LAY BELEH Journalism

[saloneamadu]

*THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN* 

 *Ar Mu Lohlee!! Tatohmore!! Fambul* *Dem, Leh We All Dance for MCC Compact Grant!!* 

When I read on social media early this morning that Sierra Leone has won the MCC Compact Grant this year, *'watta run dong me yai wit gladdi!!'* 

Let's get all paramount chiefs; all traditional leaders, all religious leaders; all teachers and lecturers in educational institutions, all leaders at all tiers of our society - especially youth and women leadership - to get out all the drums, all our traditional musical instruments, all the loud speakers and musical sets, all the pop stars and sports stars, all the choristers in churches, all the singers in mosques; all parliamentarians; all SLPP, APC, NGC, C4C, RUFP... partisans...all the social groups in towns and cities...to rejoice about this MCC Compact Grant win. As if Sierra Leone has won the Africa Cup of Nations!!

Let me put my (our) joy into perspective. In 2013, when I was media adviser to former President Ernest Bai Koroma at State House, I developed a video documentary I called *"SALONE PROSPERITY".*(Go to YouTube to watch that again). In that 2013 documentary, I interviewed Amadu Massaly, at his 4th storey office at Wellington Street in Freetown, as the Manager of the MCC in Sierra Leone; Amadu Massaly had first brought the idea of the MCC to Sierra Leone from the United States, where he had stayed for about forty years. (His father was the first non-Krio judge in Sierra Leone). I also gave the longest time to an individual in the Salone Prosperity video - four minutes - to Hon. Alpha Kanu (aka Alpha Khan), then Minister of Information and Communications in the APC government of former President Ernest Bai Koroma. Both men were bullish about the government clinching the MCC Compact Grant. That was in 2013! The government of Sierra Leone qualified to try for the United States' government MCC Compact Grant in 2009. Finally, after FIFTEEN YEARS of trying - with a MCC Threshold Grant in 2010 of $45,000,000 -; Sierra Leone has finally won the MCC Compact Grant in 2024 of over FOUR HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS!! Grant!! Not a World Bank or IMF loan. 

We should not only hold President Maada Bio shoulder high and dance with him around every district in Sierra Leone for providing the leadership for us winning the MCC Compact Grant, we should also heap billions of laurels on the Commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), Ben Kaifala. Why? 

Since Ben Kaifala became ACC Commissioner in 2018, Sierra Leone would earn 75% average in the MCC's Control of Corruption Ranking - up from 45% average with his predecessors in the APC government of former President Ernest Bai Koroma, Joseph Fitzgerald Kamara and Addy Macaulay respectively. The Ben Kaifala-led ACC high rankings in Control of Corruption certainly have been pivotal in the decision of the MCC Board to grant Sierra Leone the MCC Compact Grant in 2024. 

Let me 'leak APC secret' to you, my fellow SLPP partisans. If the APC would be in power in 2024 and the MCC Compact Grant would be won, the APC mobilizers would have mobilized their base in the tens of thousands to dance and revel around Freetown for a whole week. Does it matter? Yes. It does. 

We should not be moved only by fear, we should be excited by success. SLPP communications experts should explain to all the citizenry in all the indigenous languages, using all media, using face-to-face methods, explaining the meaning of the MCC Compact Grant. It's much more than the about half billion dollars that have been won. It would catalyze more Foreign Direct Investments and international aid for Sierra Leone. 

Trillion laurels to my Bonthe Brother, President Maada Bio, for this MCC Compact Grant that has gotten me overjoyed - in six years, the President has earned, deservedly, the first rousing praise from this Column. 

I pause, 

Oswald Hanciles, The Guru

+232-79-545715

Whatsapp Number

June 27, 2024

13:33 hours in Freetown, Sierra Leone

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Bio did not add one net indicator to the scorecard. They are all Koroma's.  

If you want to look at it from a partisan or presidential perspective.

The MCC is a national program.

AJM

Sent from my T-Mobile 5G Device