News Story

FREETOWN: NEW PEOPLE CORRESPONDENT: The New People reporters have been busy ferreting out information about the shut down last night of the SLPP Radio Station, Unity Radio 94.9 FM. It has been confirmed now that the order to shut down the radio station came officially from the Ministry of Information. But sources close to the Minister of Information, Alhaji IB Kargbo, argued that the man believes in the fundamental principle of free expression, and he has lived his life by that principle. Asked whether that meant that he would not give such an order, the source refused to further comment on the issue. Alhaji Kargbo himself was unavailable for comments.

The New People correspondent then contacted the State House source. There was the usual hesitation and gerrymandering until a very reliable source close to the Office of the President revealed that the order did not originate from the office of President Ernest Bai Koroma. The source intimated that the order to shut down Unity Radio came directly from the office of the Minister for Public and Parliamentary Affairs, Hon. Alpha Kanu.

The New People reporter then went to the Independent Media Commission to further investigate the confusion around the shut down of the radio station. IMC staff contacted told The New People that they had issues no orders for Unity Radio to cease operations. Asked whether the radio station's registration and other paperwork were in order, the IMC officials affirmed that Unity Radio was fully registered with the IMC and fully licensed to operate and broadcast on FM94.9 which had been allocated in collaboration with the technical team of the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service.

The New People correspondent then travelled to speak to the SLBS technical team about the issue. As far as they were concerned, everything was in order and that an engineer had worked with the allocation of the 94.9 wave on the FM broadcast spectrum to Unity Radio and that everything should be in order as far as he knows. The correspondent picked up his celtel number and headed for the office of Hon. Alpha Kanu.

Hon. Alpha Kanu was unavailable as he had a number of afternoon engagements. But a staff member in his office and a guest who looks like a JC told The New People correspondent that they had knowledge of the reason why the Unity Radio had been told to shut down operations. They explained the following:

1. That broadcasts of the Unity Radio's 94.9 FM had been interfering with and drowning out broadcasts from the APC's radio station and other FM Radio stations in the country and that everyone must have equal access to the air waves.

2. Because of the interference, they said that the station had been asked to close down temporarily so that its staff can work with SLBS engineers to "reduce the power" of the Unity Radio's broadcasts.

The New People correspondent then contacted the SLBS engineer to help her understand further whether the official explanation from the office of Hon. Alpha Kanu was correct,. The engineer explained that 88.8 (the APC Radio station) and 94.9 (Unity Radio) were too far apart on the spectrum for broadcasts from Unity Radio to affect APC Radio broadcasts. Besides, he explained, if there is any interference, then the APC's radio station may need to re-position the directional antenna of the APC's radio station between 90degrees and 120 degrees from the current location and everything should be fine. This, he explained, has nothing to do with the SLPP radio station. He therefore did not understand why the SLPP radio station had to be shut down before that re-direction should be done. Asked whether he had been informed about the ban on broadcasting, he said that he had also heard it from people, but he had not received any instructions from his bosses at work to do anything about the ban or to rectify anything.

The New People correspondent will follow up this breaking story in the morning tomorrow although it is unlikely there will be any concrete answers until Monday.

However, this action has aroused suspicion and anger that the "new" APC government is very much the same repressive APC of Siaka Stevens and JS Momoh of the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s.