In what has been described as positive development the Sierra Leone authorities and IMF mission concluded discussions, ad referendum, on economic policies to pave the way for consideration by the IMF Executive Board of the first review under the ECF-supported program; continued actions to mobilize revenue and manage public finances remain key priorities to reduce public debt and create fiscal space for investing in people and infrastructure; stepping up structural reform efforts will be crucial to managing fiscal risks, ensuring greater accountability, and diversifying the economy for the benefit of all Sierra Leoneans.
An International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission, led by Karen Ongley, visited Freetown during April 23-May 7, 2019 to conduct the first review of the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement approved by the Executive Board on November 30, 2018.
At the end of the visit, Ms. Ongley issued the following statement:
“The economic landscape in Sierra Leone remains challenging. Yet, the authorities navigated these difficulties well in the year since taking office, helping to stabilize the economy. Real GDP looks set to pick up this year to 5.1 percent, thanks in part to the resumption of iron ore mining. After peaking above 19 percent last September, inflation moderated to 17.5 percent in March and is projected to continue tracking down over 2019.
“Faced with serious constraints on budget financing, the authorities kept the budget in check through stronger than programmed revenue performance and spending well below the budget. As a result, the overall deficit narrowed from 8.8 percent in 2017 to 5.8 percent in 2018. However, delays in donor receipts and uneven liquidity in the banking system, posed challenges for deficit financing and monetary policy, and impacted program performance.
“While program performance is broadly on track, slower than expected progress on structural reforms reflects the magnitude of policy challenges. Nine of the ten quantitative targets were met for end December 2018 and end March 2019. However, the Net Domestic Assets of the Bank of Sierra Leone (BSL) at end December 2018 exceeded the program target (performance criterion), partly due to BSL’s credit to government and continued foreign exchange market sales to stem depreciation of the Leone. Moreover, three of five structural benchmarks—the forensic audit of the BSL, developing a strategic plan for the two state-owned banks, and a strategy for clearing domestic arrears—have been delayed, as the underlying issues are proving to be more complex than anticipated.
“With this in mind, the Sierra Leonean authorities and the mission reached understandings, ad referendum, on economic policies aimed at enhancing accountability in managing public resources, diversifying the economy and promoting more resilient and inclusive growth. The authorities’ commitment to mobilizing domestic revenue and improving expenditure management to achieve a gradual reduction in the deficit will help ensure that public debt returns to a sustainable path. Notwithstanding pressures on the budget, the authorities will safeguard poverty-reducing spending and other priority spending under the Government’s National Development Plan. Limiting the recourse to domestic financing will also reinforce the BSL’s objective of bringing inflation down to single digits by the end of the program. Maintaining a flexible exchange rate system and increasing foreign exchange reserves will boost resilience to economic shocks.
“The authorities have calibrated their policies to address longstanding vulnerabilities, but this also requires maintaining policy discipline and stamina. Notwithstanding their ambitious revenue goals, the program reflects a more cautious revenue assumption as a buffer to deal with fiscal risks, such as reliance on donor financing, the large outstanding stock of domestic arrears, and high prospective debt service payments. Stepping up efforts on the structural reforms underpinning the program is crucial to the goals of managing fiscal risks and ensuring greater accountability for the benefit of all Sierra Leoneans.
“The IMF’s Executive Board is expected to consider first ECF review by end-June 2019. Completion of the review would make available SDR 15.56 million (US$ 21.5 million), bringing total disbursements under the program to about SDR 31 million (US$ 43 million).
“The mission met with Vice President Jalloh, Minister of Finance Jacob Saffa, Deputy Minister of Finance Patricia Laverley, Governor of BSL Kelfala Kallon, Finance Secretary Sahr Jusu, other senior government and BSL officials, representatives of the financial sector, civil society, and development partners. Mr. Kingsley Obiora, Alternate Executive Director representing Sierra Leone, also joined the concluding meetings.
“The mission wishes to thank the Sierra Leonean authorities for their warm hospitality, and the constructive and rich discussions during our visit to Freetown.”

