Sewa News Stream

Serious financial discrepancies still remain unexplained and unaccounted for, according to NOSLINA's Audit Committee. In a press release issued this week, auditors for the largest diaspora organization that advocates on behalf of Sierra Leonean interests in North America, announced recommendations to improve internal methods of financial management and control. The audit committee, which covered the period September 2008 to June 2010, is made up of financial experts that NOSLINA's board and executive appointed in June of 2010. The organization called the move a historic step—ordering a first-ever comprehensive audit of the financial operations of the 13-year-old organization. Donald Taylor, the immediate past chairman of NOSLINA, told us by telephone from California this evening that among the findings, the committee had observed that the organization's checkbook had only one signatory, and its monthly bank reconciliations were either infrequently or incorrectly perf...

Victoria Adjo Climbié had a smile to remember. Ten years this February, she was murdered by her guardians in London. The once happy little eight-year old girl from Ivory Coast had suffered a catalog of abuse right up to her death in February 2000. A United Kingdom- government inquiry reported that there were 12 missed chances to save her. All the agencies and people with power to do something —the police, social services department of many local authorities, the National Health Service, the NSPCC, and local churches—had failed. All of them had noted the abuse and done nothing. Victoria was found with 128 separate injuries when she died. Since then, the U.K. government has done much to protect children. Part of their plans included working with London's African communities that develop and strengthen community-based preventive activities in this field. AFRUCA was one of them. Established in response to the need for support at a grassroots level, Africans United Against Child Abu...

One of the news stories I discussed today was Awoko's "Lawyer locked up for gender-based violence." For those who may not have read it, the article is about a domestic violence case in an east end Freetown community and the debate it has generated on the new Domestic Violence Act; its implementation, and protection it provides women under the law. In the coming days, we shall see how it will play out in court. Another women's issue that, sadly, always makes the headlines is rape. In the 12-month period leading up to March 2009, the local press carried numerous reports of Sierra Leonean women and girls who were victims of sexual violence and rape. One of the youngest victim was only a few months old. Local groups who advocate for victims of sexual violence--24/7/365--say there are so many incidents of rape in Sierra Leone that there is no way of knowing just how many victims there really are. Ironically, because the raped baby and the hundreds of women and girls who ...

This weekend, the All Peoples Congress Party of North America held a fund raiser in Maryland. In the interest of full disclosure I am not a member of APC North America, but I planned to buy a ticket and support the event. Unfortunately, something came up at the last minute and I didn't make it. Still, I am rather curious to know which Sierra Leonean cause they will donate to. A few that come to mind: Income generating projects for youth, sustainable empowerment of women, adult literacy, job skills training, educational improvement and health care. See, some months ago, the APC of North America announced that in support of President Koroma's "Agenda for Change" APC-North America would embark on what it called “unprecedented fund-raising efforts to renovate Kissy Mental Home.” A news article reported that the North American branch of the APC party had donated the sum of US$10,000 for the renovation of the psychiatric hospital. Two former members of APC-NA, Martin Bash K...

This week, the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists released a strong statement on last Saturday's kidnapping and public humiliation of four female journalists. A quote read: "We condemn in the strongest of terms these illegal arrests and detention of the journalists and reiterate our appeal to the public that formal and civilised channels exist for seeking redress which must be respected." In a media statement also released this week, Reporters Without Borders added their voice: "Such disgraceful behaviour worthy of a bygone age is very damaging to Sierra Leone's image." Haja Massah Kai-samba, the Sowei who told the local press that the four journalists were taken into “our custody because they spoke unfavorably on radio against FGM,” seems not to know that abduction is a crime in Sierra Leone. Or that the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone found people guilty on accusations which included crimes such as abduction; the kind of actions t...

In 2005, the UN called for governments to mark the third Sunday in November of each year as World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. I don't know if Sierra Leone observed the day of remembrance this year, but two of their West African neighbors took the opportunity to commemorate victims of traffic collisions and to acknowledge their responsibility to prevent serious injuries on their roadways. In Ghana and Nigeria, people concerned with road traffic crashes and their consequences ensured that the advocacy opportunity of this day was fully realized. Nigeria's press reported events that ran from the unveiling of a National Drivers Training Manual to awareness walks held by advocates of road safety and road danger reduction. In Lagos, Federal Road Safety Commission officials, dressed in symbolic black, distributed leaflets and flyers about safety on the roads during a candlelight procession for victims of road traffic accidents. Campaigners for road safety and road dang...

I cringe every time Jacob Jusu Saffa speaks. The secretary general of the Sierra Leone People's Party, who doubles as the party's spokesman, has a knack for grandstanding- choosing his moments to relay negative political attacks in a style he has made all his own. Saffa took the party's 2007 presidential and parliamentary election loss so badly; he wrote in a post-election press release that the international community connived in the "stealing of SLPP's happiness." As if that wasn't bad enough, he repeated the same charge on air in September 2007: "It's part of the international conspiracy, but they will not get away with it," Saffa said ominously. Emotive language. Nine months on, and a few days shy of Sierra Leone's local elections, another sound bite from Saffa has made headlines: President Koroma is behaving like Zimbabwe's Mugabe, he is reported to have said. Saffa has a penchant for sound and fury. Last week, in the weekly brie...