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The Ministry of Information and Communications has successfully ended its 3rd Annual Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and Media Engagement in Kenema City in Eastern part of the country. The theme for this year’s two-day event which took place on 25th-26th November, 2022 at the Kenema City Hall is, “Consolidating Democracy: Our Collective, Share and Patriotic Responsibility”. The opening ceremony was witnessed by stakeholders coming from the private and public institutions residing in the city.
Delivering the Keynote address before he could declare this year’s CSOs and media engagement opened, the Vice President, Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh said in spite of the huge global challenges, the world is facing, his government has made and continue to make significant developments in the country. “The world is going through very difficult times and Sierra Leone is not an exception…In spite of this, we have made lots of developmental gains and we still continue to do it as a government”, he noted.
Vice President Jalloh maintained that, for the past twenty or more years, President Julius Maada Bio is the president that has taken Sierra Leone where no president has done to this country, on both local and international stage. Explaining further about government achievement on the national stage, the Vice President said, his government, through the dynamic leadership of President Julius Maada, has made lot of gains in the country’s Human Capital Development.
He maintained that he has delivered a in the areas of Education, Health, Agriculture and Energy which can be felt across the country. “If you cannot deliver development, you cannot deliver democracy…This is what we have done, as we further build on the capacity of the police and other sectors, improving on salaries and conditions of service, Gender empowerment, construction of more roads, to name but a few”, VP Jalloh confidently declared.
In his statement, the President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ), Mr. Ahmed Sahid Nasralla started by commending the Minster of Information and Communications for Organising the CSOs and Media engagement for the third consecutive year. The SLAJ President noted that, the gathering brings the Government of Sierra Leone and its agencies, CSOs and the Media to track delivery of manifesto promises and provides an opportunity for the media and CSOs to interrogate activities of critical agencies of government.
Mr. Nasralla maintained that, there is total freedom of information here under President Julius Maada Bio’s government (the recent MCC scorecard puts this at 98%). “There is media pluralism here that can probably not be compared to any country in the world…According to UNESCO, one in every 5 journalists in the world is killed every year in the line of duty…We hope and pray that we will never ever contribute to that horrible statistics…No journalist is in jail in Sierra Leone for what they publish or broadcast or tweet”, Mr. Nasralla said.
He added that, their usual visits to the CID almost every other week are no more, pointing that, they have made the biggest leaps in the World Press Freedom Index two years in row since the repeal of the criminal libel law in 2020. The SLAJ President hailed the current Government for seeing the need to support SLAJ with an annual subvention, which was doubled last year.
He said, because of all of these media achievements made under President Bio, Sierra Leone was encouraged to join the Global Media Coalition- a high level platform where governments engage and peer review their commitments to enhancing freedom of expression and free media.
Other speakers were, the Minister of Information and Communications, Minister of Planning and Economic Development, Executive Director – IGR, Director General – NAMED, Chairman, Kenema District Council, Resident Minister – East, Mayor of Kenema City Council and the Paramount Chief of Nongowa Chiefdom
