New Managing Director for SLCB

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The newly appointed Managing Director of the oldest indigenous commercial bank in the country, Sierra Leone Commercial Bank (SLCB), Yusufu Abdul Silla, will today Monday 31st January 2022 assume office to the delight of the entire staff.

Yusufu Abdul Silla is a well-qualified and result-oriented Financial Services and Banking professional with over fifteen (15) years of successful experience in positions of increasing responsibilities and duties.

The proficient gentleman is also a top performer with an enviable track record of consistently meeting and mostly exceeding set targets and customer expectations. In addition, Yusufu A. Silla is exceptional in educating customers on Mortgage and Banking products and recommending best options that meet their needs. He is also a team player with well-polished communication skills, good interpersonal relations, verbal, written, presentation and rapport building respectively.

The new Managing Director is also richly endowed with the following skills: a good leader, self-sufficient, goal-oriented, people-oriented, excellent time management skills, analytical, cheerful, savvy relationship-building, highly motivated and positive, excellent verbal and written skills, team player and can prioritize workload respective.

With regards job history, Yusufu Silla served as Acting Managing Director from September 2019 – September 2020 and Managing Director from 2020 to date at the Commerce and Mortgage Bank Plc. During that period, he was charged with the responsibility of stabilising and turning around the bank which was running at a loss and almost about to collapse due to poor management in the past.

Consequently, he succeeded in leading the Bank to turn its fortune around and moving performance from a loss position of Le28billion to a profit before tax of Le14.6 billion as reported in the Bank’s 2020 Audited Financial Statement.

Mr. Silla was also Director of Business Development from January 2016 – September 2019 at the Commerce and Mortgage Bank Plc. In this capacity, he reported directly to the Managing Director and was primarily charged with developing the commercial banking business after the company had secured a banking license. He succeeded in growing the bank’s commercial client portfolio by 30% during his tenure in this role.

The new Managing Director was also Director of Credit Management from January 2013 – January 2016 at the HFC Mortgage and Savings SL LTD on 30 Liverpool Street in Freetown respectively. In this capacity, he was primarily responsible for the entire credit granting process, including the consistent application of the company’s credit policy, periodic credit reviews of existing customers, and the assessment of the credit worthiness of potential customers, with the goal of optimizing the mix of company sales and bad debt losses.

As Head of Mortgages, Mr. Silla, was principally responsible for setting up the Mortgage Department and for introducing the concept of Mortgage Finance into the Sierra Leone’s lending space. This introduced recruiting and training of staff and creating the relevant mortgage operations, credit and insurance manuals.

Mr. Silla was also Senior Mortgage Consultant from January 2005 – July 2008 at the Britannia Finance and Mortgage Limited – 252 Belsize Road, London, NW6 4BT, and Mortgage Consultant from January 2004 – July 2005 at Clarence House Financial Limited – Richmond Surrey TW9 2JN.

The new Managing Director has an excellent educational background befitting an academic. From 2001-2003, Mr. Silla graduated from the London Metropolitan University with a Master of Science in International Banking and Finance. He has vast knowledge in International Finance, Banking Operations and Strategy, Domestic and International Banking, Corporate Finance, Research Methods, Portfolio Management and Quantitative Methods, macroeconomics.

Between 1991 and 1996, Mr. Silla graduated from the oldest University South of the Sahara, Fourah Bay College (FBC), University of Sierra Leone (USL) with a Bachelor of Science in Pure Economics with Honours.

He is also versatile in Macroeconomics Analysis, Microeconomic Analysis, Quantitative methods, Development Economics and Business Methods.

Mr. Silla was also an active student government representative and one of the shakers and movers of the FBC Students’ Union Government during the war years.

The new Managing Director also did professional training and came out with flying colours, including Certificate (Credit Assessment Tools & Techniques) National Banking College, Ghana, April 2009, Certificate (African Perspective on Real Estate & Housing Finance) National

Banking College, Ghana, February 2009, and CeMAP (Certificate in Mortgaging Advice and Practice) Institute of Financial Services, May 2004 respectively.

It could be recalled that prior to Mr. Silla’s appointment, Mr. Bockarie Kalokoh, who is now the Deputy Minister of Finance II, was the Acting Managing Director of the SLCB following the sudden death of the substantial holder, the late Fidelis Turay of blessed memory.

