March 31, 2016 By Alusine Sesay

Head of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) delegation which visited Freetown  from  15-29 March, 2016 to conduct the fifth review under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF), John Wakeman-Linn, has stated that Sierra Leone’s economic momentum was  building again, while GDP was expected to grow by 4.3 percent this year from a contraction of 21 percent in 2015.

“Sierra Leone’s economy is recovering from the twin shocks of the Ebola virus epidemic and the halt in iron-ore mining. Economic momentum was building again, and GDP was expected to grow by 4.3 percent this year from a contraction of 21 percent in 2015.The improvement reflects the pick-up in economic activities following the end of Ebola, and the resumption of iron ore mining early this year. Inflation remained stable at 8.5 percent in 2015, but a small up-tick is expected in 2016 due to the depreciation of the Leone,” he said, after the visit, which also included the 2016 Article IV consultation discussions.

However, Mr.  Wakeman-Linn noted rather ominously that the government budget was under pressure, reflecting a likely shortfall in donor receipts, higher-than budgeted spending on certain categories of expenditures, and a shortfall in domestic financing.

He observed that, “Notwithstanding the resumption of iron exports, the current account balance is projected to widen relative to 2015, as official transfers slow down. Despite pressure in the foreign exchange market, gross international reserves of the Bank of Sierra Leone (BSL) are projected to remain unchanged.”

He continued that over the medium term (2017–19), growth could average 5 percent owing to expected improvements in the external environment and implementation of a wide range of post-Ebola recovery initiatives in key sectors.

He added though that there were important downside risks and that the Ebola virus could resurface, dampening economic activities.

“Dependence on external flows, especially from iron ore exports and donor support, leaves the economy exposed to external shocks. Further global economic slowdown, particularly lower demand from China, a major trading partner, could stall the momentum. Fiscal policy implementation could suffer from lack of financing, undermining growth prospects further. Banking system reforms, if not implemented, could create financial sector risks. Delay in the implementation of business environment reforms could impact on the transmission of economic policies, reducing growth impact,” he said.

The head of IMF delegation urged policy makers to be prepared to adjust policies should the economic environment change, adding that progress had been made towards completing the fifth review and that all end of December 2015 quantitative performance criteria and all indicative targets were met.

“All but two structural benchmarks were also met. The Public Financial Management (PFM) Bill has stalled in Parliament, as a result of which structural benchmarks on the establishment of the Treasury Single Account and the Natural Resource Revenue Fund were missed,” he said

John Wakeman-Linn continued that despite the overall progress, discussions aimed at completing the review would continue and that the mission and authorities reached a common understanding on the challenges and risks associated with the 2016 budget, while substantial progress was achieved in discussions on how to address those challenges.

“These discussions will continue in the coming weeks. There were agreements on some elements of near term policies. Fiscal policy will focus on managing government finances to reduce the immense stress it is under. Revenue policies will address enhanced mobilization and elimination of import duty exemptions and waivers which cost the budget significant revenue. Expenditure policy will seek to increase oversight of the finances of sub-vented agencies and state owned enterprises. Pro-poor expenditure will continue to be protected,” he said.

He maintained that while the Bank of Sierra Leone underscored its commitment to maintaining the current stance of monetary policy, so as to contain inflationary expectations, “there is a need for the BSL to engage in proactive liquidity management to ease the tight liquidity situation in the banking sector. Financial sector policies will be crucial to promote growth, and it will be important to implement policies that enhance linkages between the financial and real sectors, which also complement a credible fiscal stance. Deepening financial intermediation, mobilizing savings, promoting credit, and providing longer-term financing sources for investments are important considerations in the effort to diversify the economy.”

He concluded that the structural reform agenda has been instrumental to improvements in the transmission of economic policies and that the programme contains policies to help enhance revenue, make public spending more efficient and transparent, the banking system more resilient, and the business environment more supportive of inclusive growth.

“Speeding up the pace of reforms including tax administration, and transition to the single treasury account are critical. Quick measures to address the problems in select banks would improve banking system performance, and create the atmosphere for durable private sector development,” he cautioned.

April 1, 2016

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations will from 4 to 8 April, 2016 hold its 29^th Regional Conference for Africa (ARC29) in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, to discuss issues germane to agriculture development in the region.

FAO Regional Conference for Africa, convened on a biennial basis, is an official forum where African Ministers of Agriculture and their colleagues in charge of related sectors, including Food Security and Nutrition, meet to debate on challenges and priority matters related to food and agriculture, with a view of promoting regional coherence on global policies and political issues.

The 29^th Session of the FAO Regional Conference for Africa will discuss issues around the theme “Transforming African Agri-food systems for inclusive growth and a shared prosperity”. This year, Sierra Leone’s delegation will be led by the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security, Professor Patrick Monty Jones, who will update Member States on the status of country’s agriculture and development priorities.

According to the FAO Representative, Dr. Gabriel Rugalema, “the Regional Conference for Africa is essential for ensuring the effectiveness of the FAO regional work in serving Member States and Regional Economic Communities, but also for setting its priority areas of work and budget for the following biennium.”

Dr. Rugalema explained that the conference will begin with an Experts’ Meeting from 4 to 6 April 2016, which will focus on Regional and Global Policy and Regulatory Issues, in particular Public Private Partnership for Inclusive Growth, as well as trends and issues in food and agriculture for regional and national action in the context of the SDGs.

“Issues related to the Work Programme, the Budget, the Decentralization process and the multi-year programme of work of the Regional Conference will also be discussed, among others,” he stated.

Three thematic side events on 6 April, 2016 including Successes in Nuclear Applications: African VetLab Network and Sterile Insect Technique by FAO/IAEA Division; Development of an Action Programme to Address Food and Nutrition Challenges in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) by FAO; and a high level discussion on the Follow-up to the 2006 Abuja Declaration on Fertilizers for an African Green Revolution by AUC/FAO.

The Ministerial Plenary Session will officially open on 7 April and a Ministerial Roundtable will take place on 8 April 2016 to discuss “Strengthening national and regional capacities to effectively implement commitments and increase investments made at national and continental level for the eradication of hunger and the transformation of food systems in Africa for an inclusive growth and shared prosperity” as well as means to strengthen solidarity between countries, enhancing South-South Cooperation and also boost Africa Solidarity Trust Fund (ASTF).

The Ministerial Roundtable will discuss recommendations and lessons learned regarding strengthening partnerships for resource mobilisation in delivering on the Malabo strategy and roadmap.

Ministers of Agriculture from the region take active part in the conference along with high officials from FAO and the host country. Representatives of regional, intra-regional and international organizations, civil society and the private sector are welcome as observers to the sessions of the conference. The outcome of the conference will greatly influence FAO’s regional priorities.

April 1, 2016 By Ibrahim Tarawallie

The World Bank Regional Director for Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone has spoken about the bank’s plan to support the transport sector, particularly in the improvement of ferry services between Freetown and Lungi.

Henry G.R. Kerali, who is currently in the country on a routine visit to assess the bank’s operation, yesterday told a presser that during his meeting with President Ernest Bai Koroma they discussed a potential support from the bank to supply and implement improved ferry services.

According to him, for a longtime now ferry services had been quite efficient and that the government has put it as a high priority to extend high quality services between the two points.

“We are exploring the possibility to finance a project that will supply the two ferries and also finance the infrastructure needed for the landing of those ferries. There will of course be other feasibility studies related to the transport sector to see what is needed for the future,” he said.

He maintained that the support would also include an amount for the upgrading of landing sites used by the ferries, in order to ensure that they are technically sound and able to provide good landing service. He added that the road that connects those landing sites in Freetown and Lungi also needed to be improved.

With regards the telecom sector, Mr. Kerali said: “There is need to liberalise the gateway to Sierra Leone in order to reduce the cost of internet and communications, as well as invest in the country’s cable company, SALCAB. Progress has already been made.”

