FCC in conflict with NGOs for DFID money
A consortium of five international non Governmental Organizations (NGO) comprising of Action Contre La Faim (ACF), GOAL, OXFAM, Save the Children and Concern Worldwide are in big conflict for a £7 million project with the Freetown City Council (FCC), a project that was funded by DFID.
Report says Mayor Sam Franklyn Bode Gibson (in photo) was planning to highjack the project and turn it into his council project which the NGO’s said the idea of the mayor is against their mandates and the said project is different from other projects of the FCC.
They said the aim of the money was to implement a Wash Project, according to the NGOs is a sanitation project meant to provide bore-hole water facilities or water wells for Freetown’s deprived communities and also toilet facilities especially for slums communities. According to them these projects are supposed to have been implemented BY the consortium (ACF, GOAL, OXFAM, Save the Children, and Concern Worldwide respectively).
This same consortium in 2012 constructed a gravity dam for the Mamba Ridge Community with 44 standing pumps which the community is using up to date. This consortium through interviews and community interactions came to know that water and sanitation are major challenges in Freetown’s deprived communities.
On receipt of the £7 million from DFID the various NGO’s started working in their piloted areas in line with their project proposals.
The Mayor of the Freetown municipality, Sam Franklyn Bode Gibson on Tuesday 18th March 2014 summoned the five NGO’s at his office and emphatically told them that “On completion of these projects the facilities must be handed over to council or you stop work now.”
According to the various NGO representatives, they already have elected Wash Committees in every ward who should man these facilities and these committees were elected through the councilors and ward development committee members.
The NGO’s pleaded to Mr. Mayor to see reason that these facilities should not be handed to any political group but a neutral elected body.
The consortium members, together with the Consortium Coordinating Unit (CCU) chairman – Tom Smith, are all presently disappointed at the Mayor and have threatened to fold up the project and return the project money to DFID. It is alleged that Mayor Bode Gibson wants to highjack the projects into council projects which the NGO’s said is against their mandates.
“Mayor Bode has expectantly postponed the final meeting to Monday 24th March 2014 at a time like this when His Excellency the President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma and the people of this country are in dire need of development, this self styled mayor is bent on aborting meaningful developments. The royalty of this mayor needs to be investigated,” said Mr. Saidu Sesay one of the proposed beneficiaries at Wellington.
By: Tamba M. Musa
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