Feature

By Emma Black

Sixty-five-year-old, Mariatu Koroma, recalls May 2014 like it was yesterday. She was selling bush meat including monkeys, bats, deer, bush rats and wild boar, at the Kingsway Corner Market in Kenema, in the east of Sierra Leone. May 2014 also marked the first recorded case of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Sierra Leone, in the Kenema District, which is why that month and year are so memorable to Koroma.

By Mabinty M.  Kamara

Skepticism, even fear gripped me as hospital workers carefully wheeled me to the labour ward to deliver my child at about 11:30 am on a normal Friday.  Thinking of the many women who had been in a similar situation but couldn’t make it alive, my labour experience was indeed less of a pain and more of fear that I may die in the process. At that point all I could do was to seek the face of God Almighty and it could have been my last prayer on this beautiful planet.

By Mabinty M. Kamara

Since the Covid19 pandemic began, zoonotic diseases, especially those caused by viral pathogens with the ability to spread and infect a large number of people very quickly, have grabbed public attention like never before. One of these diseases is Lassa fever which is highly contagious and can be passed on from mother to child during pregnancy or through breastfeeding or other contacts between the mother and child. It has been around for over 40 years ravaging countries around the West Africa belt.

By Franklin Sisabu Bendu

The performance of any country’s currency is a strong indicator about the performance of its economy. Since the start of the year, the Leone has been gradually depreciating against major currencies.

The exchange rate is an important variable in a country’s terms of trade, and for a country like Sierra Leone that relies on imports for its essential products, movements in the exchange rate has consequences for economic activities and livelihood.

The 2023 Statement of Economic & Financial Policies, My Expectations

By Franklin Sisabu Bendu

Now is a challenging time to be a Minister of Finance in Sierra Leone. Firstly, there is the Ukraine/Russia crisis and all the macroeconomic challenges that need be address. Secondly, there is an election in the first half of 2023.  This too has challenges for revenue and expenditure. Third, there is an economy to run and citizens expect the government to deliver on key issues like education, energy, health etc.

Hurt lodged deep in the soul held me back from writing 
Gbanabom’s tribute 
Mind maiming anguish stopped me from scribbling a poet’s
untimely eulogy 
Grief-laden- heart felt a eulogy was a euphemism
for the final nail on Gbanabom’s coffin 
I latched on to the hope that he might conjure
metaphors to return to this ephemeral shore of sores with his infectious laughter.

I will not mourn you, young, melodious maestro, 

when we were not ready to surrender your voice

to the pathogens of death; not when your life,

a thrilling melody was still an acceptable, vibrant force,

growing like a fern in our desert of thorns!

The young die suddenly, their beards not yet grey;

but death is no more a respecter of time and age,

and the old have no tears left to mourn them,

because their hearts, my brother, are stony graves!

But I will not mourn you when your verses live!