He said the key principle for the liberalisation of the country’s gateway was to have multiple access and not a monopoly by a single operator, with the objectives being to bring down prices and improve the quality of service.

On the fisheries sector, the World Bank Regional Director said there were in discussion on how to improve the sector, especially its management and governance arrangement around licensing of foreign fishing boats, as well as mechanisms to further strengthen fishing services in the country.

Also, he spoke about the Mamamah Airport project saying: “At this point in time, there is no economic justification. There are other priorities that the government has to deal with. We have other comprehensive post Ebola recovery programmes that the government is seeking support from development partners, and this comes at a high priority at this point in time. When the economic justification is proved, it may well be economically justifiable.”

Acting now to end hunger in Africa by 2025

April 4, 2016 By José Graziano da Silva, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

José Graziano da Silva, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

The international community’s adoption of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda has positioned the food and agriculture sector as a catalyst for achieving inclusive global growth and eradicating poverty and hunger.

Africa is well placed to attain the universal set of goals. African Heads of State and Government have courageously agreed to eradicate hunger by the year 2025. This is a great challenge – as Africa has aimed higher — but also a great opportunity. The next few years will thus be crucial for Africa if we are to go down in history as the Zero Hunger Generation.

Under the theme ”Transforming African Agri-food systems for inclusive growth and shared prosperity,” FAO will meet with the continent’s agricultural leaders during its biennial regional conference taking place in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire on 4-8 April 2016.

This is a timely event, for a number of reasons.

First, it draws on the momentum created by the 2014 Malabo Declaration through which African leaders called for a fundamental shift in the continent’s agricultural and rural development, in line with the aspirations of Africa’s Agenda 2063, which emphasizes unity, self-reliance, integration and solidarity. Also in 2014, African nations joined all other states in adopting the Rome Declaration and its related Framework for Action at the Second International Conference on Nutrition.

Second, FAO’s Regional Conference also comes hard on the heels of the recent COP 21 climate change agreement, which presents Africa with numerous opportunities to develop its climate adaptation and mitigation responses.

Africa is already feeling the impacts of climate change, including an increase in the severity and frequency of droughts, floods and other extreme weather events. A clear example of this is the current El Niño with its devastating effects on the livelihoods of farmers and agro-pastoralists in Eastern and Southern Africa.  Climate change will also increase the risk of trans boundary plant and animal pests and diseases, which will need control and adequate responses.

A number of other challenges lie ahead that the continent’s leaders must embrace and turn into opportunities.

It is expected that more than half of the projected global population growth between now and 2050 will occur in Africa – adding 1.3 billion people to the continent’s population.

African agriculture markets are projected to surpass US$1 trillion over the next thirty years. These demographic and economic trends represent both a huge opportunity and a challenge for African Agriculture and the agri-food system.

By investing in African food systems, on the way we produce, collect, store, transport, process, package and distribute foods, we can produce the food Africans eat and create a dynamic sector that generates jobs and livelihoods for our youth. By investing in African institutions to educate people, to establish and rigorously apply food standards and to monitor food safety, we can improve our diets and our health and create a more nutritious food system.

African governments will need to reengage in the systematic implementation of sound rural development policies and programmes that maximize opportunities for young people, family farmers, strengthen their capacities, and facilitate access to sustainable technologies and productive resources needed to drive broad-based growth in the agricultural sector and rural economy.

 Africa currently imports US$50 billion in food. Persistent food import dependency remains a serious problem for many African countries, especially as high food import bills take money away from other important development agendas without resolving food insecurity.

Dependence on food imports should not be the rule. Africa has the potential to be not only self-sufficient but also to become a major food exporter to the rest of the world.

To feed itself, Africa needs to build on its regional integration potential. There is significant scope for expanding intra-regional trade of strategic food commodities. Strong sub-regional institutions and consistent, predictable trade policies and regulations are critical elements for increased movement of goods between countries.

Thanks to the impetus provided by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development and the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, it is now widely agreed that enhancing intra-African trade holds a key role for overcoming Africa’s food import dependency and food insecurity problems.

Actions taken by African leaders are essential, and so are actions by the rest of the world. Sustained political commitment at the highest level is necessary so that any growth recorded on the continent reaches the poorest and the most vulnerable.

South-South Cooperation provides an important way through which developing countries can help each other to bridge the technological gap that exists in food production, agriculture and the rural economy in general.  In Abidjan, we will invite all conference participants to promote the African Solidarity Trust Fund – an important instrument of South-South Cooperation – and to partner in sharing expertise and best practices in agriculture as well as financial resources.

Eradicating hunger by the year 2025 and achieving the SDGs by 2030 require targeted and innovative interventions, including food, health and sanitation assistance, social protection, education and training and improved infrastructure – all with a special focus on the most vulnerable.  This will create the “virtuous cycle” of local development, leading to food security and improved nutrition.

This can happen only if women in Africa are empowered and put at the front line of development efforts, then Africa can be freed from hunger and also obtain better nutrition.

FAO, for its part, with its available expertise and resources, stands ready to support Africa in achieving its priorities in firm collaboration with the African Union, other regional institutions, and humanitarian and development partners.

Now is the time for African leaders to act together. By doing so, they can ensure that their continent can achieve, in a sustainable and environmentally sound way, a better future for all.

April 4, 2016 By Ausine Sesay

Although no case of the Zika Virus is yet to be reported in Sierra Leone, the Chinese Ambassador to Sierra Leone, His Excellency Zhao Yanbo, has confirmed that the China-Sierra Leone Friendship Bio-safety Laboratory was now capable of detecting the deadly virus.

According to Ambassador Zhao, since the first report of the Zika virus in Brazil in 2015, over 20 nations have reported cases of the disease. “Therefore, the China CDC promptly developed a diagnostic re-agent, which has successfully diagnosed 10 imported cases in China by the method of fluorescent quantitation PCR, which tests the nuclear acid of the virus,” he said.

Ambassador Zhao said the China-Sierra Leone Friendship Bio-safety Laboratory contributed significantly to the fight against the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone.

“It has tested over ten thousand samples since its official launch in March 2015. With the existing capacity of virus detection, the laboratory is now fully prepared to expand its boundary of experiment to a higher level of disease prevention and control in the post-Ebola period of Sierra Leone, in cohesion with the WHO,” Ambassador Yanbo said.

Ambassador Zhao maintained that because the Zika virus spreads through mosquitoes, Sierra Leone was susceptible to threat of imported cases, adding that through request by the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, the China CDC has already equipped the laboratory with Zika virus diagnostic re-agent and detection capacity.

Ambassador Zhao concluded that apart from the Zika virus detection, the laboratory plans to start detecting other tropical infectious diseases, such as yellow fever.

“This laboratory is committed to elevating the capacity of disease control and public health in Sierra Leone,” he re-affirmed.

April 5, 2016

The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) has announced the selection of the second set of 1,000 entrepreneurs for the 2016 cycle of the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme (TEEP).

Launched in 2015, TEEP is the largest African philanthropic initiative devoted to entrepreneurship and represents a 10-year, $100 million commitment, to identify and empower 10,000 African entrepreneurs, create a million jobs and add $10 billion in revenues to Africa’s economy.

Over 45,000 entrepreneurs from 54 African countries applied, nearly doubling the number of applications received in 2015.  Successful candidates represent 53 African countries, and diverse industries, led by agriculture and ICT.

The highest numbers of applicants came from Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Cameroon. All five regions – North, East, Southern, Central and West Africa are represented.

Founder, Tony O. Elumelu, CON, commented: “In TEEP’s first year we spent over $8 million of our $100 million commitment – with $5 million going directly to entrepreneurs as seed capital — and the results have far exceeded our expectations. We have funded entrepreneurs, established networks and helped extraordinary people take control of their destinies.

The 2016 Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs will become a generation of newly empowered African business owners, who are the clearest evidence yet, that indigenous business growth will drive Africa’s economic and social transformation.”

