Sierra Leone Telegraph: 10 November 2021:
Sierra Leone’s Minister of Health and Sanitation, Dr Austin Demby yesterday received fifteen tons of assorted medical supplies on behalf of the government of Sierra Leone, which arrived at the Lungi International Airport, donated by the government of the United Arab Emirates to help care for victims of last week’s oil tanker fire disaster in Freetown.
Receiving the items, Dr. Demby said he is pleased with the timely response from the UAE in supporting Sierra Leone during a time of need.
He described the fire incident which took the lives of one hundred people as a sad moment for Sierra Leone, particularly the affected families and therefore encouraged everyone to join the national effort to provide care and comfort for both the victims and the families of the deceased.
He said that since the incident, the government has deployed all its resources and commended medical doctors and all frontline workers involved in the response.
The health minister also lauded Sierra Leone’s Ambassador to the UAE, Rashid Sesay for promptly engaging the UAE authorities, while describing him as a strong advocate for Sierra Leone in the UAE. He assured that the government will do its best to ensure that survivors recover fully.
Sierra Leone and the UAE have strong bilateral relations.
If only our political establishment can show they care for the people that elected them, instead of displaying utter contempt of our welbeing, and the future welbeing of our country. One has to ask why our international foreign partners seems to care more about the welfare of the people of Sierra Leone than our brothers and sisters that are elected to look after the welfare of every citizen of the state. A lot of the tragedies that have befallen our country over the last few decades are man made. And the main culprits is CORRUPTION. Don’t be fool by any of the half-hearted statements of sympathy that is coming from Bio, or anyone else that have contributed to the sorry state we found ourselves. Sierra-leone is stuck halfway house. From the Morden (Internet age) to prehistoric times where the savages and barbarians are in total control of our country’s fate. Taken together, this hundred premature deaths of our fellow countrymen and women are avoidable. Are we going to draw any lessons from this? I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Sierra-leoneans have short memories spans. They never learn from their past mistakes. They are avoidable if only we have governments that shows little care for it citizens. Some might say we demand too much from our politicians, whlist as citizens of the state, we put little or no efforts to improve our lives and help with national development. Those that argue like that, are missing the point. As the president of Malawi recently reminded his compatriots, that his inbox is full of messages from ordinary Malawians expecting him as the president to run their family affairs. Well we Sierra Leoneans don’t expect president Bio to issues directives on how to run our families affairs, but it will help if his government can lead by example. What we expect from his government or any future government for that matter is to create the necessary conditions where by every individual can exircise their rigth to excel according to their ability and how far their talents can take them without any fear or favours.
And governments are elected to create the necessary conditions, like security, investing in education, roads, electricity, housing, health, agriculture, credit facilities for small and medium size enterprises, and above everything else helping bring people together to work for the common good for the country’s future national development. Unfortunately, the only time we seemed to come together is when a tragedy of this magnitude struck. This is a direct result of the political quagmire our country found itself. Decades after so-called independence, we haven’t able to move that dail for national reconciliation and development. We seem to be stuck in a time wrap of tribal and regional differences blame games and held hostage by a corrupt political structures and a cabal that serve only one purpose to enrich the most corrupt politicians that managed to climb the greasy pole of political ineptitude and lack the knowledge or ideas of how to run a sovereign state for the good of all not just their friends and families. I hope we move from this with a renewed sense of purpose and direction. So this sort of tragedies never happen again in our country.
“When the going get tough, God is in control”. It is well noted that God is somewhere sending people to help us. In good times and in bad times God is in control.
Sierra Leoneans ! Let’s have hope that there is someone and somewhere who cares.