Tony Morgan to RADIO DEMOCRACY FM 98.1 >>www.radiodemocracy.sl
It will cost them as such a project cannot happen without a National Sovereign Guarantee. Ever heard of the disaster of the Philips Brothers vs. Govt of Salone? Well multiply that disaster by trillion of times to begin to imagine what awaits the country if the Project tanks and the Guarantee is called to book! This entire 2 billion dollars bridge is a SCAM!
Mamu Al Conteh
John Moses Kamara
John Leigh
Mustapha Konneh, the other countries have long ago done away with pit latrines. SL has them in the semi-developed areas but the vast majority of Sierra Leone communities have still not reached the pit latrine level.
Also, those other countries, unlike SL, have electricity 24/7. Indoor pipe-borne water, zero ‘pump lock’ situations, educated, non-hardship populations, efficient municipal sanitation systems and so on.
My point? Lets compare apple to apples, not a mouse to an elephant.
Mustapha Konneh John Leigh, in my lifetime this is the most formidable infrastructural project if it is done. I visited Sierra Leone 2014 and 2017. The ferry service is a living-dead. The private ferries cost $80( eighty dollars) to and from Lungi. $ 80 by Sierra Leonean standards is a fortune, that’s my two weeks or more groceries. We need the bridge to ease the economic pain on both travelers and locals. This should not be political at all.
John Leigh Mr. Mustapha Konneh, ok and so what? Commit to spend $2billion on a bridge with no visible commensurate economic benefits when your villages have zero latrines, full of jigger schools, zero electricity, pestilences, low productivity pre-literate populations full of ignorance en superstitions, etc., just because the bridge is a most formidable engineering feat in all of Creation? At what opportunity cost?
The very last thing SL needs is a prestige project of White Elephant silliness. And no prestigious project will turn Sierra Leone into a prestigious country. Your prestigious project will definitely increase the hardship in the country.
Amadu Sidibay The bridge is needed. The bridge cannot be more expensive than the people of Lungi and a large chunk of North Western Sierra Leone. So let the brige be constructed.
Tikolo Tiks The bridge will probably enhance lungi and take some of that crowd out of Freetown. Thereby lungi will become an extension of Freetown . It will probably improve the commerce of the Nation. In other words, the movement of products and services could be easily facilitated. But what do i know?
Bockarie, why don’t we wait and see if the IMF says nothing against the Bridge Proposals which were only ‘semi-unveiled’ less than 24 hours ago.
Recall it took the IMF over one year of studying the Mamamah City/Airport before they condemned it? We had even started ground clearing work with all teams on ground when the IMF spoke to condemn it.
So, be patient a while.
For now, the details of the new bridge are COMPLETELY UNKNOWN to most of us and for sure, it is only now the IMF will get the details… Let us see few months to a year down the line what is the position of Bretton Woods to the 2 Billion Dollars SCAM. 🙂
John Kay to SIERRA LEONE-WorLD🌍Gist
Bio to construct a 8km bridge at a cost of $2 billion half of the country’s GDP to connect Freetown to the country’s only international airport to be financed through a public-private partnership scheme in the name of toll gate. But earlier He trimmed off a plan of his predecessor’s to build a new $300 million airport closer to the capital with Chinese labor and loans.
“Stupidity at work”
THE APC AND THE SLPP ARE TWO PEAS IN A POD !!
SIERRA LEONE, AN INTERESTING COUNTRY WHERE MOST PEOPLE CANNOT AFFORD ONE HEALTHY MEAL A DAY, WHERE ABJECT POVERTY IS ALMOST A PROVERB, WHERE INFANT AND MATERNAL MORTALITY RATE IS THE HIGHEST IN THE WORLD, A COUNTRY THAT IS ONE OF THE POOREST IN THE WORLD.
DESPITE THE ABOVE, THE MAADA BIO ADMINISTRATION IN SIERRA LEONE WANTS TO BURDEN THE COUNTRY’S ALREADY BURDENED ECONOMY BY ENTERING INTO A FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENT TO BUILD A LUNGI BRIDGE THAT WILL NOT CHANGE THE BASIC SUFFERING OF THE PEOPLE OF SIERRA LEONE.
