Africa 24 (news comment)

Koya Chiefdom lacks good roads and electricity supply.

This affects students’ studies in many communities within Koya Chiefdom. In one of our visits to communities affected in this part of the country, an amputee told us that “light and road are their biggest challenge,” he said.

“If you work in town [Freetown] and you live here [Kissy Town Area] you find it hard always to catch up vehicle to town.”

Koya is a vast chiefdom spreading after Waterloo town to Songo town. But it doesn’t have good roads, electricity and hospitals.

Years back, between 2002 and 2004, a humanitarian organization called Mercy Ships, was helping people by building hospitals and houses for free.

But since global economic shocks started affecting the world beginning from 2008 and to now, global help has been limited in Africa.

Sierra Leone is a country that depends almost on everything from foreign aid through NGOs and Western governments for social, economic and political assistance.

But with corruption and bad governance in the country with low-foreign aid now, the interiors suffer most in terms of development.

The biggest challenge that undermines Sierra Leone’s rural development is the heavy presence of corruption.

For example, projects meant to develop communities to lift people from poverty are not implemented, most times, due to officials’ greed and theft.

An official at council revealed to us through an off-the-record interview that “they will share the money among themselves that is meant to undertake the projects,” he claimed.

When corruption and bribery like this happens, the interiors communities or people of the nation become poor always.

Because the money given by NGOs and Western governments to implement the development projects is shared among politicians, civil servants and public servants