Govt Still Has Yenga At Heart- Information Minister

Concord Times (Freetown)

Ralph Ese’donnu Sawyerr

16 June 2011

Freetown — “Yenga is too good a state issue of paramount to be forgotten. We are a responsible government and as laid down in our constitution, it is the responsibility of the government to protect and defend its territorial integrity,” Information Minister Alhaji I.B. Kargbo told journalists in Kenema over the weekend while answering to a question on whether the APC government has forgotten about Yenga.

According to the minister, two weeks ago three cabinet ministers: Joseph Dauda – Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation; Alhaji Alpha Kanu – Minister of Political and Public Affairs; and Dauda Kamara – Minister of Local Government and Rural Development together with Sierra Leone’s Ambassador to Guinea Adikali Suma, on the instruction of President Ernest Bai Koroma, travelled to the Republic of Guinea and had audience with no less a person than President Alpha Conde specifically on Yenga and other related issues.

“After serious bilateral and other related discussions on both sides, President Conde agreed that the Yenga issue has dragged on for far too long,” I.B. Kargbo informed. He said President Conde suggested and called for a joint committee to be set up between the two countries to finally resolve the Yenga dispute once and for all. “Yenga is still on course and it is a paramount issue we will not give up,” stated the Information minister.

Mr. Kargbo explained that during such meetings original maps for Guinea and Sierra Leone were produced and examined by experts. Government, he maintained, was on top of the situation and will not relent, noting that “all what we additionally need is the support of the media”.

“In fact it would be in place for even the media to go to Guinea and strongly engage them on the radio and television that Yenga is too good to be given up,” he said.

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