Sewa News Stream

There is a need to rethink urban transport in Freetown. Improvements should be made to the infrastructure, revenue control system, and transport services. Clearly, it is necessary to think holistically, where the effort is not just building roads and fly-overs or mass transit systems, but also reducing the need for travel, the length of each trip, and the number of vehicle kilometers. It is necessary to facilitate the movement of people – not the movement of vehicles. Vision, appropriate policies and appropriate institutions seem to be the key success factors towards sustainable urban transport. The Sierra Leone Road Transport Corporation  is the state corporation with responsibility for providing public passenger transport in Sierra Leone.  Since its creation in 1964, the SLRTC has been the dominant transport operator although they are in competition with private sector services providers ranging from large intercity buses, urban minibuses (poda poda) an...

A pointless and potentially dangerous controversy has recently been triggered by an argument about the extent of rights to be enjoyed by dual citizens of Sierra Leone. This is in part because of the ruling All Peoples Congress has opportunistically, in an effort to disfranchise its most potent rival the National Grand Coalition’s standard-bearer Dr. Kandeh Kolleh Yumkellah (see photo)), seized upon Francis Gabbidon’s ill-timed and wrongheaded opinion that a justly long-ignored provision in the 1991 constitution should be enforced. In his article, Mr. Francis Gabbidon, a former ombudsman, cited Section 76(1) of the 1991 Constitution which states that no naturalized citizen of Sierra Leone or a “citizen of a country other than Sierra Leone having become such a citizen voluntarily” can contest an election to become a member of parliament and by extension president and cabinet minister. This interpretation misunderstands the letter, context, and spirit of this provision and t...

Sierra Leone's Ernest Bai Koroma might just leave a legacy as leader of the  All People's Congress (APC) political party. Abubakr Sankoh,  APC candidate for Constituency 062 in Samu chiefdom, Kambia district, has objected to Kandeh Yumkella's nomination for member of parliament. The districts of Sierra Leone are divided into chiefdoms. Samu is a chiefdom in Kambia district. Sankoh, who hopes to become Member of Parliament for the area, doesn't think Yumkella has met the requirement to run for office because he was a dual citizen in contravention of the 1991  Sierra Leone Constitution. Now, Sankoh's objection to Yumkella's nomination has won support from Sierra Leone Attorney General and Minister of Justice Franklyn Bai Kargbo, who has made a case . "What has happened in Samu is simply that people have used their rights,"  argues  Attorney General Frank Kargbo. Kandeh Yumkella Yumkella, an agricultural economist and former special represen...