Sewa News Stream

Michael von der Schulenburg's report to the Security Council at the United Nations on March 22, 2012 sent shock waves around the blogosphere last week. Schulenberg's long-awaited speech at the end of his assignment to Sierra Leone as executive representative of the Secretary-General didn't disappoint. First, he shared fond memories of the people—their warmth, openness and directness. Then he praised  the successes Sierra Leone has made over the last decade and contributions of the two previous governments led by former president Ahmad Tejan-Kabbah and President Ernest Bai Koroma. Next up for recognition were the contributions of Sierra Leone's traditional leaders, faith community leaders, civil society organizations, journalists and musicians. Schulenberg also put human faces to what he called the "tremendous traumas that 17 years of one-party rule, 13 military coups and finally eleven years of civil war have left behind." He recalled young people who sti...

Theme: “Celebrating Five Years of Transformative Change” Delivered by Dr. Samura M. W. Kamara, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, in the Chamber of Parliament Tower Hill, Freetown on Friday, 25th November, 2011 Mr. SPEAKER, HONOURABLE MEMBERS I. INTRODUCTION Mr. Speaker, I rise to move that the Bill entitled, “An Act to provide for the services for Sierra Leone for the Financial Year (FY) 2012” be read for the first time. II. Delivering on Commitments 2. Mr. Speaker, at the onset of this Government in September 2007, Sierra Leone was relatively at the low end of several international country performance ratings, including in agricultural productivity, in road infrastructure coverage, in power generation and distribution, in telecommunication density, in access to finance, and basic social services - water and sanitation, health and education, in environmental management, as well as in economic and financial governance. 3. Mr. Speaker, Honourable Me...

Still in Freetown and doing my stuff. As promised, I do have additional updates on what is happening in our nation's capital. Healthcare : The spate of deaths here in S/Leone is alarming to the outsider. We are losing more friends and relatives at a faster rate than we could make new ones. Yesterday, as I drove through Kissy Road between “Up-Gun turntable” and Savage Square, I noticed at least five funeral processions passed us on their way to the Kissy Road “berring gron”. Three of the corpses were evidently younger people who were probably no older than 30. People are getting so used to burying their dead that even the Okadas hardly pause for a second from their speeding, in respect of the dead. As I noticed several Columbia Davies vans ( they seem to have increased their fleet) transporting the hearse; the “business instinct” in me told me how profitable funeral parlors are increasingly becoming in this part of the world. Healthcare is no doubt the major contributor to u...