By: Alusine Rehme Wilson
Victor Massaquoi, the Chairman of the Independent Media Commission-(IMC) while delivering a speech at the 2022 SLAJ Triennial General Meeting held in Makeni disclosed that: “Only 40% of the over 500 registered Media Institutions with the commission are fully paid up.”
He urges journalists to read the IMC Act of 2021 and called on media owners to wait not for the commission to meet them soon before they comply with their yearly payment of licenses saying that: “We will be very proactive towards our next approaches to let every media owner comply fully with every obligation as enacted in the revised IMC Act.
Furthering that, the commission is also worried about the act of some media owners teaming up with their Reporters and other employees to sign flamboyant payments vouchers in order to impress the commission while on their routine checks on the compliance level of media owners on the payments of employees salaries being at least above the minimum wage of Le 600,000.
“Gone are those days, under my stewardship, the commission is willing and ready to build on the solid blocks our predecessors have constructed and will endeavor to overcome the inherited gaps,” the revered IMC Boss assured.
Chairman Massaquoi also reveled that, the IMC have set off to address all sixteen (16) key problems identified to be bothering the operations of the media in Sierra Leone, said they’ve so far been able to solve six since he took over the commission’s leadership, says: “the level of IMC is towering upward.
“We are ready to work for you as we continue to rebrand the IMC, prominent among is the possible relocation from the current headquarters building in the not too distant future, he further revealed.
“IMC believes in consultations and at all times we will ensure that the public interests is protected in tandem with our primary mandates to register, and monitor media institutions, regulate and develop the capacities of both IMC staff and media practitioners in Sierra Leone and I’m please to inform you all that we are almost completing talks with some International organisations to provide fellowships for the Journalists, he asserts conclusively.
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