By: Ilyasa Baa
President Julius Maada Bio has been written an Open Letter by the Native Consortium and Research Centre together with a host of Civil Society Organizations pleading with him to intervene in the data price increment faced by every mobile phone user in Sierra Leone.
President Bio has been called upon to take action in normalizing what the CSOs referred to as flood tariff. The letter states that the citizens are over burdened by the recent action of Africell and Orange to increase their tariffs by an unimaginable percentage.
In the letter, the Consortium also expressed the need for the First Gentleman to intervene so that the Judiciary’s Director of Communications, Elkass Sannoh provides evidence on their claims that: the Executive Director of the Consortium, Edmond Abu Jr. indeed collected the sum of one hundred million Leones from the two major mobile companies, that he should provide proofs that he had asked lawyers of the companies for out of court settlement. Also, he was said to have boasted that he had seen the judgment of Justice Fisher prior to his ruling in January.
Edmond Abu Jr. told this medium that the increment of the data tariff from Le 9,500 to Le 35, 000 for 1 GB has the potential to undermine the human capital development and investment possibilities the country needs. He said they are hoping that the President will intervene to protect mobile users in the country.
“Only the protection of the President can set us free in this no retreat no surrender economic battle”, he stressed, adding that CSOs believe if the President intervenes, the needful will be done as the President had ordered some time ago for reversal of the tariff increment which he said was honored but reversed two months later.
It could be recalled that Abu was locked up at the Correctional Centre for Contempt of Court. Meanwhile, the Consortium is planning to appeal against the judgement of the High Court either at the ECOWAS Court or the Court of Appeals of the Judiciary of Sierra Leone.
The Director of Communications of the Judiciary of Sierra Leone, Elkass Sannoh described the Open Letter of the Consortium as an attempt to seek public attention.
He said by law, Abu is supposed to pay seven billion old Leones for wasting the Court’s time in the matter he filed against the companies.