Over the next nine months, the 2016 cohort will receive the intensive online training, networking and mentoring that provide a tool kit for success and sustainability. They will also participate in the three-day Elumelu Entrepreneurship Forum later in the year, the largest annual gathering of African entrepreneurial talent.

Parminder Vir OBE, CEO of The Tony Elumelu Foundation, said: “We saw phenomenal success with the first cycle of TEEP –the success stories of the TEEP 2015alumni are a testament to the transformative power of the programme we have built. Through TEEP, we are proving to the next generation of entrepreneurs that their ideas can change their communities, their countries and their continent.”

For a full list of the selected Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs for TEEP2016, do visit www.tonyelumelufoundation.org/teep.

Instructively, the Tony Elumelu Foundation is an Africa-based, African-funded philanthropic organisation. Founded in 2010, TEF is committed to driving African economic growth, by empowering African entrepreneurship.

The Foundation aims to create lasting solutions that contribute positively to Africa’s social and economic transformation. Through impact investments, selective grant making, and policy development, it seeks to influence the operating environment so that entrepreneurship in Africa can flourish.www.tonyelumelufoundation.org@tonyelumeluFDN.

While the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme represents a decade- long commitment to supporting African start-ups and entrepreneurs. We are committing $100 million to help launch an initial 10,000 entrepreneurs throughout Africa over the next 10 years, creating 1,000,000 new jobs contributing to $10 billion in revenue across Africa.

April 6, 2016 

A group of 80 young African leaders is set to launch a book they have co-authored on 25 May, 2016 in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa. The book, titled, “Africa80” was conceptualised during the 25^th Annual World Economic Forum on Africa that was held a year ago in Cape Town, South Africa.

The Africa80 young leaders were those that were selected to seat alongside African presidents and top business leaders across the continent. According to a press release issued ahead of the epoch making event, it was during the Cape Town forum that “the 80 African young Africans from the Global Shapers Community came together to co-author a book which symbolizes the transformative ability that collaboration amongst Africans can be achieved.”

The release states that the book, which is forwarded by Ugandan born, Ashish Thakkar, also known as ‘Africa’s youngest billionaire’, would not only command attention across the continent but also provoke the spirit of unity and working together for the benefit of Africa’s current and future inhabitants.

The group will not only launch the book, but also the Africa80 foundation, adds the release.

“We are set on creating a networking platform for our attendees to identify partners for future collaboration beyond the launch event,” the release stated.

Meanwhile, Murtala Mohamed Kamara, one of the co-authors of the book, told Concord Times he was delighted to be part of the 80 young leaders on the continent to achieve the great feat.

He said they are inviting 100 other young African leaders outside of the World Economic Forum’s Global ShapersCommunityacross the continent to apply and stand in line to be selected as a guest at the historic event on or before April 14, 2016. The website address is http://www.globalshapers.org.

April 7, 2016 By Raymond Dele Awoonor –Gordon (awogordon@yahoo.com)

For those untainted by ethnic, religious and socio-political colouration, and who can  discern between reason and sentiment, peace and war, love and hate, civility and incivility, our democracy has become a metaphor for misrule and impurity.

Politically corrupt individuals as well as double-speaking, desperate and morally bankrupt leaders and politicians are not only dictating the pace of our future, they are also charting the path and dragging us down the road.

We are living in really interesting times as those involved in the several dastard acts that characterise our national existence fail to realise that if you scuttle a system for personal or group ambition, it becomes a collective tragedy .

Contrary to the belief being mostly peddled, we are stunted not by the lack of resources to propel our development, but by mis-governance, bad leadership and mindless looting.

We lag behind the rest of the world simply because of our hypocrisy and the collective failure to protect our liberties and social and political institutions.

In addition, we have allowed the nation to be driven into the pits. As if that is not bad enough, our leaders are now pushing us under the bus as they compel us to follow their inglorious personal agenda that have very little to contribute to the national development and the aspirations of the majority.

The political animals in human skin, who have tasted blood, have gone savage and can no longer be satiated by the little we have to offer.

They are ferociously hungry for power and thirst for the throne of their ancestors. There is fire on the mountain of our animal farm where those in power are determine to ride on the back of a tiger at all costs.

The oppressive ruling class, enthroning regional inequalities, mass poverty, kleptomania and criminal underdevelopment and which thirst for power, is hell-bent on keeping the pigsty open.

Neck-deep in the sewage of corruption and greed, our political class, at the unwitting behest of a lazy followership, do not seek to enrich our collective world but to impoverish the many and turn our society to a junkyard of shattered dreams.

Yet it is obvious that our current drift replicates that same hopelessly selfish political behaviour and economic recklessness that eventually led us to disaster.

If where we are today as a nation – unsecured, financially broke and lacking knowledge and competence in a dynamic knowledge world – is not a hole, then what is it if I may ask?

If the rise of political lying and the tendency to put popularity before principles are not prime examples of how to reinforce the effect of moral decadence on the values of a society, then can someone show me the way?

Where thieves feel valued and recognized in the context of societal mores and mentality, no level of leadership or institutional enhancement will work.

We currently look like a multi-leaking balloon in a carton network-fountain; going round in circles with the same infected water and corroded particles.

The paradox is this: the more that we, the citizens, see politics as a soap opera because of the crass display of our leaders, rather than a process of uplifting the nation and its people, the more we’ll continue to create the platform for mediocrity and sleepily embrace the manifest nonsense of Kleptomania and impunity as a basis of governance.

I have repeatedly maintained that you cannot give what you don’t have and presently, our so called leadership doesn’t have it in them to give us the honest desire and drive to lead as well as change the instruments of the sleaziest sort of political brigandage.

Once our political class lost its conscience, sense of decency, decorum, shame and self-respect, Sierra Leone became doomed.

The moment national vision became blurred and lost in the foggy atmosphere of the wanton greed of our infantile, psychopathic and contemptible leadership, our existence began spiraling downwards.

Encouraged by our silence and tacit endorsement, our politicians lost all respect for everything decent as they began to defecate on the country and its people.

They turned the country into their own private tree-house and dared us to do our worst. We succumbed to their vice-like grip and have remained shackled ever since.

“Ow for do?’’.

It is our apathy that has condoned their abuse and irresponsibility and today, wherever you are in the world the impunity of our leaders, as well as our cluelessness as a nation and a people, continue to dog and define who we are.

Other nationals come in and slap us in the face and yet all we do is open our doors further and ask them to sit at the throne of our empire. They cart away our best and give us pittance in returns; still we are delighted and honoured that they find our home worthy of being the source of their own enrichment.

The solution to our problems of lawlessness, impunity and the aftershave of political greed infecting the air, as well as the lack of properly defined national priorities which the lack of focus has turned into an albatross, lies in visionary leadership and strong institutions.

Definitely, not in propaganda. Nor the astute manipulation of public opinion. And certainly, not in the unabashed twisting and fiddling of the voice of a largely ignorant and hysterical majority.

We have to stop being blinded by the display of the political dark arts and recognise the vile orgy of greed and maladministration by this and past regimes which have brought us this far.

There’s also a desperate need for the harmonisation of our collective will, not only to tackle the increasing primitive impulsion of our leaders but also to protect the sanctity of our nation from the grip of the minute group hell-bent on privatising the country and holding the rest of us to ransom as they bid to protect their vested interests.

However, the significant planks of achieving this goal, which I highlighted earlier, are hollow and ineffective without some form of social revolution and evolution, which involves the forging of a collective attitude of hostility, to the kind of society that currently exists in Sierra Leone.

It is left to us to renew our character so that an end is put to the arid and meaningless existence which has continued to produce an awful stench of fear of the future.

This is not the time for a pity party where political affiliation and tribalism assume priority over national emergency.

It is the moment for politics of passion on behalf of our nation. It is a time to open our eyes.

Koidu Holdings and Octea Mining exposed!!

