By Sheka Tarawalie
(Press Secretary)
State House, Freetown
President Ernest Bai Koroma was over the weekend Special Guest at State Lodge, Hill Station, Freetown, at a ceremony organized by the First Lady Sia Koroma’s charity in support of orphans and generally disadvantaged children. This was the culmination of a series of engagements that the President undertook since New Year’s Day when he visited various hospitals in the city with several gifts and words of consolation to patients and staff.
On Saturday evening, the President presented gifts to children from various institutions for the disadvantaged.
Earlier in the week, President Koroma met with the executive and members of the Internet Society Sierra Leone Chapter (ISOC.SL) followed by a delegation of the Gambian community in Sierra Leone, led by their High Commissioner H.E. Anouman Saho.
Presenting their thoughts on 3rd January 2007 on ‘The Role of Information and Communication Technology in the Development of Sierra Leone’ to the President at State House, ISOC.SL members outlined the need to physically interconnect all local Internet Service Providers for collaborative purposes, and how it would “support your priority areas: corruption, energy, health, education, youth employment and the Diaspora’s involvement.”
In response, the President praised the group’s initiative and how his government appreciated the need for “information technology to be at the forefront of our development initiatives”. He said it was a big challenge which all should rise up to by educating Sierra Leoneans on the importance of computer literacy. The President said this was urgent, and thereby called on the group to form a task force that would ensure that their ideas were implemented. “You can always call and count on me for support. And I am more interested in results,” he maintained.
To the Gambian community who called on him on Thursday 4th January, President Koroma recalled the historic ties between the Gambia and Sierra Leone since colonial days. “There was a time when all educated Gambians got their training in our country,” the President recounted. He enjoined Gambians to feel at home in Sierra Leone and work together with Sierra Leoneans in developing the country.
The President paid special tribute to his Gambian counterpart, President Yayah Jammeh, for his exemplary leadership and for exempting all Sierra Leoneans from paying alien tax in the Gambia after attending President Koroma’s inauguration ceremony. The President revealed that he had had some fruitful discussions with President Jammeh and was looking forward to visiting the Gambia soon.
The President’s week had a tinge of sorrow as he had to attend the laying out ceremony of Lebanese-born deceased supporter of the APC, Hussein Bittar, who died in a gruesome road accident after attending a party activity with the Vice President in Kono, eastern Sierra Leone.
Speaking at the party headquarters where the ceremony was held, President Koroma said Mr. Bittar played a great role to the success of the party. One of Bittar’s initiatives was to display large portraits of the leader around the city and the country before and during the elections. For this, President Koroma declared, “As leader of the APC, I am asking the Secretary General to have Hussein’s portrait displayed in the great hall as one of the heroes of our party.” He assured the Bittar family of continued support and how the deceased’s works would be remembered.
This afternoon, the President met with a delegation from the Sierra Leone Labour Congress at State House. They came to congratulate the President on his election victory and to introduce their new executive, while at the same time highlighting labour issues, like conditions of service for workers, which the President assured them would soon be looked into and addressed.
Meanwhile, President Koroma would be having his first presidential retreat with his cabinet ministers this coming weekend in Bumbuna, northern Sierra Leone.
Photos: President Koroma, top photo, and Mrs.Koroma, middle photo, with the orphans.
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