  IMC gets new Chairman

Description: D:\VICTOR MASSAQUOI.jpg

The President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio in a press release has appointed Dr Victor Massaquio as the New Chairman or Commissioner for the Independent Media Commissioner (IMC).

See the statement below.

 This begs the question:

 IS IT ONLY NOW THAT THE POLITICAL OPPOSITION, THE NGC IN THIS INSTANCE, REALISING ‘ HOW BAD THINGS ARE FOR THE COMMON MAN OR WOMAN’?.

 Hmmm, common man or woman, you are the POLITICAL LANDLORDS whose support and votes all of these political gimmicks are directed at. The question for you now therefore is: FOR HOW LONG ARE YOU GOING TO BE TAKEN ON THESE POLITICAL JOYRIDES, ALLOWING THE PIED PIPERS TO DANCE YOU TO DAMNATION, SQUALOR AND DEPRIVATION????

In my usual crisp and punchy style, let me end with the final sentence of this intriguing, to put it very mildly, write up by my well educated bi-lingual Academic, Development Practioner, Politician friend and class mate:

“Sadly, some people are more interested in flying up in the air….than rescuing the poor people of this country that are gradually sinking into disgraceful poverty and marrasmus”. Hmmmm, my dear learned Doctor would want the common man and woman to believe him and the entire POLITICAL OPPOSITION that it is only in the last few years that “…POOR PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY…ARE GRADUALLY SINKING INTO DISGRACEFUL POVERTY AND MARRASMUS”. People of Sierra Leone, even the choice of word, ‘..gradually..’ is not anywhere near the reality of the grave situation because the plunge started long ago and to give the impression that its happening only, ‘…gradually …’ in the recent past is most insincere in the manner of the Political Class for the longest time.

For me not to fall into the intellectual trap of being very adept at diagnosing the problems of the common man and woman without offering ‘Talk n Do’ solutions as well as to show the way forward to the efforts outlined here as follows: ” Although Sierra Leoneans complain everywhere that living conditions are worsening every day, it is not easy for them to measure to what extent their condition id deteriorating”, let me once again throw the challenge to the NGC and the Political Opposition that constitute the Government of Sierra Leone having Members of Parliament in one of the three arms of Government that since 2014 a game changer that will genuinely and sincerely all address all of the heart wrenching woes stated herein, has been prepared called SONIGA and provided they are truly concerned about the welfare of the people and country, they should have established contacts with the SONIGA Technical Team to find out how SONIGA will be transformative but oyah, dem day wait fors tay dem cam na power way even dat norto proof for say dem go IMPLEMENT the innovative POVERTY ALLEVIATION Plan which even the almighty World Bank and UN Agencies have adopted as the way to go, Nothing more, Nothing Less known as SHARED PROSPERITY. How can the lives and living conditions of the common man and woman including the damned country be ever better when the PEOPLE are still not PARTICIPANTS AND BENEFICIARIES of growing their very own economy and those who claim to have been doing so for the longest time have nothing to show in the lives of 98% poverty rate and a near empty National Treasury that is forever chasing every grants and loans and glorying in EVERY Forex received.  

Diaspora campaigners worry over Citizens protection in Sierra Leone

The Sierra Leone Diaspora Unity Campaign (SLDUC) worries over several events or activities the government of Sierra Leone embarks on over the previous years.

SLDUC constitutes a Global Union of Concerned Sierra Leoneans and Friends of Sierra Leone both at home and around the world. SLDUC is worried over several events and decisions taken by the government of Sierra Leone on issues of serious concern ranging from National Security, police brutality, polarized justice system, suppression of freedom of expression, the absence of peace and national cohesion.

SLDUC observes escalating tension since after the elections of 2018 that ushered in the current Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) led administration of President Julius Maada Bio. The highlighted issues above continue to affect the peaceful management of national cohesion and security of our fellow citizens in the country. As a result, they have drawn the attention of friends of Sierra Leone, development partners as well as diplomatic community in order to be aware of the unbearable happenings thereby requesting your support in treating this matter with all seriousness it deserves.

They further noted that as the nation recently witnessed the event of a government Whitepaper based on recommendations of a Presidential handpicked committee which vows to push these recommendations without consultation with other political parties and stakeholders in the country adding that this is inconsistent with our political culture and the political history of our country more especially the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Sierra Leone.

