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As from January 4, 2012
the main Sierra Leone Telegraph site can be
found at:
www.sierraleonetelegraph.com
This part of the site contains
archive articles from April 2009 to January 2,
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New Year 2012 Address to the Nation
His Excellency the President - Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma
2 January 2012
Fellow Sierra Leoneans, on this very first day of
2012, I am reiterating my resolution to make this
country live up to its destiny of greatness. We will
continue along the path of progress and development.
We will continue to build the roads.
We will keep on increasing electricity supply, we will
go on with turning farms into businesses, and we
will continue to implement the free health care
initiative. We will go on with rebranding this
country. We will continue to win accolades for our
dedication to development and democracy. We will
continue to lead reforms at the United Nations.
We will go on sharing the blessings of peace by
sending peacemakers to trouble spots in the world.
We will move on with attracting investments,
improving the business climate, creating jobs and
maintaining law and order. We will continue to fight
corruption.
We will continue to protect the environment and bring
to book those who violate our environmental laws; we
will continue to prosecute those who are involved in
electoral violence; we will continue to stand up for
the common man and woman. We will not be distracted;
we will not turn back; the only option is to move
forward with unrelenting zeal.
Let me also use this occasion to congratulate the
youths of this country for their great contributions
to the development of Sierra Leone. Youths are our
partners in transformation, the pillars of our
actions and the mainstay of our aspirations for a
better Sierra Leone.
We salute your resilience and your talents as
musicians, teachers, traders, students, religious
youths, office workers, riders and drivers.
> Read More
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Opposition kicks out ruling
party in Jamaica: The lessons for President Koroma’s
APC
2 January 2012
Sierra Leone is now experiencing the worst food crisis
to hit the country in the last five years - with
prices of basic commodities either doubled or
tripled, as evident in the price of rice which was
Le 60,000 in 2007, but now ranging from Le140,000 –
Le 160,000.
The lesson we can learn from the Jamaican elections
is that, suffering voters do not give a second
chance to a government, when electorate are
wallowing in economic hardship, poverty and
joblessness.
Voters are waking up to the fact that they cannot
mortgage another five years of a promised paradise,
when sadly they are sleeping on empty stomach.
The Jamaican voters having punished the JLP for their
lies, deception and ineptitude, so will Sierra
Leoneans punish the APC for their lies and
deception, which have made us poorer and driven up
youth unemployment.
So the question is, why have Jamaicans elected a
former Prime Minister?
Could the voters in Sierra Leone elect Maada Bio in
November, based on the Jamaican experience?
> Read More
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An all New Look Sierra Leone Telegraph Coming Soon!
We are
pleased to announce that The Sierra Leone Telegraph
is currently being reconstructed.
An all new
looking and interactive site will be launched in the
next few days.
On behalf of
the management of the Sierra Leone Telegraph, we
wish you a happy and prosperous New Year!
With well
over 1 Million hits and 50,000 visitors this year,
we thank you for your readership throughout 2011.
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2012 – Let the revolution begin
28 December 2011
As a people, we simply trudge on and strive to
make the best out of a bad situation. That is why we
do not question the actions of government beyond
feeling occasional discomfort and expressing
fleeting worries at times, such as when we
have distractions like the Cocaine Planes that are
becoming a feature of our landscape and Nollywood
blockbusters like ‘Timbergate’.
Years of dehumanising and sub-standard existence,
have left us without the will to assess situations
and ask probing questions.
We have become a makeshift people that are easily
manipulated by our leaders, and we simply flow with
the tide of the day without abiding standards.
So what do we have? A stalemate. Sierra Leone ends
up suffering for it and progress stalls.
As our leaders display their hide of a rhino to the
growing frustrations among the people, they have
turned the populace into the best looking pig in the
slaughter house.
There is a huge canyon separating what we have and
what we as a people, are praying for; as well as a
world of difference between the promises with which
we were lured and the fulfilments we’ve experienced.
> Read More
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Civic education is
needed to consolidate the peace in preparation for
general elections in Sierra Leone
22 December 2011
According to section 5 - paragraph 2a of the country’s
Constitution: "...Sovereignty belongs to the people
of Sierra Leone from whom Government through this
Constitution derives all its powers, authority and
legitimacy.'
By sovereignty of the people is meant 'the belief that
the legitimacy of the state is created by the will
or consent of its people', who are the source of all
political power.
It is only education of the people regarding their
civic, human and constitutional rights that will
enhance their power, against the politicians who
have become so powerful that they do not work in the
interest of their electorate.
Politicians very well know that, at election they will
win votes by simply campaigning on sectional,
regional and tribal bases.
> Read More
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The Timbergate saga: " The long winding road to
no where!"
19 December 2012
Government’s belated and frenzied response to the
Timbergate drama, through its recent press
conference and public statement therefore amounts to
nothing but political exhibitionism, full of strobe
light and noise, signifying nothing.
After a staggering inertia and complacency that saw
as much action as that of a blind eunuch, those
leading us have come out looking like grinning
laboratory rats, wondering about the growing
drumbeat of disbelief in the national polity, and
trying to whip everyone back into line with what
amounts to a dismissive yawn and criminal impunity.
No matter the political leanings of any commentator
or the cast of the Timbergate comedy - as those in
the corridors of power are want to believe or make
out, it must be said that the central issue as far
as I am concerned, is that the people of the
Republic of Sierra Leone are for once voicing
concerns and opinions about an issue, and wanting
answers from those that they elected to guide their
moral, political and social conscience.
They are not asking for the moon. They are not
challenging our servant-masters even though they
have a right to.
They have not accused anybody, and even if they did,
they have a right to and it is the responsibility of
that person to clear his or her name.
If the government sees itself as being on trial, it
needs to do a soul search and realise that there
must be reason for the disappearance of the initial
goodwill; and the earlier it does this the better
for all of us.
Therefore, if the government thinks that it has
carefully negotiated its way through the twists and
turns of the fickle relationship with the generality
of the people in the aftermath of the Timbergate
drama, I’m sorry to say: "It ain’t seen nothing
yet." Because there are indeed more questions than
answers.
Why now? Was the long silence meant to give time for
the grand stage of deception to be set?
Is the statement and submissions for the benefit of
the international co-conspirators in the rape of
Sierra Leone?
> Read More
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