By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
For something to happen; something must have happened, or should happen, for that something to eventually happen. Sorry for the pun. Or you can call it one of those One Dropian wordplays, if you will.
But it now appears to be a factual fact that the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), which is being lorded over by President Julius Maada Bio, has a mission to impoverish majority of Sierra Leoneans through the willful destruction of democratic structures and soulless taxations.
Since 2018 to date, the Bio-led government seems to be systematically dismantling every democratic structure in the country and replacing them with partisan colourations. It appears to me that the aim of such is to dehumanize the bulk of Sierra Leoneans to the point of numbing their dissenting voices and actions. In disrobed language; the current government of Sierra Leone is steadily making non-SLPP supporters worthlessly worthless in their worthlessness!
This tactic is not lost on the bilateral United States’ foreign aid agency, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which in its latest Scorecard rates the Bio-led government 28 on Political Rights and 37 on Civil Liberties. These are indicators that Sierra Leone, under the watchful watch of the SLPP, is a modern day version of a restrained dictatorship with the Sierra Leone Police appearing to be morphing into a sort of a Gestapo (The secret police under Adolf Hitler.), while other security agencies seem to be playing the roles of the Death squads in El Salvador of old!
And when one flings hyper-inflation and the dismal fiscal policy implemented by the Bio-led government into the cauldron; the soup that normally comes out from that “awujor pot” is always unpalatable! Without any euphemistic icing on the SLPP-ian “Big Five Game Changers” (the so-called five main thematic areas in the SLPP 2023 Manifesto); majority of Sierra Leoneans are worse off today, economically, than they were seven years ago! And there is not an iota of indication that things might improve under this SLPP government or any SLPP government!
So, it is mockingly mocking that the “Statement OF Economic And Financial Policies for the Financial Year 2024”, delivered by the Minister of Finance, Sheku Ahmed Fantamadi Bangura, in the Chamber of Parliament last Friday, is paradoxically themed: “Restoring Macroeconomic Stability while Protecting the Poor and Vulnerable”.
How could any economic policy protect “the poor and vulnerable” when their main staple food, rice, is fast becoming unaffordable to majority of them? Rice, which all Sierra Leoneans cherish so much, will soon be scanty or unavailable on most dining tables in Sierra Leone.
According to the Minister of Finance, Sheku Ahmed Fantamadi Bangura, the SLPP government will be “…restoring import duty on imported rice at the rate of 5 percent in 2024 to be increased to 10 percent in 2025 ….” The argument that the increase in tax on rice will increase local rice production and decrease rice importation is laughably laughable; considering the abysmal record of the Bio-led government on its “Feed Salone” policy (A so-called initiative to enhance agriculture output to guarantee food security.).
Let me take the Tormabum Rice project, which the SLPP government has been struggling with for some time now, as a case study to show how seriously unserious the Bio-led administration is on its “Feed Salone” policy.
In June 2021, President Bio launched the US$34.12 million Tormabum Rice project in southern Bonthe District. It is aimed at developing 12,500 acres of land for rice production by small-holder farmers with the cardinal aim of “reducing the high importation rate of rice and enhance economic growth through improved production and productivity in a sustainable manner, processing, and marketing (according to the AYV News Television website).” This five-year initiative is anticipated to be of profit to 7,000 smallholder farmers: 5,000 in southern Bonthe and 2,000 in northern Kambia.
But by all indications, the Tormabum Rice initiative appears to be one of the whitest elephants the Bio-led administration has ever groomed. And it is becoming whiter than an unadulterated snow every day due to the lip service which the government has been giving to agriculture generally! So, the argument that the increase in tax on imported rice is to “support local production of rice”, and that the “proceeds of this tax will be ring-fenced in the Agricultural Development Fund and used to support the Feed Salone Programme”, will always evoke fits of laughter from every sane Sierra Leonean.
Even President Bio’s attempt at engaging in some form of farming has always produced comical effects as he is mostly seen in clothes, on his farm, that are evocative of Donald Trump readying himself to play golf at his Florida’s Mar-a-Lago home! Our President appears to be more interested in seeing more of the world than his “Feed Salone” publicity stunt at home! “Feed” who? Probably, just a probability, he is making reference to his family (or families—please delete where applicable!) and those of his toadies.
One of the seemingly tactics of the SLPP government to dehumanize the bulk of Sierra Leoneans is to deny them the basic things which humanize them. It is common knowledge that the two main things of human existence are food and a roof over one’s head. By preparing the stage for millions of Sierra Leoneans going to bed hungry by 2025; the SLPP government goes further to pour iodine on fresh wounds when the Finance Minister announces that the Bio-led administration will be, “…restoring import duty on iron rods at 10 percent from the current rate of 5 percent and on imported cement at 20 percent from 10 percent to encourage domestic production of these imported commodities….”
Here again, you and I know that monkey business has been added to the SLPP government’s perpetual conmen-ship status. Has Sierra Leone ever established a factory for the production of iron rods? The closest, I think, the country has ever gone was a promise made in January this year, by the former Minister of Trade Dr Edward Hinga Sandy, that in March 2023 our nation would be boasting of “its first Made in Sierra Leone steal rod products”. Like the Tormabum Rice initiative; this promise is still a pipe dream that is still in the pipe dreamingly dreaming!
And on the issue of “…restoring import duty on cement at 20 percent from 10 percent to encourage domestic production of” it is paradoxically paradoxical. Since Independence in 1960 to date, if there is any government that has made calculated efforts to decimate the cement industry; it is the Bio-led administration through heavy taxations and erratic electricity supply coupled with other “unofficial” bottlenecks foisted on cement producing companies.
Conclusively, all the arguments by the SLPP government of increasing taxes “…to encourage [or support] domestic production” are recycled con tricks to feed its insatiable hunger of presidential overseas travels and the bloated wage bill. As I see it, it is only an inhumane government that will claim to be “protecting the poor and vulnerable” by increasing taxes on cooking gas, rice, cement, iron rods; and even on some of the indulgences of the poor and vulnerable like cigarettes, alcohol, and gambling!
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