IF THE APC PROPOSED ” NEW INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT ” WAS CONDEMNED AS A BAD INVESTMENT , WHY DOES THE MAADA BIO ADMINISTRATION THING A MORE COSTLY LUNGI BRIDGE IS A BETTER INVESTMENT !!??
GIVEN THE ABOVE THEN, ONE IS TEMPTED TO ASK, “IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE IDEOLOGY OF THE APC AND THE SLPP ??
Abdul Karim Tarawalie 2 billion dollars for 8 kilometers Bridge? I support the construction of the Lungi Bridge but this is way too much money. So this Lungi Bridge is the most expensive Bridge in the world? We have so many important things to do with the 2 billion dollars. President Bio duya talk price wit the Chinese dem 🤣
Lucilda Hunter If government has already accepted a plan presumably drawn up by experts, is it really so unreasonable to ask bidders to pay a fee to see it? Surely it would cost them that much to come up with their own plans…just musing.
John Leigh Lucilda, those plans were done under the direction of the APC. The N.D. merely took over those plans. Bio campaigned against the Lungi Bridge. But, belatedly, the New Direction saw a money making opportunity. So now they are for the bridge. That hefty bridge money could be used to bring the provinces and their suffering people into the modern age and free them from the yoke of the Ancient Despotism imposed on them by their leaders.
Never-the-less, the bidders may be asked to pay a reasonable fee each, maybe, say no more than $50,000. But $200,000? its outlandish.
Princess Njavombo The bridge is much more important than the airport. Lungi is the gate way and if the bridge is being constructed, SL will grow interms of development. We can still have another airport after the Lungi bridge.
Mamoud Kamara Down memory lane r kin recall say paopa crew bin dae all over d place say IMF n World Bank strongly advice against d $400 million Mamamah airport project as been a strain to we economy. Right?
Now we see pipul dae jubilate for a $2.1 billion bridge in a time wae we economy dae at an all time low. Hmmmm..IMF and world bank where are you?
With prioritization; d bread n butter issues, d high cost of living, d rampant human rights abuse, transportation, medical, education, high unemployment rate n d lungi bridge, una nor go agree with me say d bridge project na a misplaced priority?
Abeg mek we yeri far yaa.
D new direction don become a certified misdirection.
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Omarr Zainu Deen We as a people don’t cease to amaze ourselves with our thought processes. When the other guys wanted to build a new airport for $300,000,000 to solve the same problem the lungi bridge is intended for we decried and kicked against it, we say it was too expensive and complained that the country is too broke therefore, can not afford to accrue any more debt.
Fast forward a year later, we the same people are jubilating for a project that is far more costly and seven times more to solve the same problem. The underlying questions we need to ask ourselves are that how many people owned cars in Sierra Leone? How many of us with cars that must cross the bridge due to work, medical, entertainments or business dealings per day?
Apart from the airport what other businesses or attractions that are in lungi that will cause people to cross over from Freetown to lungi daily or perhaps every weekend or every month? On the flip side how many people in lungi with jobs in Freetown that owns their own private cars? How many flights per day lands at lungi international airport? How many vehicles are going to ply the bridge per day considering most people use public transportation in Sierra Leone?
Even when Sierra Leone was enjoying her status as the most peaceful country in Africa, she received 58,000 tourists in 2017, the highest number since the end of the civil war in 2002.That number plummeted drastically in 2018 according to the minister of tourism during the one year commemoration of the Bio presidency on April 4, 2019. According to her we had 34,000 visitors and I believe most of them are Sierra Leoneans in diaspora who visits home.
Now that we have slipped 38 places in the Global Peace Index I wonder how many tourists will visit Sierra Leone apart from Sierra Leoneans in the diaspora. With the recent spike of violence, rape, intolerance, murder, tensions and political instability, I wonder how many more places down we will drop in the next Global Peace Index coming in 2020.These things matters if we hope to be a tourist destination in the future and without the tourism industry booming in Sierra Leone the lungi bridge will be a total waste.
