium event. Can you imagine! There is hardly any planning done there. Otherwise we would not be in the mess we are in especially when it comes to accessibility and waste management. The question is can Masada succeed in this chaotic situation? As I said earlier, Masada cannot reach all the houses which are now sprawling sluggishly up the hills like old and tired snakes.
In the days of Late President J S Momoh we had Garbage Containers placed at strategic points around the city. The vehicles used to come and pick up the containers and off they went. When the Containers wore out and were not replaced, the spaces where the cans were standing were bought and with the connivance of authorities, buildings were put on them. Today there are hardly points safe enough to put containers even if Masada were to provide them.
Ebola lessons are just too fresh in our minds to make the same mistakes that cost so many of four compatriots live sand left our economy grossly deformed. Sanitation in the first place cannot be toyed with although in one forum recently, the ministry of Health and sanitation was not quite sure whose purview sanitation fell. At the time we witnessed some verbal drama when an official of the Ministry quickly put in a debunking red flag. All this demonstrates the level of commitment to solving our sanitation problem once and for all.
The Sierra Leone Youth report 2012 has this to say about access to adequate sanitation, in part: “Access to adequate and improved means of basic sanitation is critical to maintain satisfactory levels of hygiene in households and communities and enable healthy practices related to sanitation. Inadequate disposal of human excreta contributes to the transmission of diseases….Forty percent of the population of Sierra Leone…use improved sanitation facilities. “The sanitary situation is made precarious by the unavailability of water in most of the communities. Majority of the communities especially new ones do not have pipe borne water. Even if the Guma Valley Water Company wants to place tanks the poor roads and their none existence makes it a huge challenge. How then is Masada going to provide the smart clean solution?
The issue of garbage and waste management should be considered as a multi-sectoral responsibility. It should involve the ministry of Health and sanitation, Lands, Environment, Sierra Leone Roads Authority, City Council, Roads Maintenance and Masada. Let us take the case of drainage. Without proper drainage, dirt will gather and clog the gutters. There was a time when it was said that Masada has nothing to do with gutters. This is worrying to say the least!
In the 2015 national Budget, Health and sanitation accounted for 23%. Whatever is allocated to Masada is an entirely different issue. Certain steps need to be taken to enable Masada to perform better. The garbage containers need to be brought back. Areas where the containers are to be placed have to be identified. The issue of street trading needs to be looked into and the appropriate laws seen to be implemented. Well City Council will have to find alternative selling centers for the huge number of traders now found in every and any available space around the city. Efforts should be made to have access roads for Masada to reach every nook and cranny for garbage collection.
Let us leave the garbage and talk about City Council’s seven-storey Complex which was going to house the city Hall this project was to take off some five years ago or so. It was going to be a masterpiece with the ground and first floors having car parks that was going to fetch good cash for the Council. In their frenzy as usual the quickly demolished the damaged former city Hall at a doubting whooping cost. What a disgrace, this council is! Well since poyo sells more than pamine, may be the Council should start selling poyo at the demolished site!
By Ben Cambayma
Tuesday April 25, 2017.
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