News Story

FREETOWN: NEW PEOPLE CORRESPONDENT: The Head of the Independent Media Commission has confirmed on national radio that SLPP's Unity Radio 94.9 FM is properly registered, installed, and licensed to operate in Sierra Leone in accordance with all laws and regulations of Sierra Leone. This announcement puts a serious credibility dent in the official APC government explanation for banning broadcasts from Unity Radio. The IMC head also urged the government to reverse its decision in order to maintain the democratic gains of freedom of speech that Sierra Leoneans have enjoyed now since 1996.

In other developments, the secretary general of the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP), Jacob Jusu Saffa, challenged the Deputy Minister of Information to say the truth about the undemocratic ban as a "carefully contrived plan" by the APC government to silence the opposition especially as the population is now hearing alternative explanations for their continued suffering in the last 9 months. He further challenged the APC official to publicly present the licensing and other operating documents for the APC's We Yone Radio station. The confounded deputy minister of information only mumbled an answer, but JJ Saffa insisted that if the APC has nothing to hide, it should lay the documents and evidence of registration of the APC's radio station out in public. The deputy minister had no response to the accusation. Equally so, the APC government has still not released the documents indicating its compliance with IMC and NATCOM rules and regulations.

The SLPP's Secretary General has emphasised that the opposition will not be allowed to get away with reversing Sierra Leone's democratic gains and that the government will be called to fully account for all of its decisions and all its failures to fully carry out its responsibilities as a government. Jacob Jusu Saffa, has accused the Sierra Leonean government of doing nothing to address the current soaring cost of living and food crisis in the country. Speaking on the UN radio last night, Saturday, JJ Saffa said the country was suffering from food and economic crisis and that the government must pay attention to the rising cost of living in the country. He noted, "Presently as I speak, the cost of a 50kg bag of rice varies between 130,000 Leones and 150,000 Leones (US$40 and US$50). The Government has not done anything to regularise the prize. Every wholesaler or retailer has his or her own price.''

He also noted that the APC government's excuse of globalisation is ridiculous when one looks at the rising prices of such local products as ogiri, groundnut, cassava and charcoal, whose pricing systems are not determined by the global market.

He further pointed out that the government keep pretending as if it cares about food production while it has in fact halved the committed budgetary amount dedicated to agriculture. He said that the the former SLPP government left 135 tractors behind and an annual budget allocation of about US$2 million equivalent to the agricultural sector but the APC government has now halved that amount to $1million and can hardly account for the 135 tractors.

JJ Saffa also accused the APC government of wasting the country's national resources on the provision of very expensive electricity for Freetown just to maintain its propaganda, but he said that Freetown is not Sierra Leone and a lot more Sierra Leoneans beyond the capital are suffering immensely. He urged the APC government to check its excessive overseas travels and the very expensive banquets they keep hosting to discuss empty slogans while the majority of Sierra Leoneans go to bed hungry. He asked the APC government to look hard at itself in order to "know the rationale behind the malfunction of the APC government.''