By Foday Moriba Conteh

In 2007, the UN Secretary-General’s Policy Committee defined peace building as follows: “Peace building involves a range of measures targeted to reduce the risk of lapsing or relapsing into conflict by strengthening national capacities at all levels for conflict management, and to lay the foundations for sustainable peace and sustainable development.
“Peace building strategies must be coherent and tailored to specific needs of the country concerned, based on national ownership, and should comprise a carefully prioritized, sequenced and therefore relatively narrow set of activities aimed at achieving the above objectives.”
As such, peace with justice is a way of thinking and acting which promotes nonviolent solutions to everyday problems and thereby contributes to a civil society.
Peace with justice sets standards for the security of children and for primary health care; promotes an end to the violence of poverty; and most importantly in our own case facilitates personal fulfilment through the creation of rewarding opportunities in education and employment
To make President Bio’s proposed Peace and National Cohesion Commission, with the focus on promoting peace with justice and the practice of nonviolence nationally accepted, it should among other features have an annual Peace Prize and in its daily affairs consistently encourage public interest and discussion about issues of peace, social justice, human rights, and non-violent conflict resolution.
In reaching for peace for national reconciliation, it is very important that the Government of the day realizes that international declarations of fundamental values and principles are very useful for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society in the 21st century.
United Nations Cyber School Bus Peace Education states: “A culture of peace will be achieved when citizens of the world understand global problems, have the skills to resolve conflicts and struggle for justice non-violently, live by international standards of human rights and equity, appreciate cultural diversity, and respect the Earth and each other.”
As such, peacebuilding is a series of complementary processes beginning with an activity that aims to resolve injustice in nonviolent ways and to transform the cultural and structural conditions that generate deadly or destructive conflict.
It revolves around developing constructive personal, group, and political relationships across ethnic, religious, class, national, and racial boundaries. This process includes violence prevention; conflict management, resolution, or transformation; and post-conflict reconciliation or trauma healing, i.e., before, during, and after any given case of violence.
Researchers and practitioners have found out that peacebuilding is most effective and durable when it relies upon local conceptions of peace and the underlying dynamics which foster or enable conflict.
As such, peacebuilding employs strategic multidisciplinary, cross-sector techniques and methods over the long run and at all levels of society to establish and sustain relationships among the people—thus engendering sustainable peace.
Strategic peacebuilding activities address the root causes or potential causes of violence, create a societal expectation for peaceful conflict resolution, and stabilize society politically and socioeconomically.
Successful peacebuilding activities create an environment supportive of self-sustaining, durable peace; reconcile opponents; prevent conflict from restarting; integrate civil society; create rule of law mechanisms; and address underlying structural and societal issues.
Even if peacebuilding has remained a largely amorphous concept without clear guidelines or goals, common to all definitions is the agreement that improving human security is the central task of peacebuilding.
In this sense, peacebuilding includes a wide range of efforts by diverse actors in government and civil society at the community, national, and international levels to address the root causes of violence and ensure civilians have freedom from fear (negative peace), freedom from want (positive peace) and freedom from humiliation before, during, and after violent conflict.
Before conflict becomes violent, preventive peacebuilding efforts, such as diplomatic, economic development, social, educational, health, legal and security sector reform programs, address potential sources of instability and violence. This is also termed conflict prevention.
Peacebuilding efforts aim to manage, mitigate, resolve and transform central aspects of the conflict through official diplomacy; as well as through civil society peace processes and informal dialogue, negotiation, and mediation.
Peacebuilding addresses economic, social and political root causes of violence and fosters reconciliation to prevent the return of structural and direct violence.
Peacebuilding efforts aim to change beliefs, attitudes and behaviors to transform the short and long term dynamics between individuals and groups toward a more stable, peaceful coexistence. Peacebuilding is an approach to an entire set of interrelated efforts that support peace.

The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), Africa’s foremost champion of entrepreneurship, will host its 5th Annual Forum — the largest annual gathering of African entrepreneurs – on July 26 – 27, 2019. The two-day event will take place at the iconic Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja.

