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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, 2012.

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.

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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?

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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.

 

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.



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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.

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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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