Notwithstanding, the USA and UK have issued travel advisory to their citizens about travelling to Sierra Leone. How many tourists per year do we expect in Sierra Leone with the present political climate? We can pretend all we like that there are no tensions in Sierra Leone but we all know that we have a government that is not a respecter of citizens rights and the constitution. It is becoming clearer by the day that the more repressive they become the more citizens are prepared to stand up for their rights and the more government responds with lethal force.
At the end these bloody violence and skirmishes makes the international news and the images of these violence are posted on social media and other news outlets. So my point here is after investing two bullion dollars to construct the almighty lungi bridge how much are you going to charge motorists for toll fare? Could we not have use half of this colossal amount to build a new airport and a new Capital City around it? We could solve the congestion in Freetown by moving the seat of power to Mamamah.The other half of that money we could invest in massive agriculture to solve the bread and butter issues they promised the people and build modern hospitals. We don’t need to travel overseas for medical treatments.
Call me what you may but I don’t believe anything that comes out of this administration. I think they are trying to divert people’s attention from their lackadaisical performance with the economy. This sounds like another white elephant project to me. Sounds too good to be true.
Joseph Turay The whole process of Lungi bridge is absolutely fake, according to research done by a patriotic Sierra Leoneans. Looking at the cost implementation of Mammah airport which is $400million, created morethan 35 thousands workers after completion and Lungibridge cost $2billion, it will create less than 500 workers after completion, which one is economical and viable?.
I want to drow your attention concerning the position papers of our financial moral garantor IMF, that this SLPP-led government is deceit and inconsistent with the truth about our country national reserve.Melvyn Thomas Where is the demand for this bridge…. Sierra Leone does not have a thriving tourist economy that will make this bridge economically viable.. This is about corruption and kickbacks
And now we have lift off for a $2bn, 8km Freetown-Lungi bridge! I was scoffed at when I said the bridge would cost at least $1bn, saying I was overblowing it. I am still skeptical about its benefits.$2 Billion on our heads for a bridge?
We condemned a 318m dollar Airport project that was also coming with a new city at Mamamah amd rather went for trilliins and trillions of leones bridge project at 2billion dollars.
We need to know the cost benefit, beyond the political implications and relevance.
Like someone said, this is too much for a poor debt ridden country like ours. Waiting for the Brittonwood institutions’ reactions.
Mao’s reflections- Jay
Abdulai Bangura All those in favor of Bio’s $2bn bridge are suffering from a rare form of stupidity and it is contagious more than ebola and worst, it only affects SLPP supporters. Not one would think of the negative impact it may have on the economy. Pin sef we nor sabi make before ar talk about manufacturing industries. After Bio build the bridge: 1. Our lives would improve, 2. Sickness is a thing of the past, 3. Free food, 4. Free education, 5. free cash on demand from the goverment, 6. Free transportation and 7. We will be sleeping for 12 hours a day and nothing to worry about because our Lord & Saviour Maada Bio is in charge and God sent. Unu kushe o
John Genda to SIERRA LEONE NATIONALISTS. A FEW GOOD AND FEARLESS MEN AND WOMEN
Bridge Wahala – Party Is Not My TruthSome of us supported the idea of a bridge way before Bio got to power. The ignorance on our part is that most of us have not seen any RFP RFS, MOU, MOA or any documentation whatsoever. We have been ignorantly going by what is being sold to us that the bridge will be of no cost to Sierra Leoneans. Fine! But I have the following concerns:
1. Why is government negotiating on behalf of the people in secret? Didn’t this sound like APC if that were the case?
2. Why is APC opposition not holding SLPP accountable to make the track of such negotiations or documents public? APC should not only walk out of parliament for their own personal interest. They should walk out of parliament on behalf of the people. Let the people see the documents line by line and page by page or we walk out!
3. I think it is about time for government to be bold enough to negotiate publicly on behalf of the people.
4. Until we see the details, all our time is wasted for nothing.
5. The point now is to pressure government to be transparent so that the people know the liability, indemnity and risks to country.
6. The truth is that the vendors are not going to see an immediate return because we do not have a minimum of 15 planes arriving and departing every minute yet. What would the vendors get in return immediately for giving away $2 billions dollars for free.
7. Until we see the details, I close my case
