50th Anniversary Pays Artists

Concord Times (Freetown)

25 June 2011

Freetown — The 50th Anniversary Committee, which was tasked by President Ernest Bai Koroma to plan and organise Sierra Leone’s 50th Independence Anniversary celebrations, has started paying various artists monies owed them for their performances at various functions during the golden jubilee event in April.

Chairman of the Social and Entertainment sub-Committee, Abubakarr Konteh aka DJ Boxx, confirmed to Salonejamboree over the weekend that Ragga Spice, SQB, Drew Eye Crew, Innocent among others received their cheques last Friday while Kao Denero and LAJ, who are presently out of the country, were paid through their representatives.

However, Konteh said popular Nigerian artists Flavour and J-Martin are yet to be paid, but assured that the funds were there to pay them.

The payment comes after a planned public protest by the musicians, two months after the official celebrations marking Sierra Leone’s 50th Independence Anniversary.

It could be recalled that Sierra Leone’s Vice President Alhaji Samuel Sam-Sumana had earlier arranged a meeting with the artists to plead with them to exercise patience for monies owed them by the Anniversary Committee. He assured them in that meeting that they would be paid the following Friday. On Friday, various artists assembled at the 50th Anniversary Secretariat to collect their monies, but Salonejamboree learnt that verification of the list of artists caused unnecessary delays. Eventually, our source said, the artists were paid late that night after they resorted to putting the entire Secretariat under siege.

Milton A.S. Coker aka Collabo, president of All-Stars Union of Musicians, confirmed to Salonejamboree that it was only after they put up aggressive behaviour that the Committee decided to pay them. “We are not happy how the government treated us in this whole thing,” said Coker. “Without that action I am not sure we would have been paid on that day.”

Sources say State House had to intervene by summoning the former Chairman, Prof. Cecil Magbaily Fyle, to verify the artists’ lists and signed the cheques.

However, Konteh said he is happy that the outstanding payments to the artists have been finally effected and thanked them for their patience.

Recalling his role at the 50th Independence Committee, Konteh said he was nominated by AWOL to represent them in the Committee and later appointed to head the Entertainment sub-Committee. He said his job was to make sure that the planned entertainment segment of the celebrations went on well.

Meanwhile, the PR & Communications Officer of the 50th Anniversary Committee, Ahmed Sahid Nasralla aka De Monk, denied that the Anniversary Secretariat was put under siege by the artists.

“I was at the office and I was moving around freely. There were procedures to be followed when effecting such payments and that was what caused the delay,” he told Salonejamboree.

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