The Forum is the culmination of the annual Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme, which this year mentored, trained and seeded over 3,000 young Africans, selected from over [216,000] applicants. The event provides a unique opportunity for young women and men, from all 54 African countries, to meet, learn and network with the broader African and global entrepreneurship ecosystem. It is also a critical opportunity for political leaders and policy makers to meet, face to face, a new generation of African business leaders, who are transforming Africa’s economic trajectory.

Keynote speakers at the highly anticipated Forum include His Excellency Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, and His Excellency Macky Sall, President of Senegal, who will join Tony O. Elumelu, CON, TEF Founder and Chairman of Heirs Holdings and the United Bank for Africa (UBA) in an intimate open house discussion. The Presidential Convening is a highlight of the Forum, allowing the African entrepreneurs in attendance to closely engage with political leaders, to give first hand testimony of the important role government can play in catalysing growth and encouraging business ambition.

The Forum agenda includes masterclasses and panel discussions with leading speakers and sector experts, from Africa and globally, who will engage attendees in specialised training sessions to share insights, deepen their knowledge and refine their skills. The Forum will also feature a pitching event, where select entrepreneurs will deliver exciting presentations on the goods and services they provide to a distinguished judging panel.

For first time the Forum will be hosted in Abuja, the Federal Capital of Nigeria and will bring together leading policymakers, business leaders, development agencies and the entire entrepreneurship ecosystem including alumni of the Foundation’s Entrepreneurship Programme. Last year, a significant highlight was the launch of TEFConnect, the digital networking platform for African entrepreneurs, which provides a unique digital hub for the African entrepreneurship, facilitating networking, mentorship and most importantly business beyond borders. Previous Forums have been headlined by African leaders, including President of Ghana, HE Nana Akufo-Addo, President of Kenya, HE Uhuru Kenyatta, Former President of Nigeria, HE Olusegun Obasanjo, Former Prime Minister of Benin and TEF Advisory Board Member, HE Lionel Zinsou, Vice President of Nigeria, HE Prof. Yemi Osinbajo.

The Tony Elumelu Foundation’s determination to bring change in scale, across Africa and its relentless focus on entrepreneurship is rooted in the inclusive philosophy of Africapitalism, created by its Founder, which recognizes economically empowering Africa’s youth — the continent’s future wealth creators — and thereby creating sustainable economic and social wealth, as one of the most pressing issues of the 21st century. In 2015, the Foundation committed $100 million to empower 10,000 entrepreneurs from across the continent, over 10 years. Now in the 5th year, the Foundation has funded, mentored and provided business management training to over 7,500 start-ups and small businesses, from all 54 countries in Africa.

“The TEF Entrepreneurship Forum will not just convene the most important stakeholders in the African entrepreneurship ecosystem, it provides an opportunity for everyone to make a commitment to advance entrepreneurship and scale the impact of our entrepreneurs if we are to accelerate the development of the continent,” TEF CEO, Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu said.

She added: “We are constantly inspired by the stories we receive from our entrepreneurs who are creating jobs, employing people and impacting their local communities and ultimately, the continent. We believe that these entrepreneurs are our future. Invest in them now and reap the Africa of our dreams tomorrow. This is what we are committed to.”

For more information on the Forum, please visit www.tonyelumelufoundation.org.

The newly-appointed Chinese Ambassador to Sierra Leone, Hu Zhangliang, has paid a courtesy call on His Excellency President Julius Maada Bio at State House in Freetown.

Ambassador Hu thanked the President for sparing his precious time with him, saying that he was meeting him to further discuss ways of strengthening the cooperation between the two countries. He said under the present leadership of the country they had seen great progress in all sectors of governance.

He noted that they also had a very good impression that the country is heading the right direction, citing the monthly cleaning exercise, the launch of the free quality education and the completion of the Sengbeh Pieh Memorial Bridge as efforts being made by the new Government to better the lives of Sierra Leoneans.

“I have followed your recent Independence and State Opening Speeches, which were indicative of your Governance strategies and political vision to develop Sierra Leone. I also noticed that you have instructed your Government to step up efforts in anti-corruption and in consolidating fiscal and economic policies which have given you the support from your people,” he said.

On his part, President Bio said he is happy that the new Ambassador had been able to move around Government Ministries so he could better understand what was going on in the Government and to see how they could come in as well. He said Sierra Leone enjoyed a very close relationship with the people and Government of China out of which the country had benefitted a lot.

