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SL leader pledges graft crackdown | SL leader pledges graft crackdown |
(about 9 hours later) | |
Sierra Leone's new president has pledged to fight corruption and help reduce abject poverty in front of the crowds at his official inauguration. | |
Ernest Bai Koroma said there should be progress within three years and a change to people's mentality. | |
"The police must stop taking tips from the driver and the teachers must stop taking handouts from kids and parents," he told the BBC before the ceremony. | |
A BBC reporter says the handover is the most orderly Sierra Leone has seen. | |
Sierra Leone, one of the poorest countries in the world, is very slowly recovering from a decade of brutal war that ended in 2001. | Sierra Leone, one of the poorest countries in the world, is very slowly recovering from a decade of brutal war that ended in 2001. |
Fainting | |
The inauguration ceremony in the national football stadium was watched by five African heads of state and tens of thousands of Mr Koroma's supporters, dressed in red and white. | |
I have made the position very clear that we have to take on corruption and I have advised everybody, including members of my family that it is going to be a serious business this time President Koroma | |
The BBC's world affairs correspondent Mark Doyle says it was so hot in the stadium that some of the soldiers fainted. | |
Other people also fainted but the Sierra Leonean Red Cross were doing their best to look after them, he says. | |
President Koroma's anti-corruption policy has been welcomed by foreign diplomats. | President Koroma's anti-corruption policy has been welcomed by foreign diplomats. |
"I have made the position very clear that we have to take on corruption and I have advised everybody, including members of my family that it is going to be a serious business this time," Mr Koroma said. | |
He made the remarks after a report he commissioned showed widespread graft under the previous administration. | |
But our correspondent says sceptical Sierra Leoneans say the president will be judged on his actions, not his words. | |
They say they will be watching to see if any high level prosecutions take place. | They say they will be watching to see if any high level prosecutions take place. |
Laws and regulations will have to be tightened up but a whole culture and mentality will also have to change. | Laws and regulations will have to be tightened up but a whole culture and mentality will also have to change. |
Our correspondent says the inauguration has stretched the logistical resources of Sierra Leone to the limit. | |
It did not have helicopters, for example, to bring the heads of state across the wide river estuary that separates the international airport from the capital city - so it borrowed some from the United Nations. | |
It also did not have access to enough limousines to ferry the visiting VIPs around, so it was given some by friends, including some cars reportedly from nearby Senegal. |
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