Mr. Serry Bangura acknowledged that indeed all Ebola survivors in Port Loko were summoned to a hastily organized meeting by the Deputy Minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs Hon. Neneh Rugiatu Turay. He said they all respected the deputy minister so they hurriedly attended the meeting called at Masiaka Community Center in Koya, Port Loko. At the meeting, he said the deputy minister urged them to tell her their problems as survivors as her boss Dr. Sylvia Blyden, sent her to ask the survivors of how they were suffering.
Mr. Serry Bangura said that they spoke passionately of their problems but “we never attacked our national SLAES Leaders in Freetown so we are very shocked to hear what was written”
The Ebola Survivors head in Port Loko told journalists over the phone line that was has shocked him the most is that he never realised the minister had taken journalists with her to the meeting she called. He said he has so much respect for the deputy minister and her boss that he now feel betrayed to see how a wedge has been tried to be created between them in Port Loko and the National Executive. He said they were informed that the aim of the meeting they held in Port Loko was to discuss how they should work with government in bringing change in the lives of Ebola survivors. So he was just too shocked at what appeared as a syndicated article in two prominent newspapers.
“This is not fair because I never criticized our national executive. I thought I was speaking to the deputy minister and social welfare ministry staff about our challenges. I never knew she had journalists with her to go and write,” he apologized repeatedly.
Meanwhile, Mr. Yusuf Bangura and Mr. Daddy Hassan Kamara, the president and spokesman of national executive of Sierra Leone Association of Ebola Survivors (SLAES) who facilitated the conversation between journalists and the membership in Port Loko, have both expressed disgust over portions of the meeting organized by Deputy Minister Rugiatu Neneh Turay out in Port Loko.
The president of SLAES, Mr. Yusif Kabba, told journalists that neither the Minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs Honourable Dr. Sylvia Olayinka Blyden nor the national executive of SLAES were even informed about the meeting the deputy minister called. He confirmed that when he saw the newspapers, he almost shed tears and when he called the Cabinet Minister Dr. Sylvia Blyden, she also expressed shock and dismay saying she knew nothing about such a meeting in Port Loko until she saw it in newspapers that morning.
As for the Survivors spokesman Daddy Hassan Kamara, he is just too disgusted with the deputy minister. Without mincing his words, the Spokesman of Ebola Survivors said he saw the whole scenario as a deliberate attempt by the deputy minister Neneh Rugiatu Turay to undermine all the hard work of her boss Dr. Sylvia Olayinka Blyden, the Minister.
The SLAES President Yusuf Kabba, also blasted the Deputy Minister Neneh Turay for “going to Port Loko to call a meeting of Port Loko Ebola Survivors without the knowledge of either her boss Dr. Sylvia Blyden or with us the National Executive of SLAES”. He pondered at her motives within the Government.
Both Mr. Kamara and Mr. Kabba furthered that since the appointment of Honourable Dr. Sylvia Olayinka Blyden as Minister, Ebola Survivors are having meetings on regular basis with executive members of all regions and districts to assess and address the needs of Ebola survivors across the country.
Mr. Kabba said that the concerns raised by the Ebola survivors in Port Loko are a nationwide phenomenon but survivors know the plans in store for them and also receive support though not as much as they need.
In addition, the SLAES president said that the President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, His Excellency Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma has prioritised the welfare of Ebola survivors in his Post-Ebola programmes and thus working immensely in line with the Ministry involved. He said for Neneh Turay to meet with survivors in such a manner to incite the public, is tantamount to divide amongst the survivors and working against the interest of President Koroma. He said for them as Ebola Survivors, it was “a bitter blow and a stab in the back”.