“Now that you have visited the various Ministries you understand what are happening from different sectoral points of view. We cherish our relationship with China and will use every situation to express our appreciation. We want to say thanks for all the projects that we have completed and also for those in progress,” he said.

The 2018 end of year presidential cocktail for the media was fantastic. Yes it was. There was a massive turnout of journalists from across the country with some unusually frank speeches, with important announcements and nice music from the Ballanta Dance Band.
For those of us who have spent the best part of our adult life in journalism, we looked like strangers among the many young minds who joined the profession in the last decade. The President, Vice President, the First Lady and staff of State House Communications Unit mixed freely, photos taken, business cards exchanged in addition to the broad smiles, all in the Christmas mood. Right?
The event was the first ever presidential cocktail for the media. I wasn’t in this business under Siaka Stevens and JS Momoh but Aljahi Kabbah had too much to do throughout his tenure to care about media cocktails. And certainly, Koroma did not have a lot of official face-to-face meetings with the media.
In fact, his Advisory Note Number 8 prepared by one of his advisers at the time, IB Kargbo called for regular meetings with the media but such was largely ignored after one such event following Koroma’s return from a meeting in China.
JM Bio says this cocktail will now be an annual affair. We’ll see.
Once again JM Bio has committed his Government to the repeal of the obnoxious Criminal and Seditious Libel provisions in the Public Order Act of 1965. He says his Government is one that says and does things. So the repeal would take place “within the shortest possible time”. Ordinarily this should be enough for the media to celebrate. But just before he spoke at the cocktail, the President of SLAJ, Kelvin Lewis told the gathering about the same REPEAL promise saying “we don’t want another 10 years of promises.” This was indeed an open reference to the last Government of EB Koroma.
When Ernest Bai Koroma announced his Turn Around Agenda going into the 2007 elections many Sierra Leoneans were prepared to give him a chance. The document looked impressive with ideas that were not exactly new or transformative but Koroma was a new broom promising to sweep the country clean of corruption and opening up the space for all Sierra Leoneans to play their part in moving the post-war country forward.
Koroma’s message of change resonated across the country.
By this time the Government of Alhaji Tejan Kabbah looked exhausted and bereft of ideas of even how to trumpet their own achievements including ending the war and restoring vital democratic institutions between 2000 and 2005. Many of those institutions were targeted at guaranteeing civil liberties and demystifying politics.
One of those manifesto commitments that suggested this was no deja-vu was Koroma’s promise to “use the mass media to serve as a medium to educate the public on State matters and how these matters impinge on their daily lives, be committed to greater freedom, and democracy and we would enhance the role of a free, unfettered and responsible press”.
He said he would achieve that by “reviewing the 1965 Public Order Act, assisting the fourth estate in building itself up in terms of capacity, professionalism and ensure its independence, improving public trust, confidence and interest through information sharing. Whilst in office the bottlenecks and obstacles that stifle this free flow will be removed”.
By the end of his 10th year in office, I am sure Koroma looked back at these lines quoted above from his manifesto of 2007 and hoped nobody called his attention to them in his retirement. Those repressive sections of the 1965 Public Order Act are still in place.
His best opportunity to kill this anachronistic colonial relic came via suggested constitutional provisions contained in chapter 12 of his own Constitutional Review Committee report. He rejected that without a wink in his government’s white paper on that report. A month or so before the release of that White Paper, his Attorney General travelled to Bo and addressed a SLAJ congress. He left the meeting with many journalists openly satisfied that at last Criminal and Seditious libel would be gone long time ago from our law books.
The media enjoyed a reasonable degree of Freedom but the Government was never shy to arrest, detain and prosecute any journalist who shaved too close to Koroma’s skin. I have a list of such cases including the famous ones of the Observer newspaper Editor, Jonathan Leigh and broadcaster David Tam-Baryoh, a friend of Koroma who dared asked critical questions about the deal to buy public service buses from China and speculate about the management of funds to fight the dreaded Ebola Virus Disease which killed thousands of Sierra Leoneans. The entire editorial board of Politico newspaper was dragged before a Court Martial trying fourteen (14) soldiers accused of mutiny.
Their sin was publishing an editorial raising questions about the pace of the trial which had lasted more than two years with the officers locked up at Pademba road maximum security jail. They mentioned the case of a soldier who lost his wife while in jail and had his request to physically bury her denied to bring the plight of those soldiers to light. Despite the best efforts of their brilliant lawyer, Roland Wright, in a heated courtroom battle with a state prosecutor, the young lady who wrote the article was jailed.
The rest were told to go home and sin no more. The government quickly pulled back under local and international pressure and released Phedalia Allie after 24 hours. A few weeks later all the soldiers were cleared. If journalists are too scared to raise such issues to force the authorities to respect the rights of their own citizens, why are they in the business then?