They expressed grave concern that if the current administration is suggesting that the crucial parliamentary and presidential elections which will be held in 2023 would be conducted based on a 50+1 vote that tends to possibly favour the current President and his party, then it will be unacceptable and would therefore serve as a recipe for serious chaos before, during and after such process.

 Therefore, SLDUC calls on the moral guarantors such as the European Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the United Kingdom, the United States as well as the United Nations to intervene or else, such thought would be met with the toughest resistance by the citizens of Sierra Leone.

Furthermore, SLDUC believes that the proportional representation system suggested by this administration is inconsistent with our legal framework, political tradition, and history of our body politic.

SLDUC express hope that Proportional Representative System functions well when there are electorates that have a unitary social thinking which manifest a socio-tropic, rather than egoistic voting mentality thereby noting that in a system where voters vote for reasons of national and structural transformation, such will ensure the entrance legitimacy of the candidate or political party and not necessarily based on what individual voters stand to gain.

For a society like Sierra Leone where voting is more of partisan and ethnic belief, such a system can become a recipe for national confusion, incoherence and disaster at every level of the electoral process. These overlaps of authority from several candidates asserting their legislative power and legitimacy, limits participation as well as strengthen & centralize power to political parties and not individual voters.

Therefore, our organization believes that the present mentality of political party polarization will give more powers to political parties thereby promoting conflict.

Given the above, SLDUC is calling on all citizens of Sierra Leone, including Members of Parliament to wholeheartedly reject the January 2022 recommendations by the “Government Whitepaper” and instead insist on full adherence of recommendations in the Justice Cowan led Constitutional Review Committee (CRC) document tabled in parliament for discussion.

 Executive members include Alfred Sesay, Theophilus Morrison, Raffick B. Koroma, Mohamed B. Jamboria, Mohamed A Warisay, Aiah A. Tab Barbah, Gombie Musa-Tonyayia, Ibrahim S. Koroma, Patrick Foyoh.

In conclusion, SLDUC is calling on our development partners to closely monitor and take steps in ensuring the peace processes they spent so much time and resources to rebuild is sustained.

The newly appointed Managing Director of the oldest indigenous commercial bank in the country, Sierra Leone Commercial Bank (SLCB), Yusufu Abdul Silla, will today Monday 31st January 2022 assume office to the delight of the entire staff.

Yusufu Abdul Silla is a well-qualified and result-oriented Financial Services and Banking professional with over fifteen (15) years of successful experience in positions of increasing responsibilities and duties.

The proficient gentleman is also a top performer with an enviable track record of consistently meeting and mostly exceeding set targets and customer expectations. In addition, Yusufu A. Silla is exceptional in educating customers on Mortgage and Banking products and recommending best options that meet their needs. He is also a team player with well-polished communication skills, good interpersonal relations, verbal, written, presentation and rapport building respectively.

The new Managing Director is also richly endowed with the following skills: a good leader, self-sufficient, goal-oriented, people-oriented, excellent time management skills, analytical, cheerful, savvy relationship-building, highly motivated and positive, excellent verbal and written skills, team player and can prioritize workload respective.

With regards job history, Yusufu Silla served as Acting Managing Director from September 2019 – September 2020 and Managing Director from 2020 to date at the Commerce and Mortgage Bank Plc. During that period, he was charged with the responsibility of stabilising and turning around the bank which was running at a loss and almost about to collapse due to poor management in the past.

Consequently, he succeeded in leading the Bank to turn its fortune around and moving performance from a loss position of Le28billion to a profit before tax of Le14.6 billion as reported in the Bank’s 2020 Audited Financial Statement.

Mr. Silla was also Director of Business Development from January 2016 – September 2019 at the Commerce and Mortgage Bank Plc. In this capacity, he reported directly to the Managing Director and was primarily charged with developing the commercial banking business after the company had secured a banking license. He succeeded in growing the bank’s commercial client portfolio by 30% during his tenure in this role.

The new Managing Director was also Director of Credit Management from January 2013 – January 2016 at the HFC Mortgage and Savings SL LTD on 30 Liverpool Street in Freetown respectively. In this capacity, he was primarily responsible for the entire credit granting process, including the consistent application of the company’s credit policy, periodic credit reviews of existing customers, and the assessment of the credit worthiness of potential customers, with the goal of optimizing the mix of company sales and bad debt losses.

