** Please visit our website: http://www.africanassociation.org **
I just can't help losing my temper when I read stuff like this. For
$100 per month, Sierra Leonian brethen are ready to and go and serve
as fodder for cannon in Iraq? This American company that is hiring
these desperate Africans to go and serve in a volatile death-trap like
IRAQ knows only too well what the minimum wage is in this country.Why
not even save face by paying these daredevils 1000? They are paying
$100! Talk of the exploitation of the poor by the rich. And inane,
uninformed Sierra Leonian parents are even proud to send their
offspring to perish in the name of money. How sad!
It is really true that ignorance is a canker.
PETER VAKUNTA
----- Original Message -----
From: f ossia <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tuesday, August 2, 2005 7:38 pm
Subject: Sierra Leone workers head for Iraq
> ** Please visit our website: http://www.africanassociation.org **
>
> Sierra Leone workers head for Iraq
> by
> Saturday 30 July 2005 7:41 PM GM
>
> About 100 Sierra Leonean nurses, lab technicians, caterers and
> plumbers were
> this weekend flying to Iraq to join the growing number of West
> Africansbeing contracted to perform the mundane tasks underpinning
> the US-led
> presence in the country.
>
> This week's departures will bring to 440 the number of Sierra
> Leoneans in
> Iraq under a contract signed by the Sierra Leone government with a
> privateUS supply company.
>
> The Labour Ministry's overseas employment officer Ismael Kargbo
> declined to
> reveal the name of the company, but said the government had
> contracted a
> wage of roughly $100 per month for each of the workers, plus perks
> such as
> free international telephone calls.
>
> The recruitment programme is not confined to Iraq, Kargbo said,
> but includes
> the supply of blue-collar skilled workers to Jordan, Afghanistan
> and Kuwait.
>
> Waiting list
>
> Labor Minister Alpha Timbo said Nigeria, Ghana and Guinea also were
> supplying recruits.
>
> "I personally feel good about the venture, and the recruits are
> happy to go
> and work in a foreign country," he said, noting there were 2000
> people on
> the waiting list, vying for fewer than 400 more spots.
>
> "Everyone is eager to go as, in its present stage, the Sierra
> Leone economy
> cannot provide jobs for many people locally."
>
> Though $100 seems a paltry sum for braving the hazards of Iraq,
> the fate of
> many in Sierra Leone is comparably dire.
>
> Emerging from a decade of brutal civil war marked by the maiming and
> mutilation and rapes of thousands of civilians, Sierra Leone is
> the world's
> least developed country, with soaring unemployment, little
> infrastructureand extreme poverty.
>
> Aminata Sesay was one of many mothers who saw off their children on
> Saturday, proud that her son Amadu Turay, 24, was among those
> chosen to work
> as a cleaner in Iraq.
>
> "I fully support my son's decision to travel," she said. "I just
> need him to
> call me when he arrives to tell me that things are good for him."
>
>
>
> AFP
>
> By
>
> You can find this article at:
>
> http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/81E10E65-F8E7-43BD-9D83-
> 3A846BDEF3BC.htm
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