BY Melvin Tejan Mansaray
The former Member of Parliament (MP) representing Constituency 092 now 111, Western Area Rural , All Peoples Congress (APC) party, Honorable Ibrahim Pateh Bah has donated bags of rice and money to over five hundred people in Freetown.
Hon. Bah is now living with his family in the United Kingdom (UK) but said that his heart longs for his people back home in Sierra Leone.
He added that: “Although I am not in Parliament now, it is incumbent on me to continue to support my people and this is not the first time since I left Parliament in the year 2018.”
Explaining the reasons for his gesture towards the poor and religious people, Hon. Bah said: “As a former MP of that constituency, I deemed it necessary to render food support to alleviate hunger among my people and ease the stress inflicted by the coronavirus. This is in support of our poor and vulnerable people.”
He added, as a former people’s representative and a patriotic Sierra Leonean, “I also thought it fit to contribute in feeding my people during the holy feast of Eid-Ul-Fitri, not only in my constituency but also across the Western Area and it environs.”
The former Member of Parliament nonetheless noted that the cost of his philanthropy is about twenty million Leones (Le. 20,000,000) in both cash and food and it is squeezed out of his personal income.
Hon. Pateh made this gesture on Friday 21st May, 2020 wherein he donated over fifty bags of rice (50kg) and money to less privileged people and Muslims within and outside of his constituency.
According to some of the beneficiaries, the food and financial support cannot come on a more appropriate time as that of the end of Ramadan and the period of fasting. They thanked the former MP for coming to their rescue at a very difficult time, noting, “Hon. Pateh Bah has always stood by us in times of need. We thank and appreciate him and pray that Allah continue to open doors of provision for him and his family.”
However, public compliance and adherence to health and medical measures and advice has been a serious challenge in the COVID-19 fight in Sierra Leone, Hon. Bah said, it is a battle that can only be won with corporation and compliance to the right messages being put out by the health experts.
International experts say misinformation and disinformation are the new phenomenon in the fight against the coronavirus and they have described this trend as infodemic, wherein people turn to untrue and unauthorized sources of information about COVID-19.
In Sierra Leone, denial and disbelief still thrives despite the rapid communication efforts of the Ministries of Health, Information and the COVID-19 Response Center.
The number of infection cases is spiralling and Freetown remains the country’s epicenter and with a climbing death toll.
It is against this backdrop that Hon. Ibrahim Pateh Bah urged his constituents to trust and adhere to the messages and advice of the medics and health experts.
“My message to each and every Sierra Leonean is the continuous appeal that our compatriots adhere to the advice of medical professionals; wash your hands regularly, keep to social or physical distancing measures and do not go out or to public places unless when it is necessary,” Hon. Pateh Bah said.
He called on all Freetown residents to understand that the spate of COVID-19 is escalating in the country’s capital, appealing that it is only when people fully adhere to all the medical advice and measures that is when the coronavirus chain of transmission will be broken, the curve flattened and disease defeated.
Hon. Bah served in the Fourth Parliament (2012-2018) of the Second Republic of Sierra Leone and represented the Western Area Rural, Yams farm, Grafton, Regent, Gloucester, Charlotte and Waterloo communities.
He was the former Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on Lands and the Environment and Senior Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee who worked frantically with the British High Commission in Sierra Leone during the period (2014) of the Ebola virus disease outbreak.
Despite being in the UK, Hon. Bah is still contributing to the national development of Sierra Leone through his Hon. Pateh Bah Charity Foundation, operated by respected Sierra Leoneans who believe that a politician should not only deliver while holding power but even before and after.