As Head of Mortgages, Mr. Silla, was principally responsible for setting up the Mortgage Department and for introducing the concept of Mortgage Finance into the Sierra Leone’s lending space. This introduced recruiting and training of staff and creating the relevant mortgage operations, credit and insurance manuals.

Mr. Silla was also Senior Mortgage Consultant from January 2005 – July 2008 at the Britannia Finance and Mortgage Limited – 252 Belsize Road, London, NW6 4BT, and Mortgage Consultant from January 2004 – July 2005 at Clarence House Financial Limited – Richmond Surrey TW9 2JN.

The new Managing Director has an excellent educational background befitting an academic. From 2001-2003, Mr. Silla graduated from the London Metropolitan University with a Master of Science in International Banking and Finance. He has vast knowledge in International Finance, Banking Operations and Strategy, Domestic and International Banking, Corporate Finance, Research Methods, Portfolio Management and Quantitative Methods, macroeconomics.

Between 1991 and 1996, Mr. Silla graduated from the oldest University South of the Sahara, Fourah Bay College (FBC), University of Sierra Leone (USL) with a Bachelor of Science in Pure Economics with Honours.

He is also versatile in Macroeconomics Analysis, Microeconomic Analysis, Quantitative methods, Development Economics and Business Methods.

Mr. Silla was also an active student government representative and one of the shakers and movers of the FBC Students’ Union Government during the war years.

The new Managing Director also did professional training and came out with flying colours, including Certificate (Credit Assessment Tools & Techniques) National Banking College, Ghana, April 2009, Certificate (African Perspective on Real Estate & Housing Finance) National

Banking College, Ghana, February 2009, and CeMAP (Certificate in Mortgaging Advice and Practice) Institute of Financial Services, May 2004 respectively.

It could be recalled that prior to Mr. Silla’s appointment, Mr. Bockarie Kalokoh, who is now the Deputy Minister of Finance II, was the Acting Managing Director of the SLCB following the sudden death of the substantial holder, the late Fidelis Turay of blessed memory.

  IMC gets new Chairman

Description: D:\VICTOR MASSAQUOI.jpg

The President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio in a press release has appointed Dr Victor Massaquio as the New Chairman or Commissioner for the Independent Media Commissioner (IMC).

See the statement below.

 This begs the question:

 IS IT ONLY NOW THAT THE POLITICAL OPPOSITION, THE NGC IN THIS INSTANCE, REALISING ‘ HOW BAD THINGS ARE FOR THE COMMON MAN OR WOMAN’?.

 Hmmm, common man or woman, you are the POLITICAL LANDLORDS whose support and votes all of these political gimmicks are directed at. The question for you now therefore is: FOR HOW LONG ARE YOU GOING TO BE TAKEN ON THESE POLITICAL JOYRIDES, ALLOWING THE PIED PIPERS TO DANCE YOU TO DAMNATION, SQUALOR AND DEPRIVATION????

In my usual crisp and punchy style, let me end with the final sentence of this intriguing, to put it very mildly, write up by my well educated bi-lingual Academic, Development Practioner, Politician friend and class mate:

“Sadly, some people are more interested in flying up in the air….than rescuing the poor people of this country that are gradually sinking into disgraceful poverty and marrasmus”. Hmmmm, my dear learned Doctor would want the common man and woman to believe him and the entire POLITICAL OPPOSITION that it is only in the last few years that “…POOR PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY…ARE GRADUALLY SINKING INTO DISGRACEFUL POVERTY AND MARRASMUS”. People of Sierra Leone, even the choice of word, ‘..gradually..’ is not anywhere near the reality of the grave situation because the plunge started long ago and to give the impression that its happening only, ‘…gradually …’ in the recent past is most insincere in the manner of the Political Class for the longest time.

