By Amin Kef Sesay
It is already crystal clear that the current Minister of Transport and Aviation, Kabineh Kallon, is at the centre of manipulatively by breaching a contract with a reputable Greek Company, ETTERNA Shipmanagement, in favour of another company for reasons which he can best explain other than acting in an unethical manner with the avowed objective of pleasing and satisfying his boss, the President, Julius Maada Bio.
After the 2018 Presidential elections and the formation of a SLPP led Government headed by President Julius Maada Bio, attracting investors, especially foreign investors, became a top priority with the avowed objective of boosting the country’s economy. The President became so obsessed with wooing investors into the country to such an extent that he embarked on various overseas trips just to ensure that such a dream turns out to become a reality.
One of the foreign-based entities that showed keen interest in investing and operating in Sierra Leone was Etterna Shipmanagement. This was what the Management of the company stated: “After attempts and having gained the appropriate knowledge on how the local economy and officials operate, when the regime changed, we believed that with new people in charge maybe it was worth, giving one more time the opportunity for development.”
This medium reliably learnt that the company established its presence here with offices, having in its employ 37 members of staff, invested more than 700,000 USD in an abandoned vessel owned by the Government, managed to bring her back in absolute seaworthiness and fully functioning taking trips 2 times a day from Sunday to Friday carrying around 500 people and 60 vehicles.
Through the efforts of the company, the once dysfunctional M/V Bai Bureh commenced operations between Government Wharf City Centre and Tagrin Airport area, with the highest of standards in safety and security, performing the trip in 40 minutes offering the fastest, most reliable and low-cost route.
Lamentably, for the Management of the company, as their investment was beginning to gain a foothold and accrue fruitful dividends it was surprised and outraged at the same time, when they discovered that the Government of Sierra Leone has signed an exclusive 25-year concession contract with another new entity from Turkey -a completely new and unknown company without local presence so far.
According to Nikolaos Kornilakis, the Chief Executive Officer of Etterna Group, their company decided to rebuild the Bai Bureh Ferry and “after the Ferry finally started commencing operations and having spent more than 700K out of pocket for this result, the Ministry of Transport assigned all the Terminals, including the ones that we operate to an exclusive 25-year concession contract with some new ‘guys’ from Turkey”.
Another bitter complaint that the Management of Etterna Shipmanagement intimated this medium was that apart from the issue related to the Bai Bureh ferry, the same Government of Sierra Leone went forward to hand over to them a building for a boutique hotel to be constructed furthering how despite some delay due to COVID-19 restrictions they started demolishing it but in May 2021 the Government of Sierra Leone decided to stop the operations after the company had spent almost 100K USD (One Hundred Thousand US Dollars) and another 40K USD (Forty Thousand Dollars) for the drawings.
Adding salt to injury was when Management of the company pointed out that their business proposals and project plans declared and discussed with Government officials and the Minister of Transport were sent and “assigned” to Turks accordingly, something considered to be bad practice.
In addition, Management revealed that the company also invested in one more building apart from the demolished one boutique hotel adding that while they were really close to building a really enviable infrastructure for a modern lounge terminal area, the operations were stopped again by the Sierra Leone Port Authority Management, who then requested for money for the work to proceed further.
Based on the bad experience that the Management of Etterna Shipmanagement said based on the bad experience it has suffered it reserves every right to take legal and commercial actions against the Government of Sierra Leone for bad treatment and damages incurred.
When this medium contacted the Minister of Transport and Aviation, Kabineh Kallon, via text message to have his own side on the issue and a call placed to him he first declined the call and deliberately blacklisted our (The Calabash) number. Further calls put to him failed to go through.
Again, when this medium personally contacted the Public Relations Officer of the Ministry he faithfully promised to have a meeting with us to throw light on the issue but rather interestingly after which he never treated our calls for the meeting with any iota of seriousness.
Based on the expressed views of many that this medium captured on the above mentioned allegations, the action taken by the current Transport Minister is nothing short of a breach of contract by the Government of Sierra Leone. One political commentator even averred that such a move has the tendency of frustrating potential investors from investing in the country out of fear that at the end of the day they will be maltreated, dumped and in trying to seek redress or justice such will not be easily achievable.
As the situation now stands it is but appropriate for the Ministry of Transport and Aviation to come out with a convincing statement to counter the damning allegations made against it bordering on unethical conduct and breaches with regards to treating a reputable company with such utter contempt.
I see no reason why a company cannot accept competition…
Even if the allegation were true, the government have the right to improve and provide more accessible transport services for our people. In all my travels to Sierra Leone and as a local of lungi, I have always used both ferries to commute from Lungi to Freetown. It suffices to say, that the new ferry running from government wharf is far better than the once run by ETTERNA Shipmanagement.
Let encourage more investment in the transport sectors….