April 7, 2016 By Gabriel Benjamin

On 3 April, the Panama Papers leaked set of 11.5 million confidential documents that provide detailed information on more than 214,000 offshore companies listed by the Panamanian corporate service provider, Mossack Fonseca [a Panama-based law firm whose services include incorporating companies in offshore jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands, administering of offshore firms for a yearly fee and providing other services such as wealth management], including the identities of shareholders and directors of offshore companies.

The Panamanian law firm – the world’s fourth biggest provider of offshore services with a strong UK connection – runs a worldwide operation with its presence in about 42 countries. It has franchises around the world – Switzerland, Cyprus and the British Virgin Islands, and in the British crown dependencies of Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man – where separately owned affiliates sign up new customers and have exclusive rights to use its brand.

The unprecedented leak of 11.5 million files shows how a global industry of law firms and big banks sell financial secrecy to politicians, fraudsters and drug traffickers as well as billionaires, celebrities and sports stars.

This revelation, made possible by internal data of the Panama-based offshore-provider, Mossack Fonseca, obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, was shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) to over 100 other media partners in 82 countries.

The files, seen by Concord Times, show how Mossack Fonseca, reputed as one of the most secretive companies in the world, helped clients register offshore entities, which are then used to launder money around the world, evade tax and dodge sanctions.

The data leak also provide details of the hidden financial dealings of 128 more politicians and public officials around the world, including Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s Prime Minister; Ayad Allawi, ex-interim Prime Minister and former Vice-President of Iraq; Petro Poroshenko, President of Ukraine; Alaa Mubarak, son of Egypt’s former president; Prime Minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson; Bukola Saraki, Nigeria’s Senate President; Beny Steinmetz, Sierra Leone’s prolific diamond buyer and supplier to the luxury jewelry brand Tiffany & Co., who reportedly had a personal fortune of $6 billion in 2012, among others.

The leaked data further sheds light on the internal financial structures created by BSGR to camouflage Octea’s financial activities. The data reveals a BSGR corporate structure, dated 2015, identifying Octea as wholly owned by Guernsey-based BSGR Resources.

The data leak also confirms a secretive financial structure connecting Koidu Holdings and Octea to wholly owned Steinmetz entities in Liechtenstein, the British Virgin Islands and Switzerland. Some of these entities hold a great deal of money, especially when compared to Koidu Holdings, which had only US$5,401 in its HSBC account in 2007. That same year, Nysco listed $27.7 million in a single HSBC bank account. Beny’s brother and business associate, Daniel, was listed as attorney for an HSBC bank account with more than US$250 million.

Both Koidu Holdings and Octea have failed to pay outstanding fees to the government of Sierra Leone – a situation that has threatened closure of the mine and contributed to the resignation of Octea CEO Brett Richards.

Octea and Koidu Holding’s financial accounts from 2012 to 2015 could not be accessed because they are incorporated in tax havens, the data leak further stated.

According to the data leak, the government department responsible for overseeing mining activity, the National Mineral Agency (NMA), declined to respond to questions around corporate structures, taxes, profits and valuation.

Mossack Fonseca deny any wrongdoing, saying the firm complies with anti-money-laundering laws and carries out thorough due diligence on all its clients. He says the firm also regrets any misuse of its services and tries actively to prevent it. The firm further says it cannot be blamed for failings by intermediaries, who include banks, law firms and accountants.

Last October, Concord Times published an Investigation into more than 100,000 leaked HSBC Switzerland client accounts linked to Sierra Leone. The SwissLeaks scandal [leaked HSBC Swiss account information] centered on the absolute values of money connected to individual countries around the world and the potential crimes of tax evasion and money laundering of their citizens’ foreign bank accounts.

April 7, 2016  By Sahr Morris Jr.

Members of the National Olympic Committee of Sierra Leone (NOC-SL) Wednesday elected President of Sierra Leone Wrestling Association, Prince Sualley, and the Sierra Leone Squash Racket Association President, Umaru Kakay, as treasurer and chairman of Sports For All Commission respectively.

The duo were elected to their respective positions during the committee’s general congress, which was held yesterday at the Sierra Leone Squash Racket Association secretariat at the National Stadium in Freetown.

Both presidents were overwhelmingly elected by their colleagues in Wednesday’s congress as they both went unopposed for the said positions.

The Wrestling president was declared unopposed winner in the congress after all four of the nomination spots went in his favour, thanks to President of Women and Sports Commission, Pamela Williams, Joseph K. Kanu, President of Sierra Leone Fencing Association, President of Judo Association, Idriss Massaquoi, and the athletes’ representative, Frank Turay, all of whom nominated him (Prince Sualley).

An excited Prince Sualley said he was pleased to have the backing of his colleagues and promised to live up to the task entrusted in him. He said: “Despite my term in that office is short, there is lot of work to do and I promise I will never betray the trust given by colleague presidents.”

Sualley’s appointment came almost three years after he was defeated at the last NOC-SL congress by current president Dr. Patrick Coker at the Mugeneh Hall, Goderich. Dr. Coker pulled 10 votes while Sualley secured 6 votes in that election.

The Wrestling president will now replace the late former President of the Sierra Leone Swimming, Diving and Water Pool Association (SLSDWA), Dr. A.T. Fadlu-Deen, who until his death was the NOC-SL treasurer.

Elsewhere, President of Squash and Racket Association received the support of his colleagues for the newly instituted Sports For All Commission, after everyone present refused to nominate any other candidate as chairman for the commission.

April 8, 2016 By Ibrahim Tarawallie

President Ernest Bai Koroma will attend the 13^th Session of the Islamic Summit Conference which will be held at the level of Heads of the States from the 14-15 April, 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey, on the overall theme: “Unity and Solidarity for Justice and Peace”.

Organised by the Organisation of Islamic Corporation (OIC), the summit will look at a plethora of issues, including the question of Palestine and Arab-Israeli conflict, conflict situation in the Muslim world, combating terrorism and violent extremism, Islamophopia, humanitarian situation in the Muslim world, and the OIC-2025 Programme of Action.

The summit convenes every three years with the aim of jointly reviewing the international political, economic and social dynamics and analysing their impact on the Muslim community.

Addressing a presser at State House yesterday, President Koroma said the summit would also discuss current security challenges in Libya, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Mali and Burkina Faso, among others.

He stated that the OIC was established to promote solidarity, as well as economic and social development among member states and noted that the world was becoming a bit turbulent with bombings everywhere, and terrorists creating an environment of insecurity.

“We will address some of the issues affecting some African countries and proffer solutions on how they could be solved. The goal I must state is to ensure that peace and quietness is restored in the world, without which there will be no development,” he said.

President Koroma also informed newsmen that he would be making a stopover in Lebanon to discuss the possibility of opening a Consular Office in Beirut and hold discussion with Lebanese political officials on how the two countries could further strengthen existing diplomatic ties between them.

“I will be having meetings with the Lebanon Prime Minister, Speaker of the Parliament and the business community, to tell them that Sierra Leone is ready and open for business,” President Koroma disclosed.

The president spoke about the need for traders to move away from the normal buying and selling in business to adding value in goods produced so as to ensure sustainable economic development.

April 11, 2016  By Sonkita Conteh, Director, Namati Sierra Leone

Introduction

When a diamond mining company closed its operations in Mofuwe Village, in the south of Sierra Leone, it left behind three mined-out pits the size of several football pitches, a collapsed bridge, a blocked stream and an uncompleted community school building. It was as if the villagers woke up one morning and the company was gone. When floodwaters –attributed to the blocked river –destroyed their crops, community members and leaders decided that they had finally had enough and sought help from a paralegal office two miles down the road. It was the only justice mechanism within reach. Two years later, with help from lawyers within and outside the country, the paralegals finally managed to get the company back to the community to redress the damage. Pits were filled, the bridge repaired, the stream unblocked and the building completed.