Koroma’s government also scrapped the Kabbah era budgetary allocations for the running of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists. It happened under the watch of I B Kargbo a former SLAJ President while he was the Minister of Information. Nobody in SLAJ believed that was possible. Koroma encouraged a kind of divide and rule in the media. In essence, the trick worked because he enjoyed the longest honeymoon with the media compared to any other political leader in the world.
So here we are now into President JM Bio’s New Direction and we are dealing with the same issues. We have another manifesto commitment that is wide ranging and stronger than that of 2007. Bio says he will REPEAL not REVIEW the criminal and seditious libel provisions in the 1965 Public Order Act, restore budgetary allocations to SLAJ and rebuild the State broadcaster. The President wants the country to believe he can deliver on these promises. There is nothing wrong about believing in something. Bio won the presidency because he believed. Scratch the surface a bit and you will find out that even some of his closest friends then and now did not believe that much.
People close to several rounds of negotiations between this Government and the leadership of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists told me that substantial progress has been made toward the repeal of part five of the Public Order Act of 1965. But as we have just celebrated the first anniversary of the new Government, it is very important to acknowledge that effort and also to state that “substantial progress” is definitely not the final thing. I also know from speaking to those sources that there has been a lull in completing the documentation and bringing the issue to the cabinet table. So discussions are still at a point where anything could go wrong and push the repeal effort back to where it started. JM Bio says it will be done “within the shortest possible time.” We’ll see.
I was part of last minute efforts by at least two Ministers in the last Government to get the Koroma cabinet to discuss and approve the same repeal proposals. After one of the last meetings I attended along President Kelvin Lewis and a few other colleagues, a Minister told me as we left the room that he wasn’t sure there was enough support in cabinet to get the proposals through. I didn’t say this to the colleagues who attended that meeting at the time. I went home regretting I attended the meeting at all.
So the New Direction was quick out of the blocks with this issue but as they say, it is not over until it is over.
For the first time in history an accreditation system is being worked out for the whole media to have access to the presidency. This has always been the exclusive preserve of the state media. In my days in the newsroom of the SLBS, I constantly had to deal with requests from colleagues in the private media to come over to our office to get copies of government statements and other news materials relating to State House. Social media was an elaborate dream. State House Communications Unit is doing a great job by attempting to release news stories about the work of the President in a timely manner. Their website is also being updated regularly. That’s fine.
The truth however is that most media organizations would prefer to have their own reporters covering the presidency and reporting according to their own house style. This will save the time it now takes for some media houses to change angles and points of emphasis in news items released by SHCU. No matter how well written they may be. Why the State House corps is still not operational at the end of the first quarter of 2019 is something I find hard to understand.
In 2019, the promised subvention to SLAJ should come through. When the money was first given to the organization by the Government of Alhaji Tejan Kabbah there were complaints in certain quarters of SLAJ that it was a bribe targeted at bringing the media under the control of the Government. I was among those who disagreed with this position for the following reasons: firstly, SLAJ has no control over the editorial policy of any media organization and has largely refrained from undertaking any serious peer review drive on the daily news output of their member organizations.
Secondly, state subsidy to the independent media is not strange. It is widely practiced throughout Francophone West Africa, a region which has some of the most developed, powerful and critical newspapers in the continent. Thirdly, the money actually goes to SLAJ to fund the running of the Secretariat like paying the yearly rent, staff salaries and basic office supplies. So the benefit to individual SLAJ members is indirect and cannot influence editorials.
In the New Direction so far, some sections of the media have still not left their partisan trenches. In fact they are reinforcing their positions. The point is, it is in the interest of the opposition to keep pushing and in typical Sierra Leone style everything is politicized with a barrage of fake news.
The media machinery that helped bring JM Bio to power must quickly discover that this is time to govern. So while it may gratify the base to continue kicking the defeated APC, they may have very little time left to engage the rest of the population on the real issues facing the country and for which the people threw the APC out.
Many journalists in the so-called traditional media are covering the new Parliament having members from four political parties and some independents and a completely changed political landscape in the same way they covered the Koroma years. For them small parties and independents are completely missing in action. Reporting is still around Green and Red. How wrong!

