‘President Koroma is pillar we can rely on’ says SEAGA Coordinator

The National Coordinator of the Sierra Leone Ebola Action Group in Australia (SEAGA), Ansumana Usman Koroma (in photo), has on behalf of his organisation commended President Ernest Bai Koroma for is consistent and unwavering gallantry leadership to end the Ebola war in the country.

He said, “on behalf of SEAGA, I would like to express enormous gratitude to His Excellency Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma, our Medical Doctors, Nurses, burial teams, surveillance crews and other health workers, local and international non Governmental organisations, civil society groups, community associations, local media, political parties, National Ebola Response Centre, Ministry of Health and Sanitation and all other relevant stakeholders for your towering efforts in defeating the Ebola disease.”

He noted in his congratulatory press statement that, “this is a great achievement for our country,” adding that “We have demonstrated to the world that we are a resilient people and this experience has given us renewed energy, hope and determination to continue with our development trajectory that was interrupted by the Ebola disease.”

Because of its lethal nature and easier mode of spread, the SEAGA Coordinator said, the disease attracted the active attention of every Sierra Leonean as well as people in the region and the entire world.

According to him, time, resources, local and foreign expertise that were meant for the Agenda for Prosperity were diverted to the outbreak to prevent further spread and eventually contain the virus. He said throughout this sad period, His Excellency Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma provided exceptional leadership and worked tirelessly with all the relevant stakeholders to end the scourge.

He disclosed that during this turbulent time, President Koroma called for urgent and increasing efforts from international NGOs, World Health Organisation (WHO), Sierra Leoneans living abroad, and the international community to help in addressing this dreadful virus in the country.

Ansumana Usman Koroma popularly known as AUK intimated that, “the government also scaled up its efforts by putting more resources into the crisis, declaring a national state of emergency, restricting movements of people, preventing public gatherings, quarantining districts with high prevalence of the virus and providing humanitarian relief to people in the quarantined districts”. He said those actions were right and timely.

Giving a brief background to the formation of SEAGA, he pointed out that as Sierra Leoneans in Australia, they set up a working group called “SEAGA” with chapters in the different states to work collaboratively to garner resources required for combating this toxic disease in Sierra Leone. He maintained that through collaboration with Australian organisations like Overseas Disaster Resources, Stand4Salone and the All Peoples Congress (APC) Australia Branch, SEAGA shipped four forty-feet containers of medical supplies that worth more than Aus$800,000 (Eight hundred thousand Australian Dollars) to Sierra Leone.

He reiterated that SEAGA also lobbied the Australian Government through Federal Senator, Lisa Singh of the state of Tasmania to make a presentation on behalf of SEAGA to the Federal Senate. He further added that the presentation influenced the escalation of funding by the Australian Government which made them to dispatch the Aspen medical team to Sierra Leone to support one of the Ebola centres.

Mr. Koroma stressed that SEAGA’s support as well as those from other parts of the world and within Sierra Leone would not have been practically possible if there were no good structures put in place by the government of Sierra Leone.

He revealed that even though the virus has now been contained and the country has been declared Ebola free by the World Health Organisation (WHO), providing for the needs of the children being orphaned by the virus remains one of the main challenges in the country. As a way of addressing this new challenge, he said SEAGA will continue to explore opportunities to help cater for the wellbeing of these orphans.

“As we mourn the death of our fellow Sierra Leoneans, we may also want to throw our unflinching support to the Ebola survivors,” he said in the press statement.

He finally thanked President Koroma and his foot soldiers for providing gallantry and consistent leadership, while describing his “as a true pillar that we can rely on.”

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