Just like the villagers of Mofuwe, the majority of the world’s population is not satisfactorily protected by law or the institutions established to govern them.[i]In many African countries, the poor, who mostly live in rural areas, are in a particularly helpless position – their rights are routinely violated, they are unable to access formal institutions and are incapable of speaking out. Nowhere is this more keenly felt than in the extractive sector where poor rural communities are too often left to pick up the pieces of their broken lives after devastating mining activities. The picture is similar across resource-rich African countries. Profit-hungry corporations and ineffectual, and sometimes complicit, regulators leave a trail of destruction, disempowerment and helplessness in the wake of natural resource exploitation.

In Sierra Leone, a country that has endured a decade of civil conflict and, more recently, an Ebola epidemic, the vast majority of the population does not have access to the formal justice system.[ii] They have to devise their own solutions to the myriad socio-economic challenges they encounter daily[iii], or rely on informal or traditional institutions that often leave them vulnerable to exploitation and discrimination.

The daily struggle to make ends meet– to access food, water, sanitation, transportation and healthcare on less than a dollar a day–makes access to justice an unattainable luxury for the rural poor.

Building Hope at the Frontlines

Attempts to make the law work for everyone, particularly the poor, have focused almost entirely on building the capacity of the “supply side” of justice–mainly courts and government institutions– with little or no attention paid to the capacity of those who require justice services to efficiently utilise these institutions or find helpful alternatives.

Legal empowerment seeks to rectify this imbalance. It is a process through which the poor are enabled to use the law to advance their rights and interests. It recognises that everyone should have access to justice and that all the legal rights that are owed to an individual are respected without regard to that person’s status. It gives voice to individuals and communities at the grassroots level to participate in decision-making processes.[iv]One principally effective and inexpensive way to achieve that has been through the use of community-based paralegals.

Different stripes of paralegal programmes exist across Africa. Many paralegals work as “generalists”, responding to the many needs of the communities in which they are located. Others specialise, focusing on particular issues or methods.

South Africa is one of the earliest adopters of the model. From the1950s, paralegals provided important assistance to non-white citizens as they navigated the biased laws of the apartheid regime. These days, a combination of paralegal advice offices and law clinics address issues such as pension benefits, gender-based violence, employment and the rights of persons living with AIDS.[vi]

In Sierra Leone, far-flung rural communities continue to benefit from the efforts of NGOs to provide basic justice services through paralegals and mediators. For example, a local NGO called Timap for Justice has provided grassroots justice services since 2004, with a frontline of generalist community-based paralegals who engage in mediation, advocacy, organising, and education to address concrete instances of injustice.[vii]

Addressing Power Asymmetries in Natural Resource Exploitation

In the context of natural resource exploitation, too, paralegals working with communities have managed to secure important remedies or enhanced the voice of otherwise vulnerable communities in matters that affect their lives and livelihoods.

Namati, a legal empowerment organisation with offices in Sierra Leone, helps communities that are interfacing with large-scale land investors to obtain fairer, more responsible land deals as well as enforce compliance with regulations. In 2015, Namati’s paralegals worked with ten communities in the north of the country to secure a more equitable lease agreement between the communities and a logging company. They successfully negotiated provisions for the protection of traditional or sacred grounds, profit sharing with communities, and protection from environmental harm.

Namati’s paralegals have also worked with communities adversely affected by the operations of mining companies. Manonkoh, a small farming village in northern Sierra Leone, suffered repeated flooding of cultivated swampland as a result of the operations of the now-defunct ore miner, London Mining Company.[viii]The company and mining regulators ignored complaints from the community for over two years, until the paralegals stepped in. Working together, paralegals and community members wrested important remedial action from the miner, even though it refused to accept liability. Floodwater was drained, drainages were expanded, and rice for food, seeds and other farming inputs were provided to the 35 households in the village. The company’s successor arranged to pay compensation to the affected farmers before it, too, went belly up.

In late 2015, paralegals began working with several communities affected by the operations of a diamond miner in Tongo, Eastern Sierra Leone. The company often blasts hard rock to get at the precious stones. Residents are asked to leave their houses and move to a safe distance, usually a football field. The blasting results in severe damage to their properties, which they claim is never properly repaired. Given the repeated nature of the exercise and the distress it causes, many had asked to be relocated, but neither the company nor the relevant government agencies responded.

Interestingly, residents who have spoken to the paralegals don’t think that the company will ever relocate or alter the way it mines because, they believe, it enjoys strong support from the government. This speaks directly to one of the reasons why the extractive sector throws up some of the toughest justice challenges for community-based paralegal programmes in Africa. The economic might of corporations and their close association with political power creates a major disincentive in the minds of ordinary folks to pursue remedies against them. In fact, some investment-hungry governments have labelled bottom-up campaigns for corporate accountability as “anti-development” and NGOs involved in such actions have reported intimidation. Governments put more effort into “improving the business environment” in order to attract foreign investment than they do into creating or strengthening structures of accountability.

Also, justice issues within the extractive sector tend to be complex and long term. Paralegals may work for years on a case, such as the flooding in Manonkoh. Cases dealing with the environmental and health impacts of company operations may require basic scientific knowledge and terminology in addition to relevant laws. They may also require specialised equipment, such as water testing kits, that paralegal organisations or communities cannot readily access. In this respect, links with lawyers and other professionals become crucial for effective resolution.

In addition to these technical challenges are the practical ones that are inherent where there are severe power and resource imbalances between disputing parties. In the Mofuwe Village case, for instance, company employees sought to influence the paralegals to drop the matter. When that failed, they offered mobile phones and cash to community leaders, some of whom accepted the bribe. A combination of deep rural poverty, wealthy and unscrupulous firms, and complicit government officials makes local leadership –and rural populations generally –susceptible to negative corporate influence. They can be manipulated to act against their best interests.

However, the biggest threat to generalist or specialist paralegal programming has been funding and, to a lesser extent, formal recognition. Most paralegal programmes begin and are sustained, at least for a while, by external donors.[ix]Donor support is by nature short-term. Paralegal interventions in Sierra Leone and elsewhere in Africa have folded up or severely constricted as soon as donor priorities changed. Many governments have not taken up the responsibility for funding paralegal services or incorporating them into the formal legal system. In a few countries like Sierra Leone, where paralegals have been incorporated into the national legal aid framework, the level of government funding for legal aid services has not been very significant. In fact, competing needs within a mixed legal-aid system makes it difficult for the paralegal component to be properly funded. Most legal aid boards prioritise funding for criminal legal aid or legal representation in courts, which are comparatively more expensive.

Formal recognition of paralegals, either by statute or policy, opens up the possibility of public funding but, most importantly, it creates the space for paralegals to effectively engage with public institutions in their daily work. However, care must be taken to avoid co-option or the loss of independence. A paralegal’s work often involves holding government or powerful interests accountable and this critical edge could be sacrificed in pursuit of recognition. It is imperative that paralegal programmes remain independent when they are funded publicly or afforded legal recognition by the state.

Conclusion

Over the years, there has been a growing awareness of the importance of access to justice in the fight against deprivation, insecurity, exclusion and the voicelessness of the poor.[x] Paralegals have helped to demystify the law and legal institutions by educating people and guiding them through remedial processes when rights are infringed. It seems unlikely that communities would have received any measure of justice in the instances described above without the intervention of paralegals. Without a doubt, community-based paralegal programmes help to make resource-exploiting corporations accountable and their operations more responsible. Most importantly, however, they prove that the law and government can be made to serve ordinary citizens.

[i]Making the Law Work for Everyone, Report of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, Vol. 1, 2008, pg. 19.

[ii] Government of Sierra Leone Justice Sector Reform Strategy and Investment Plan, 2008-2010, pgvi.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] United Nations General Assembly, Legal empowerment of the poor and eradication of poverty, Report of the Secretary-General, 13 July 2009, pg. 3.

