The War Against Corruption in Sierra Leone took a more serious dimension in recent weeks following the unearthing of the alleged diversion of Le 6.8 billion into a fake bank account in Kabala by some unscrupulous employees of the Ministry of Finance and the Sierra Leone Roads Authority. What is rather puzzling but encouraging is the fact that those suspected of carrying out the ‘broad day light’ stealing of the people’s money quickly returned a rather substantial amount of the stolen cash back into the consolidated fund. Puzzling in the sense that no sooner the alleged suspects were nabbed by the police, bags of stolen cash began to appear at the CID where the alleged suspects were detained pending investigation. It was as if they were not sure about what they had done, or better still they turned out to be amateur cash grabbers. Encouraging in the sense that the alleged suspects at least had the option of using the returned cash to claw back their freedom. What appears commendable is the swift move by the leadership at the Ministry of Finance to pick out those suspected to have been involved clearly demonstrating that graft is something they are not prepared to encourage anywhere near their ministry.  The ACC too deserves commendation for the way they have so far gone with the investigations of this and several high-profile corruption cases. We would only like to urge them to follow the evidence wherever it leads them. It is in view of this and other corruption cases that gripped the nation recently, we decided to focus the cover story of this edition on the war on graft.

What I am sure our readers would also find very interesting in this edition is the Waka Fine 50 new buses which have dramatically changed the public transport landscape in the capital of Freetown. As expected, the initial reaction of most members of the public to the introduction of these new buses was one of outrage. Most of them expressed concern that the buses are charging exorbitant fairs compared to the poda podas and kekehs and that idea of designating some roads and streets exclusively for the buses has unfortunately disadvantaged the regular poda podas and kekehs with the knock on effect of also potentially disrupting the traditional movement of passengers. With time we expect these concerns to subside as people get used to using the buses. After all, it is good to look at the big picture of the greater good that these buses would bring for the majority of commuters. If anything, the introduction of these buses and the designation of routes exclusively reserved for them, is expected to bring sanity to a very chaotic public transport sector. The new system is also aimed at helping commuters travel long distances for just 10 leones. There is no doubt that with these new buses and their exclusive routes coupled with the fact that we now have traffic lights, excessive traffic jams which used to characterize the road network in Freetown would gradually be a thing of the past.

There are lots of other interesting features and opinion articles ranging from Business and Economy, Digital Communication, Political Economy, Education, Human Capital development, sports, entertainment, as well as exclusive interviews featuring the tourism and petroleum sectors that would make you move from year seat as you read on…

Ibrahim Seaga Shaw (PhD) February, 2024

Copyright –Published in Expo Magazine, February Edition, Vol.2, No.2, 2024 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)