By Amin Kef Sesay
At this material time when the country is in dire need of investors, from both within and out of the country, it is highly imperative, on the part of the Government, to do all within its reach to protect business enterprises that are already well established in the country. The importance of this cannot be overemphasized when cognizance is taken of the fact that if it is known that Government is serious in protecting business enterprises such will motivate others who may want to invest in certain areas to confidently do so.
Realistically, there have been instances when some thorny situations have prompted ill-motivated individuals to take the law into their hands by violently attacking business enterprises resulting into damages that ran into millions of Leones.
Few days ago one of Milla Group Limited and PEE CEE and Sons’ manufacturing site or factory at Kissy, in the East End of Freetown by some young people, considered to be social misfits, said to be residing within the community in which the factory is located, among which were certain casual workers.
They were pelting stones and home-made missiles at the company’s personnel and assets backed by threats to burn down the factory. The situation was really degenerating into one that was serious until the Management of the company alerted the Police who had to rush to the scene, led by the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Dennis Taylor who doubles as Local Unit Commander at Ross Road Police Station.
During the process of quelling down the situation some of the youth attempted to disarm a police officer of his gun and in the ensuing struggling the gun misfired with the bullet hitting the hand of one of the assailants. With the use of some force the volatile situation was eventually put under control but even with the presence of police personnel the irate youths still continue to make threats of further attacks on the company.
Retrospectively, what led to the ugly scenario emanated from the arrest of some workers of Milla Group Limited and PEE CEE and Sons for alleged stealing of the products that the company supplies to its different outlets within the country for onward sale to members of the public.
This medium learnt that some of the workers, who are assigned to transport the products, specifically in this case bags of onions were in the habit of tampering with the bags, remove some of the onions, put them in other empty bags thereby reducing the real quantity that the real bags should contain. It was understood that this act had been going on for quite a considerable period of time now but because of the lack of evidence Management, at that time, could not take any decisive action.
However, recently the perpetrators ran out of luck when fourteen of them were caught red-handed along the Freetown/Masiaka highway re-bagging onions by reducing the 25 Kg bags to at least 18 Kg. The Police were alerted and they moved swiftly, arrested the fourteen suspects including drivers.
The accused persons were later charged to court and made their first appearance on the 20th September, 2021 at the Ross Road Magistrate Court. They were denied bail and remanded at the Male Correctional Centre in Freetown.
From what this medium gathered it was the arrest of the fourteen workers which infuriated some of their colleagues and other ‘area boys’, who are of the opinion that the arrest, detention and charging to court of those said to have been caught on the height of re-bagging the onions was completely not in place and called for their unconditional release.
The volatile situation was so serious that even though the Police were able to quickly quell it down some of the workers were too hesitant on the 20th September 2021 to report for work out of the fear that their lives will be engendered.
In as much as this is an isolated case, however, as it has been stated there have been other instances in the past when certain disgruntled individuals have attacked, with impunity, business enterprises simply because of misunderstandings or other unacceptable acts which, in actual fact, should not warrant such a violent reaction as they can be settled amicably.
It is against such a backdrop that it is very significant for Government, through the Internal Affairs Ministry, to always be prepared to provide maximum security to business enterprises in order for them to operate in a very conducive environment.
Worthy of note is that business ventures or enterprises that do operate on a scale like how Milla Group Limited and PEE CEE and Sons are operating do provide direct or indirect employment opportunities to many Sierra Leoneans and even pay huge taxes to Government as well as support certain development programmes through the rolling out of its Corporate Social Responsibility.
Businesses can only thrive in peaceful situations or environment.