[v]Community-based paralegals: A Practitioners Guide, Open Society Foundations, 2010.

[vi]Vivek Maru,Between Law and Society: Paralegals and the Provision of Primary Justice Services in Sierra Leone and Elsewhere, Open Society Justice Initiative, 2006, 2010.

[vii]See http://www.timapforjustice.org

[viii]Sonkita Conteh, Discarding the Resource Curse Label: Corporate Accountability in Natural Resource Exploitation in Sierra Leone available at http://politicosl.com/2012/10/discarding-the-%E2%80%98resource-curse%E2%80%99-label/

[ix]Community-based Paralegals: A Practitioners Guide Open Society Foundations, 2010.

*First published in the Rights and Resources edition of the Perspectives Africa series of the Heinrich Boell Foundation

April 12, 2016 By Joseph S. Margai

Negligence on the part of the Government of Sierra Leone to support and promote the wellbeing of Sierra Leonean children has left many of them doing menial jobs to eke out a living.

Many of these children could be seen carrying and selling wares on the major streets across the country, while others are seen scavenging in waste dumpsites to make ends meet. Some may have lost their parents and are in the care of aunts and uncles who have subjected them to forced labour, among other corporal jobs.

These children, predominantly boys, are very determined to succeed in life despite their circumstance, and could be seen pushing and pulling carts. Others who are unserious join cliques and armed robbery gangs.

Girls on the other hand are mostly susceptible to teenage pregnancy, prostitution, and early marriage. Some though are abused by young men who pretend to render them assistance.

These silent ugly experiences that these children are going through have a potential to put their future at stake, as most of them are not going to school and have resorted to petty crimes.

In most cases, these sad developments are meted on children whose parents (if they are alive) cannot afford to meet their needs. The case is more serious with those that have lost their parents. Also, single parents, especially women do not have the courage to ‘bear the cross’ in order to raise their children. They will rather opt to send their children to relatives in big towns.

Similarly, in some homes in Sierra Leone, especially those that are deprived, parents depend on their girls to feed them. Being saddled with an early responsibility, the girls are sold off into early marriage or engage in prostitution, among other vices, to feed the home. Those engaged in prostitution have to grapple with sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies and child trafficking.

To address all of these challenges that children in Sierra Leone are faced with, the government has established the National Commission of Children, in addition to the Children’s Directorate in the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs and the Child Labour Unit in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.

But despite the establishment of these institutions, scores of children are still in the streets, suffering, with little or no attention from the state. Many benefits that are meant for street children are being enjoyed by those whose parents can afford to meet their needs.

Head of Child Labour and International Labour Standards Unit at the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, Abdul Karim Conteh, acknowledges that child labour is on the increase in Sierra Leone, especially Freetown, the capital.

“Some of the solutions to child labour are livelihood support programme for vulnerable parents and children, affordable education programmes for children whose parents are poor, among others. These solutions should be firstly done before the enforcement of the laws on child labour,” he suggests.

Conteh discloses that since child labour was integrated into the Ministry of Labour in 2010, after the government signed an agreement with the International Labour Organization, they decided to implement two major conventions – 138 Minimum Age for Employment and 182 The Worst Forms of Child Labour – which have both been ratified by Parliament.

“These conventions stressed that the child should start to do non-hazardous jobs at age 15 and hazardous jobs at the age of 18. Hazardous jobs for children below 18 are underground mining, street trading, chemical industries, some work in the agriculture sector, cart pushing and pulling; children should not serve as apprentice for vehicles below 18 years, working at sea, etc.,” he states.

The Advocacy and Communication Coordinator at the National Commission for Children, Addie Valcarcel, has expressed optimism that with the adequate sensitisation on the dangers of subjecting children to child labour, they have recently seen a significant reduction in the act.

Mrs. Valcarcel describes as ‘risky’ the practice of sending a child that is below the age of 14 to sell on the street, especially for girls who may be abused by ill-motivated men. She adds that a boy below age 14, who is sent by his guardian to sell on the street, may be indoctrinated into acquiring negative lifestyle.

“Street trading destroys the future of children. We are not saying children cannot help their parents at home, but they should do so under their supervision,” she insists.

She hastens to disclose that the Commission frowns at parents and guardians who send their children to fetch water at night, noting that child trafficking is a crime and that most of the children who sell wares on the street are not with their biological parents in Freetown.

She says the Commission monitors and coordinates the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Right of the Child, the African Charter on the Right and Welfare of the Child and Part III of the Child Right Act of 2007.

“The Commission also renders advice to the government on policies for the improvement on the condition of the child. There are too much dropout of school girls due to early marriage, but we have been implementing a project to reintegrate the girls back to school,” she reveals.

However, Deputy Director of Children’s Directorate at the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs, Joyce Kamara, says that the Ministry is working with the Commission in their campaign against child labour, visiting dumpsites in the capital, Freetown, and contact tracing and reunifying children with their families.

The Children’s Deputy Director also alleges that some blind beggars are in the habit of discouraging their children not to go to school. “Most of these children abandoned their homes and come to live in the street because after their day’s activity of begging, they give them some amount of money. When the children are being used to having money on their own, they can no longer heed to the advice of their parents at home,” she states in one an interview with this reporter.

She recalls that they recently received a complaint from one of the children who reported a blind beggar whom he alleged hired him but failed to pay him. Ms. Kamara says that the blind beggars most times target street children and that even when the ministry tries to get them off the street, they are stubborn to stay because of what they are benefiting from the beggars.

“This is a worrisome concern for us at the ministry because if these children’s future is not secured at this moment, I’m afraid what will happen to the future of this country,” he says “We have several strategies that we have been putting in place to address some of these problems of the children especially those that are roaming around without parental care.”

She says children who have abandoned their homes or their parents in the provinces to come to Freetown will be re-unified with the latter so that they can have the parental care they deserve.

 April 13, 2016 By Sahr Morris Jr.

Sierra Leonean and United States-based female athlete, Maggie Barrie, has set a new 400 metres personal best record in the outdoor season opener at a meet in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

The Ohio State University sophomore sprinter over the weekend began her 2016 outdoor season campaign on a good footing, clocking 54.77 seconds in the 400 metres (outdoor).

The young sprinter, who is yet to turn 20, and other youngsters in the United States of America have already committed to compete for Sierra Leone. Thus, one can safely say that athletics in the country is in for a renaissance.

Barrie is hoping to be part of team Sierra Leone in Durban, South Africa, for the African Athletics Championships, which is expected to come up in late June and also possibly secure a qualifying time for the summer Olympic Games in Rio, Brazil.

The young sprinter recently set a new national record in the 400 and 200 metres indoors for Sierra Leone during the just completed indoor season, after clocking a time of 23:83 seconds in the 200 metres at the Big Ten Indoor Track & Field Championships, as well as clocked 55.15 seconds to slash the national record in the 400 metres indoor race.

April 19, 2016 By Sahr Morris Jr.

Deputy Minister of Sports, Ishmael Al Sankoh-Conteh, Monday revealed that the Sierra Leone national cricket team, ‘The Patriots’, will be accorded a hero’s welcome this Wednesday when the return to Freetown, after winning the ICC-Africa World Cricket League Division 2 tournament in Benoni, South Africa.

The team’s title success also means an automatic promotion to the ICC-Africa Division 1, and will now face the likes of Zambia, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Botswana and Tanzania.

The Deputy Sports Minister thus assured the players and entire delegation of a momentous welcome.

In an exclusive interview with Concord Sports, Mr. Sankoh-Conteh applauded what he called “the exemplary zeal, determination, commitment, hard work, patriotism and cricket artistry” which ‘The Patriots’ displayed throughout the tournament.

He said: “This triumph in South Africa has shown the world that we are alive and waxing stronger in the cricket world. This is something we are happy for and we are going to give them hero’s welcome.”

