Kortor Kamara

Historically, the record of the APC party while in government to organize free and fair elections in Sierra Leone has been dismal, as evidenced by the farcical and undemocratic, intimidation and violence fueled 1971 republican referendum, 1973, 1978 and 1983 elections under the one-party Siaka Stevens era and subsequent elections under the Momoh era.

In 1943 he enlisted in the West African Frontier Force and was part of the 81st West African Division of the 14th Army, comprising of soldiers from Gold Coast, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Gambia that saw admirable action against the Japanese in Burma during the Second World War.

Both contractually and through its own admissions, DAMEN Shipyards as broker, technical surveyor and agent for NASSIT bears direct responsibility for the debacle of the ferries and must be made to provide not only repairs to the vessels but also to pay for income loss from operations of the vessels since their purchase in 2008. The NASSIT and by extension the government should consider instituting suit against DAMEN for a series of contractual breaches and poor performance in this transaction.

As a proponent of free markets and private enterprise solutions to most of Sierra Leone's perennial underdevelopment problems, I have for several years articulated a market-based social insurance program that can effectively address the inefficiencies, funding and delivery problems in the health care system.

The press which should be the vanguard institution demanding and promoting probity and accountability on behalf of the people of Sierra Leone, in her existential fight against corruption, is once again allowing itself to be manipulated by corrupt politicians who seek to circumvent the rule of law, institutions of governance and accountability the nation is strenuously striving to establish.

The phenomenon of switching political parties following policy disagreements or as a result of tribal and regional sentiments and or due to personality conflicts within political parties, though not a Sierra Leone preserve, is a practice that has long being perfected in modern Sierra Leone politics.

In an effort at decentralization following the inordinate concentration of socio-economic, political and administrative decision making powers in the hands of the central government in Freetown; witnessed particularly during the Siaka Stevens era, Sierra Leone's current local councils have a pivotal but disappointing role in national development.

The publication of the memoirs of a politician once dubbed by the celebrated historian, Christopher Fyfe as “the doyen of Krio politicians”; a learned technocrat and leading politician with service to our country spanning over decades, cannot be more timely in bringing about some perspective and meaning to most of the decisions of both the SLPP, under whom he served as a senior economic policy adviser and the APC administration under which he served in senior cabinet positions.

Reforms in Sierra Leone’s economic and financial services sector are projected to largely fail unless the Sierra Leone-Lebanese economic power imbalance question is adequately addressed. This question revolves around the inordinate monopolistic economic stranglehold being exerted over all aspects of the society, by the Lebanese business community, as a result of their dominant economic power dating to the pre-independence era.

A regulatory and legal framework embracing a risk-based approach, where the pooling and scaling up of risks enables the many to share the costs of the financial misfortunes of the few, a bedrock principle of insurance, represents the most efficient model for Sierra Leone to provide protection to her businesses and institutions against the adverse financial effects of liability and property losses.