This year’s theme for World Press Freedom Day is, “Media for Democracy: Journalism and Elections in times of Disinformation.” The World Press Freedom Day is annually observed on May 3 to inform the international community of nations that Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Expression are fundamental Human Rights.
World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1993, following the recommendation of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) General conference.
Since then May 3, the anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration is celebrated worldwide as World Press Freedom Day It is an opportunity to:
* Celebrate the fundamental principles of press freedom;
* Assess the state of the press throughout the world;
* Defend the media from attacks on their independence;
* And to pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the line of duty.
Plethora of journalists have been arrested and detained unlawfully and at some point killed for reporting on issues of public interest and social injustice. Reporting on crimes, politics and corruption should no longer be a matter of life and death as it is evident in Sierra Leone and some other parts of the world. The media play a crucial role in covering the devastating effects of maladministration and provide citizens with germane information that enable them to stand up against those vices in society.
An independent and free media is a solid cornerstone for democracy, a vital pillar of national integration and consolidate democratic good governance. It is a public watchdog on the abuse of power by politicians, surreptitious dealings and corruption. Therefore, to unearth these vices in our society and body politics, the press should be free from draconian and obsolete colonial leftover laws that impede its fundamental functions of informing, educating and entertaining, as espoused by the French philosopher Louis Althusser.
Press freedom is a fundamental Human Right that is recognized and protected in Sierra Leone and beyond. It is the democratic and constitutional right of the media to hold the government and it officials accountable to the citizens. In that vein, the mass media is expected to function independently without external censorship and any kind of unlawful imposition of a legislation that runs contrary with the spirit of the National Constitution of Sierra Leone Act No.6 of 1991.
This year’s theme is explicitly coined for media and non-media practitioners to know that, the mass media is a tool that promote and enhance a functioning and sustainable democracy. The mass media in Sierra Leone have tried to promote democratic tenets in Sierra Leone. It is crystal clear during the March 2018 general elections; the media played outstanding role in ensuring we have a free, fair and transparent elections. They have a responsibility to report political happenings; but they should not misinform citizens because that will render them to make shortsighted and sentimental decisions.
Journalism is a sacred profession like any other profession you can think of. Because you can read and write do not guarantee you a place in the profession, if you do not abreast yourself with it ethical principles. People should stop seeing Journalism as a waiting ground for greener pastures job, rather they should see it as life ending career. The world has journeyed to the information and communication era that is characterized by massive development in technology and the unending quest to know. In that backdrop, professional journalists should take the front seat.
If this profession is left in the hands of quack journalists who lack the passion and desire to report daily happenings then the world is heading for doom. May 3 is marked for the brave souls of those dedicated and altruistic journalists for them to continue to rest in jollification. Let us celebrate and remind our current soldiers in the news business that they have done well but a lot is left to be done. Part 5 of the Public Order Act No.46 of 1965 should be repealed as promised. Politicians should not have a shade to lean on. Journalists should continue to report responsibly as expected.