According to the deputy sports minister, ‘The Patriots’  latest success on the global stage is an affirmation of the significant progress Sierra Leone is now making towards positively redefining and rediscovering its potential for greatness.

Sierra Leone defeated Rwanda in the tournament’s opener by six wickets before they went on to defeat Mozambique in a double legged match on Sunday to lift the title with a game to spear.

“The International Criminal Court is here to stay”

OP-ED

April 19, 2016 By Judge Silvia Fernández, ICC President

Today the permanent premises of the International Criminal Court, the ICC, officially open in The Hague, Netherlands, beside the dunes on the shores of the North Sea. The new building combines innovative solutions purpose-made for a judicial institution with modern design reflecting both the transparency and independence of the Court.

Representatives of states from all over the world are gathering to celebrate the occasion. A groundbreaking institution in which they have invested enormous efforts has finally settled in its permanent home.

The message of today’s ceremony is clear: the International Criminal Court is here to stay.

The opening of the Court’s permanent premises testifies to an incredible journey that has taken place over more than two decades since the negotiations on the creation of the ICC started in the mid-1990s.

Today the Court is fully operational, with more proceedings in its courtrooms than every before. 124 States have ratified the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the Court, El Salvador being the latest to join last month.

We have reached this point against all odds.

A permanent international court that could prosecute individuals irrespective of their official position was a revolutionary idea. During the negotiations, many asked: would states ever agree to establish an international body with such power?

Many did, because they recognized that genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes present such a serious threat to humankind that the international community has to come together to stop them. States saw the need for a collective structure, a court of last resort that could step in when national courts fail to address the matter themselves.

The ICC’s mandate is relevant everywhere. Where massive atrocities have occurred, international justice helps ensure that such crimes are addressed, that the perpetrators are held responsible and that victims receive justice.

In areas under the threat of conflict, the ICC is an invaluable tool in the prevention of large-scale violations of human rights. The credible likelihood of a legal process and accountability is key to effective deterrence of future crimes.

The Court is equally important in places where international crimes may be unimaginable today. History teaches us that no country, no region is immune to war, conflicts or atrocities.

The ICC’s mandate is clear, but it cannot meet its goals without global cooperation and support.

As a judicial institution, the ICC is a distinct kind of international organization. States established the it, but they must respect its judicial independence. Interference with the Court’s work would undermine the credibility of the very institution they created.

At the same time, the cooperation of states and organizations is necessary for the ICC’s ability to collect evidence, protect witnesses, or arrest suspects. Likewise, without cooperation, the Court cannot provide adequate reparations to the victims of crimes addressed by the Court.

The ICC is today playing an important role in the efforts of the international community to ensure accountability for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, whether they take the form of mass killings, persecution on ethnic grounds, rape as a weapon of war, use of child soldiers, large-scale torture, deportations, or attacks on civilians.

But the ICC cannot do this everywhere. Misunderstandings about the ICC’s possibilities under its founding treaty have led to perceptions of selective justice. However, unless the Security Council of the United Nations decides to submit a situation to it, the Court can only investigate when the countries concerned have voluntarily accepted its powers – and many of the world’s worst conflict zones are currently outside its reach. Our states parties must continue efforts to encourage more countries to join the Rome Statute system of international criminal justice if they want to see an ICC that is able to address all crimes in an equal manner.

The International Criminal Court is here to stay. Its commitment to justice is stronger than ever, and the Court is actively taking new initiatives to improve its efficiency and effectiveness in order to meet the challenges before it.

But the ICC cannot fight impunity alone. How effective it will be depends on the cooperation of states and the determination of the global community to make accountability for the most serious international crimes a non-negotiable objective.

As the ICC becomes more active and more effective, it faces increasing attacks from those that are opposed to its mandate. This is when the commitment of governments to international justice is put to a real test.

The inauguration of the ICC’s Permanent Premises gives us all, court officials, states and the international community as a whole, the opportunity to make a pause in our journey to celebrate what has been already achieved through our collective efforts to enhance accountability. It also gives the opportunity to reflect anew how we can best ensure together that the new building of the Court becomes a true icon of justice for future generations.  There has been incredible progress but also setbacks.  The journey must continue.

April 19, 2016

A 2000 image of a 14-year-old soldier in Sierra Leone Photograph: Adam Butler/AP

A former senior director at a British firm says that it employed mercenaries from Sierra Leone to work in Iraq because they were cheaper than Europeans and did not check if they were former child soldiers.

James Ellery, who was a director of Aegis Defence Services between 2005 and 2015, said that contractors had a “duty” to recruit from countries such as Sierra Leone, “where there’s high unemployment and a decent workforce”, in order to reduce costs for the US presence in Iraq.

“You probably would have a better force if you recruited entirely from the Midlands of England,” Ellery, a former brigadier in the British army, told the Guardian. “But it can’t be afforded. So you go from the Midlands of England to Nepalese etc., etc., Asians, and then at some point you say I’m afraid all we can afford now is Africans.” He said the company had not asked recruits if they were former child soldiers.

Aegis Defence Services, which is chaired by Sir Nicholas Soames, a Tory MP and Winston Churchill’s grandson, had a series of contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to provide guards to protect US military bases in Iraq from 2004 onwards. From 2011 the company broadened its recruitment to take in African countries, having previously employed people from the UK, the US and Nepal.

Contract documents say that the soldiers from Sierra Leone were paid $16 (£11) a day. A documentary, The Child Soldier’s New Job, to be broadcast on Monday in Denmark alleges that the estimated 2,500 Sierra Leonean personnel who were recruited by Aegis and other private security companies to work in Iraq included former child soldiers.

“When war gets outsourced, then the companies tries to find the cheapest soldiers globally. Turns out that that is former child soldiers from Sierra Leone. I think it is important that we in the west are aware of the consequences of the privatisation of war,” the film’s maker, Mads Ellesøe, said.

Chi Onwurah, a Labour MP and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Africa, said: “There’s an inherent racism in paying security guards less depending on the country they are coming from when they are facing the same risks as a guard from the UK.”

Aegis was founded in 2002 by Tim Spicer, the former Scots Guards officer who was at the centre of the 1998 “arms to Africa” scandal, in which his previous company Sandline was found to be breaching sanctions by importing 100 tonnes of weapons to Sierra Leone in support of the government.

Ellery, Aegis’ director of operations at the time of the Iraq contracts, previously served as chief of staff to the UN’s mission in Sierra Leone, at the time when the organisation was responsible for demobilising thousands of former child soldiers.

Interviewees in the documentary provided detailed testimony of serving as child soldiers, and documents showing their employment with Aegis.

One interviewee, Gibrilla Kuyateh, told the film’s makers: “Every time I hold a weapon, it keeps reminding me of about the past. It brings back many memories.” In extended footage seen by the Guardian he said he was kidnapped at the age of 13 by rebels who also killed his mother.

He described how the rebels forced him to amputate people’s limbs, “not always with a sharp instrument”, and trained him to fire an AK-47 that he said he struggled to carry because he was so small.

When Sierra Leone’s civil war ended in 2002, the international community spent millions of dollars giving former militia members the skills to use in peacetime. A UN mission demobilised more than 75,000 fighters, including nearly 7,000 children, at an estimated cost of $36.5m. The total number of children demobilised is understood to be far higher.

Sierra Leone remains one of the world’s poorest countries, and the documentary charts how from 2009 onwards private military firms turned to it, along with Uganda and Kenya, for cheap labour to guard military installations in Iraq.

Ellery, who said he was speaking in a personal capacity, told the Guardian that it would be “quite wrong” to ask whether people had ever been child soldiers, as it would penalise people for things they had often been forced into doing.

He pointed out that under UN rules, child soldiers are not liable for war crimes. “They are, once they reach 18, in fact citizens with full rights to seek employment, which is a basic human right. So we would have been completely in error if, having gone to Sierra Leone, we excluded those people.”