For me not to fall into the intellectual trap of being very adept at diagnosing the problems of the common man and woman without offering ‘Talk n Do’ solutions as well as to show the way forward to the efforts outlined here as follows: ” Although Sierra Leoneans complain everywhere that living conditions are worsening every day, it is not easy for them to measure to what extent their condition id deteriorating”, let me once again throw the challenge to the NGC and the Political Opposition that constitute the Government of Sierra Leone having Members of Parliament in one of the three arms of Government that since 2014 a game changer that will genuinely and sincerely all address all of the heart wrenching woes stated herein, has been prepared called SONIGA and provided they are truly concerned about the welfare of the people and country, they should have established contacts with the SONIGA Technical Team to find out how SONIGA will be transformative but oyah, dem day wait fors tay dem cam na power way even dat norto proof for say dem go IMPLEMENT the innovative POVERTY ALLEVIATION Plan which even the almighty World Bank and UN Agencies have adopted as the way to go, Nothing more, Nothing Less known as SHARED PROSPERITY. How can the lives and living conditions of the common man and woman including the damned country be ever better when the PEOPLE are still not PARTICIPANTS AND BENEFICIARIES of growing their very own economy and those who claim to have been doing so for the longest time have nothing to show in the lives of 98% poverty rate and a near empty National Treasury that is forever chasing every grants and loans and glorying in EVERY Forex received.  

Diaspora campaigners worry over Citizens protection in Sierra Leone

The Sierra Leone Diaspora Unity Campaign (SLDUC) worries over several events or activities the government of Sierra Leone embarks on over the previous years.

SLDUC constitutes a Global Union of Concerned Sierra Leoneans and Friends of Sierra Leone both at home and around the world. SLDUC is worried over several events and decisions taken by the government of Sierra Leone on issues of serious concern ranging from National Security, police brutality, polarized justice system, suppression of freedom of expression, the absence of peace and national cohesion.

SLDUC observes escalating tension since after the elections of 2018 that ushered in the current Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) led administration of President Julius Maada Bio. The highlighted issues above continue to affect the peaceful management of national cohesion and security of our fellow citizens in the country. As a result, they have drawn the attention of friends of Sierra Leone, development partners as well as diplomatic community in order to be aware of the unbearable happenings thereby requesting your support in treating this matter with all seriousness it deserves.

They further noted that as the nation recently witnessed the event of a government Whitepaper based on recommendations of a Presidential handpicked committee which vows to push these recommendations without consultation with other political parties and stakeholders in the country adding that this is inconsistent with our political culture and the political history of our country more especially the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Sierra Leone.

They expressed grave concern that if the current administration is suggesting that the crucial parliamentary and presidential elections which will be held in 2023 would be conducted based on a 50+1 vote that tends to possibly favour the current President and his party, then it will be unacceptable and would therefore serve as a recipe for serious chaos before, during and after such process.

 Therefore, SLDUC calls on the moral guarantors such as the European Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the United Kingdom, the United States as well as the United Nations to intervene or else, such thought would be met with the toughest resistance by the citizens of Sierra Leone.

Furthermore, SLDUC believes that the proportional representation system suggested by this administration is inconsistent with our legal framework, political tradition, and history of our body politic.

SLDUC express hope that Proportional Representative System functions well when there are electorates that have a unitary social thinking which manifest a socio-tropic, rather than egoistic voting mentality thereby noting that in a system where voters vote for reasons of national and structural transformation, such will ensure the entrance legitimacy of the candidate or political party and not necessarily based on what individual voters stand to gain.

For a society like Sierra Leone where voting is more of partisan and ethnic belief, such a system can become a recipe for national confusion, incoherence and disaster at every level of the electoral process. These overlaps of authority from several candidates asserting their legislative power and legitimacy, limits participation as well as strengthen & centralize power to political parties and not individual voters.

Therefore, our organization believes that the present mentality of political party polarization will give more powers to political parties thereby promoting conflict.

Given the above, SLDUC is calling on all citizens of Sierra Leone, including Members of Parliament to wholeheartedly reject the January 2022 recommendations by the “Government Whitepaper” and instead insist on full adherence of recommendations in the Justice Cowan led Constitutional Review Committee (CRC) document tabled in parliament for discussion.

 Executive members include Alfred Sesay, Theophilus Morrison, Raffick B. Koroma, Mohamed B. Jamboria, Mohamed A Warisay, Aiah A. Tab Barbah, Gombie Musa-Tonyayia, Ibrahim S. Koroma, Patrick Foyoh.

In conclusion, SLDUC is calling on our development partners to closely monitor and take steps in ensuring the peace processes they spent so much time and resources to rebuild is sustained.

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