In his statement marking 2019 World Press Freedom Day, the President of Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ), Kelvin Lewis stated that the global theme for the World Press Freedom Day 2019 as prescribed by UNESCO the foremost UN institution for promoting free expression is “Media for Democracy: Journalism and Elections in Times of Disinformation” is timely.
He added however that in Sierra Leone, the most pressing issue is the repeal of the Criminal Libel Law, which is largely being resisted because of criticisms on the quality of journalism in the country.
He added that even in church, pastors preach about the truth and that the Holy Bible says in John chapter 8 verse 32 that: “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”
The SLAJ President maintained that there are numerous cases negatively affecting journalists. He highlighted cases like the case of David Tam-Baryoh during the Ebola emergency; the case of David Tam Baryoh and Transport Minister Balogun Koroma; Jonathan Leigh and Momoh Konte; Jonathan Leigh and former Information Minister Alpha Khan, and many more as instances that demonstrate the fact that journalists in Sierra Leone have a bad deal with the Government.
On his own part, the Chairman, Independent Media Commission (IMC), George .S. Khoryama said that as far as the IMC is concerned, World Press Freedom Day is a moment of retrospection of how much the media has achieved in its role in terms of providing the public not only information for the sake of information, but equally so an impartial, objective and meaningful information that could trigger sustainable national development, unity and patriotism.
He added that ‘it is a day for us as media practitioners to ask ourselves whether we have fulfilled the sacred obligation of professionalism in terms of balanced and accurate reporting, fairness, excellence and above all satisfying our consciences that indeed we are good journalists.’
He went on to say that: ‘the Criminal Libel Law continues to roar from the pages of our national constitution and from the law courts in this country and could be portrayed to that of the sword of Damocles that is hanging over journalists.’
He further said that the Criminal Libel Law should be removed from the books of law in this country when it no longer exists in law books of the very colonialists who had introduced it here in the first place. He said: ‘This is a historical misfortune and it should be removed.’
He added that a free press and freedom of expression must work not allow people in authority to wrap themselves up in “reason of state” or “national security” in order to muzzle the wholesome functioning of the free press.
He maintained that the right to free press and to freedom of expression is guaranteed under almost all international conventions including international law and human rights instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights UDHR (1948), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, the European Convention on Human Rights, the American Convention of Human Rights of 1969 and the African Charter on Human Rights and People’s Rights of 1987.

On Friday 3rd May 2019, during a ceremony held at the Office of the First Lady, the Founder, Chairman and President of World Peace and Diplomacy Organization, Dr. G. B. Singh, officially awarded the organization’s highest and most prestigious award: ‘The World Peace Ambassador’, to the First Lady of Sierra Leone, Mrs. Fatima Bio, in recognition of her relentless work in bridging the gap created by social, racial and gender discrimination in Sierra Leone and the world at large.
Speaking on the importance of the award, Dr. G. B. Singh said that the award is presented to the First Lady on nomination and recommendations of the Board of Trustees of the organization. According to him, there are different categories of awards given to various individuals across the globe, which includes an award for Youth Ambassador for Peace among others.
But this award, he added, has only been given to four (4) individuals in Africa, with Sierra Leone’s First Lady being the latest recipient.
Receiving the award, First Lady, Fatima Bio expressed her appreciation for being considered for such a prestigious award. She went on to say that she is humbled and proud to be a recipient of such an award.
However, she maintained that her work is not motivated by the desire for publicity; but rather she has been doing similar things prior to her assuming her current position. She further disclosed that while she does not crave for publicity; her present disposition dictates otherwise and that she could not help but carry on her job.
“What I do, I do selflessly and not for publicity…,” she stressed. She also expressed her appreciation to the organization for considering Sierra Leone, adding that it is gratifying to know that there are people out there who follow her on her work inside and outside of the country.
She assured the Founder and President that she will not relent and will continue to do the work she is doing for humanity and for Sierra Leone. She expressed her satisfaction for having the space to continue her work; adding that her platform has been enlarged by the opportunity given to her by her husband.
World Peace and Diplomacy Organization was formed in 2011 by its founder Dr. G. B. Singh and is geared towards encouraging individuals and institutions to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. Whilst recognizing that it could not preach peace and advocate for all the other issues in the SDG, it has therefore embarked on making Ambassadors who will carry on the message and the good work to meet these goals by 2030.
The ceremony was climaxed by the adorning of the First Lady with a shawl around her neck and a gold medal award of ‘World Peace Ambassador’. A question and answer session formed part of the closing ceremonies.