He added that Aegis was strict on physical health requirements. “The moment they [recruitment agents] start sending us people who are blind in one eye or have Aids, that’s it. Contract over.

“Because those sort of things, although they sound facetious, are big problems in Africa, because you don’t want people dying after you’ve put them through expensive training and then they die because they’ve got Aids and so on,” he said.

Aegis was taken over last year by GardaWorld, a Canadian security company. Graham Binns, Aegis’s former CEO and GardaWorld’s senior managing director, told the Guardian: “We worked very closely with our audited, vetted and authorised agents to recruit, vet and screen our professionals. Our agents were authorised [as was the employment of individuals] by the relevant national government of the countries from which we recruited.

“Aegis takes issues pertinent to our industry, such as post-traumatic stress very seriously, and has worked closely with experts in the field to develop and implement procedures for the management of trauma risk.”

Soames declined to comment.

CREDIT: The Guardian, UK

...As he returns from Lebanon

April 20, 2016 By Ibrahim Tarawallie

Vice President Victor Bockarie Foh yesterday denied he did not sign any deal that has to do with toxic waste while on an official visit to Lebanon, adding that there was no such discussion with Lebanese authorities while in Beirut to open Sierra Leone’s Consular Office and meet with the business community.

The Vice President represented President Ernest Bai Koroma at the 13^th Session of the Islamic Summit Conference, which was held at the level of Heads of the States from the 14-15 April, 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey, on the theme: “Unity and Solidarity for Justice and Peace”. He then flew to Beirut to open a consular office and hold discussions with Lebanese officials.

Early this year, a letter signed by former presidential adviser, Hon. Alhaji Ben Kargbo, which gave clearance for Lebanon to deposit waste in Sierra Leone, was leaked, drawing criticisms from civil society organisations and members of the public. Although State House ordered an investigation, the issue has died a natural death, with little indication the police will prosecute the veteran politician for giving the go-ahead to a private company contracted by Beirut to dump waste in the country, although he lacked such authority.

However, while responding to a question posed during a presser to update the press about his trip, Vice President Foh said: “The issue of the trashgate was never discussed in our meetings because it was not part of our agenda. In fact, I never signed any deal that has to do with toxic waste.”

He emphasised that the issue had been addressed amicably long before his departure and that there was no need for it to have been discussed by officials from the two countries.

With regards the summit, the vice president stated that the issue of terrorism, especially in the Arab States and Africa, was discussed in detail and that at the end of the summit a communiqué was adopted by those present to condemn terrorism.

Mr. Foh said during his meetings with authorities in Lebanon, Turkey and a delegation from Saudi Arabia, he appealed for scholarships to be awarded to students in Sierra Leone, especially those that cannot afford to pay their fees.

April 21, 2016 By Abdul Tejan-Cole & Nana Afadzinu*

By now, it has become almost a cliché to say that the war on drugs has failed. The prohibitionist approach, most fully articulated by former US President Richard Nixon, has done little to curb drug use, but it has had devastating consequences for individuals and societies worldwide. In Latin America, to cite one example, it has led to repressive state policies and the militarisation of interdiction efforts at the expense of policies addressing the detrimental effects of drug use on health and social welfare.

This approach risks causing similar damage in West Africa, as the region’s own war on drugs drives an increase in state repression and human-rights abuses. In 2014, the West Africa Commission on Drugs noted that criminalising every aspect of drug-related activity, including possession for personal use, has resulted in a host of negative consequences. Drug use has been driven underground, corruption has grown, and prisons have become massively overcrowded. And it is overwhelmingly the poor – many of whom should be helped rather than punished – who are thrown in jail, while wealthy drug users buy their way out of criminal sanctions.

But repression has not prevented West Africa from becoming a major transit hub for cocaine, heroin, and cannabis. In March, Nigerian authorities discovered and dismantled the country’s first industrial-scale crystal-meth lab, indicating that the production, distribution, and consumption of synthetic drugs could be rapidly rising in the region. West Africa lacks reliable trend data regarding drug consumption, but there are signs that it is on the rise.

Given the severity of the crisis, West Africa cannot afford to be silent at the upcoming United Nations General Assembly Special Session on the World Drug Problem. A more humane response must be adopted, one that respects human rights and treats the problem as a public-health challenge.

In January, representatives from 11 West African countries, including drug-control agents, convened in Accra at a meeting organised by the West Africa Civil Society Institute. Those present declared their support for refocusing the drug-control effort on public health and human rights, rather than criminal justice.

A similar approach is advocated in a wide variety of position papers and declarations, including the 2013 African Union Plan of Action on Drug Control, the Common African Position for the UN General Assembly Special Session on the World Drug Problem, the Addis Ababa Declaration on Scaling up Balanced and Integrated Responses Towards Drug Control in Africa, and the Abuja Declaration adopted by the Economic Community of West African States. As the Common African Position puts it, “the main objective of drug policies should be to improve the health, safety, welfare, and socioeconomic wellbeing of people and societies.”

West African countries must use the UN special session to make a clean break with the failed approach of the past decade. The region’s leaders must push for genuine reform and not allow the status quo to be reinforced through the strengthening of existing frameworks.

For starters, we must dispel the notion that progressive drug policies will result in a laissez-faire attitude toward drug use and an increase in drug trafficking. Experience in other parts of the world has shown that alternatives to prison for nonviolent, minor drug offenses can lead to better health and law-enforcement outcomes, as drug users are steered to the services they need and police, freed from chasing low-level offenders, can pursue major traffickers.

The UN’s special session must be used to lay the foundation for the reform not just of laws and policies, but also of perceptions and attitudes. As important as policy reforms can be, their effectiveness will depend on lasting changes in societal norms and mores. A clear and unequivocal message is needed, one that enables civil society to sway policymakers not only at the international and national levels, but also at the community and local levels.

Traditional and community leaders must be made to understand that the criminalisation and incarceration of users does not end drug abuse, but merely fills prisons. And they must also be reassured that decriminalising drug use does not eliminate all sanctions, as administrative penalties and treatment referrals can still be used to deter consumption.

If the UN special session is to realize “a society free of drug abuse,” it must do more than reaffirm previous agreements and pledges. It must be bold and progressive, by proposing the most cost-effective and humane approach to address global drug use. That can happen only if the affected countries and regions – including West Africa – speak out loudly and collectively.

*Abdul Tejan-Cole is the current Executive Director of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) and erstwhile Anti-Corruption Commission boss in Sierra Leone, while Nana Afadzinu is Executive Director of the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI)

April 21, 2016 By Sahr Morris Jr.

The Gambia national U-20 team, Darling Scorpions, have moved to camp ahead of their 2017 African U-20 Youth championship qualifiers second leg tie against Sierra Leone, which is scheduled for 23 April at the Independence Stadium in Bakau at 4.30pm.

The Darling Scorpions are going into the second leg with a 2-0 advantage after thumping Shooting Stars in the first-leg in Makeni, Sierra Leone, a fortnight ago.

With few days to the return leg, the Darling Scorpions have encamped at the Seaview Hotel in Senegambia ahead of the crucial second-leg clash with the Shooting Stars.

The Omar Sise charges are embarking on intensive training sessions at the FIFA Goal Project in Old Yundum, ahead of the continent’s biggest cadet football showdown qualifiers with Shooting Stars for a place in the second round tie against North African powerhouse Morocco.

The Gambia made their debut in the African U-20 Youth Championship hosted in Congo, Brazza Ville, in 2007, after beating Mali 3-2 on aggregate in the qualifiers, and went on to win bronze medal following their resounding victory over Zambia in the third play-off.

They also qualified for the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup hosted in Canada, but were eliminated in the second round after losing to Austria 2-1.

The Gambia made their second appearance in the African U-20 Youth Championship hosted in South Africa after their stunning 2-0 aggregate win over Ivory Coast in the qualifiers, but were eliminated in the group stage after a woeful performance in the campaign.