The National Electoral Commission (NEC) has Embarked on five days meeting with stakeholders on New Boundaries

The National Electoral Commission (NEC) is visiting the districts for five days to discuss the new boundaries created by the Province Act Cap 60 of 2017, that was passed into law on the 13 March 2017.
The Director of External Relations and Media, Albert Massaquoi, said this is the second round of district stakeholders engagements on the Constituency and Ward boundary delimitation. “It is called second round because, earlier in July -August of last year, a validation of the Constituency and Wards was also done”.
This engagement was done based on the existing 14 electoral districts and four regions that have changed. “We are now talking about 16 electoral districts including Falaba and Karina districts and five regions including the North West and the other chiefdoms which are now added to the 149 chiefdoms”.
Massaquoi said, “The addition of these two districts means an addition of councillors, MPs, District Council Chairs and Mayors, so we are going to have Districts Council chairs for Falaba and Karene districts and Mayor for Port Loko.”
Stakeholders included: Paramount Chiefs, CSOs, Political Parties, women and youth groups and the media. The NEC Director of External Relations, said, “So far, there is mixed reactions, especially when NEC has done earlier engagements on the previous constituencies and ward boundary delimitation”.
There is mixed feelings since it has to do with new boundaries. “We still maintain the record of 132 seats but because of the rearrangement of some of the chiefdoms, Constituencies and Wards there is a concern. Some think it favours some while some think it does not favour them as they believed that it is against the wish they had earlier hoped for”.
Elections will be held nine months from now, in March 2018. Massaquoi said they will be ready.
Since the Instrument of Constituency and Boundary Limitation was kicked out of Parliament, Albert Massaquoi, said “We have met with the office of the Attorney General and a sub-committee was set up. We want to ensure that by the 7th of September, that is exactly six months to elections, we would have completed all work relating to elections”.
“By the end of June, we should have completed this engagement so by the 30th we would have completed the report and present it to the AG who will then table it in Parliament before their recess on the 13th July, so when it is approved it becomes a legal documents”.
BM/22/6/17
By Betty Milton
Friday June 23, 2017.

Death Sentence For Stray Dogs Over Rabies

The authorities in Pujehun District have ordered the killing of all stray dogs found roaming the streets. The order is in response to a dog bite incident that apparently killed a 7-year old girl.

Health officials are investigating the cause of her death, but already suspicion has fallen heavily on a possible rabies infection.

The incident in the Gbondapi community has sparked widespread concern because it followed reports of the hospitalisation of another victim of a dog bite in the same community.

A team from the district health management team, World Health Organisation and other stakeholders have been dispatched to the community to investigate the incident, according to Dr David Bome, the District Medical Officer in Pujehun. He said they were there to investigate how many people were actually affected and to collect specimen for investigations to ascertain the cause of death of the young girl.

An official of the Pujehun District Council said the order to kill was part of efforts to cleanse the district of dogs wandering the street with the potential to infect people with rabies. Councilor Anthony Fortune, chairman of the Health Committee at the Pujehun District Council, said residents would also henceforth be required to license their pet dogs so that proper record of the canine animal could be kept, and that in case there was such incident they could trace the owner.

Fortune told Politico that they had ordered youths in the entire district to kill any dog found on the streets. Six dogs, including the one suspected to have bitten the deceased girl, have already been killed in the Gbondapi community.
Gbondapi, located some 12 miles to the district headquarter town of Pujehun, is one of the oldest trade fair communities in Sierra Leone. Business people go there from as far as across the border with Liberia. This weekly trading, called ‘Lomaa’, takes place on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Traders and market goers often bring along their dogs to the trade fair and the animals find appealing food stuff like rotten fish. Because of this many of the dogs make Gbondapi their home, living off on the discarded food stuff.

Rabies is a preventable but incurable viral disease that affects mammals. It is most often transmitted through the bite of a rabid animal, like dogs. The virus infects the central nervous system and ultimately causes disease in the brain.

The symptoms include fever, headache, and general weakness or discomfort.

Sierra Leone is thought to have one of the highest concentrations of stray dogs in Africa and about 500 people die of rabies every year. There is an ongoing campaign to vaccinate all dogs as part of efforts to end rabies by the year 2030.

Officials in Pujehun say rabies cases are rarely reported.

Bome say this is the first time since he was deployed to the district in 2014 that they have recorded a rabies case.

Human beings can also be vaccinated against rabies, but Bome said the vaccines available in the whole district are only enough for no more than five people.

The DMO dismissed reports about the hospitalisation of a child under five years of age for a dog bite. But a source confirmed to Politico that a boy within that age had indeed been admitted at the Pujehun Maternity Hospital for a dog bit.

The district management team said it’s embarking on a sanitisation through outreach programmes and radio discussions on the issue of handling of dogs and other pets. One other measure being considered, according to Mr Fortune, is the introduction of by-laws which will enforce the requirement to license pet animals.

By Mohamed T Massaquoi

Impurity reigns in Sierra Leone: Allie Kabba sent back to prison

Sierra Leone tonight  is a simple, though chilling statement by supporters of opposition politician Alie Kabba: “Where there is no justice, there can be no hope”.

Alie Kabba has once again been denied bail and sent to the country’s notorious maximum security prison, after court received ‘orders from above’. He will next appear at the High Court, where he can present his evidence and plead his innocence.

Supporters of Kabba say that he is a political prisoner of conscience, whose freedom has been denied once more by a politically controlled court in Freetown, on a flimsy and orchestrated technicality regarding the terms of his bail.

Only in Sierra Leone are you likely to find the rather bizarre contradiction of having a member of parliament – IB Kargbo, who has committed serial crimes, by first failing to declare to the country’s electoral commission that he was still working as a public servant whilst contesting a by-election; and worse, using ministerial letter headed paper to write a letter soliciting an unlawful agreement with the Lebanese government, to import waste into Sierra Leone for cash.

Despite these serious crimes, IB Kargbo walks a free man, a parliamentarian and a presidential adviser. No one in the judiciary and the government is batting an eyelid, whilst Alie kabba is sent to maximum security prison today, for alleged bigamy involving a government minister – a charge the government is struggling to prove.

Why? IB Kargbo is a senior member of the ruling APC and a close confidante of the president; Alie Kabba is a candidate for the presidency in 2018, and he is seen as the most powerful critic of the government’s failed policies.