By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
When it comes to the issue of politics; some Sierra Leoneans can be so shameless that their shamelessness can be shamefully shameful. For how can any sane and sober-minded Sierra Leonean justify most of the seemingly meaningless overseas travels of President Julius Maada Bio while they themselves are finding it extremely difficult to feed their own families one meal a day?
Those who are trying to justify these seemingly meaningless presidential overseas travels should highlight the benefits those travels have brought to the people of Sierra Leone generally. They should tell us how many genuine foreign investors have invested in the country as a result of those seemingly presidential overseas escapades. And those Sierra Leoneans who are justifying most of these overseas travels of our President should give us the cost–benefit analyses of those travels.
What appears to be always laughably laughable is when President Bio goes overseas, using the meager state resources, to give public lectures at some universities in Europe or the United States of America. I do not mean any form of disrespect to a once-upon-a-time PhD candidate who chickened out of the course for whatever reasons only known to himself and the Almighty God. But I can bet my reddish bank accounts that since he became Head of State, our Commander-in-Chief might not have read more than a dozen new books. And I even got it from the grapevine that President Bio always seems uninterested in any A-4-size Briefing Note that is more than three-page long. Yet, he scoops from the state’s shoe-string budget to travel overseas to give public lectures on God knows what or to impress who!
And for a very long time I have been trying to put my finger on the main reason why President Bio loves to take to the air more than a hawk which has just swooped on its prey. Finally, the Sierra Leone Advocacy Movement (SLAM-Global), in a letter to Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu the current ECOWAS Chairman, dated 13 November 2024, makes it very clear to me that: “….[President] Bio has chosen to distance himself, both figuratively and literally, [from majority of the suffering citizenry]. His frequent and lavish international travels suggest escapism rather than responsible leadership. These travels, disconnected from the urgent needs of Sierra Leoneans, reflect a focus on power retention….rather than genuine efforts to improve national welfare”.
Gotcha! “Escapism” might explain President Bio’s indefatigable overseas travels. He appears to be escaping from the chronic hardship, at home, which his seemingly soulless economic policies have foisted on majority of Sierra Leoneans. Or is he escaping from a sorceress or wizard who might have vowed to cast a spell on him should he be in Sierra Leone for three months uninterruptedly at a time? Or is he escaping from a genie that only comes out of its bottle whenever he is abroad? As I see it, it is more of an insatiable appetite for travelling than escapism!
And as if President Bio’s seemingly meaningless overseas escapades are not putting lots of burdens on the country’s burdened shoestring budget; he has repeatedly been creating more financial Samba Gutters than “blocking the leakages” he promised to block when he was campaigning for the presidency as far back as 2018. His recent presidential appointments of party faithful to the country’s Foreign Missions and Parastatal Boards, including the meaningless appointment of a Presidential Librarian and Archivist, appear to present him as someone who seems to lack financial prudency.
And that seemingly lack of financial prudency from the presidency is being captured by the Minister of Finance, Sheku Ahmed Fantamadi Bangura, in the “Government Budget and Statement Of Economic and Financial Policies for the Financial Year 2025” which he read in the Chamber of Parliament on Friday 15 November 2024. In it he states that, “The Government Wage Bill is projected to increase to NLe7.6 billion (3.9 percent of GDP) in 2025 from NLe6.5 billion in 2024”. It will interest you to know that this projected increase will be provoked largely by more “recruitments” and “a cost of living adjustment of 5 percent…for Foreign Missions…effective April 2025….” And when one flings the Wage Bills of Government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies that will amount to NLe494.0 million into the cauldron; the broth will not be palatable to the national fiscal palate.
In the 2025 Budget speech, Mr Fantamadi Bangura shies away from telling us that the presidential overseas travels and the creation of jobs for partisan faithful are burdening the over-burdened shoestring budget. But he uses innuendos to tell us just that when he says, “…for the 2025 fiscal year, the budget deficit, excluding grants, is projected at NLe16.4 billion (8.5 percent of GDP)”. And that the deficit “will be financed mainly by borrowing from the domestic banking system projected at NLe6.1 billion (3.1 percent of GDP)…[and] from the Non-bank sector will amount to NLe640.3 million (0.3 percent of GDP)”.
But knowing his boss’s seemingly insatiable appetite for travelling and recruitments of partisan faithful the Minister of Finance, Sheku Ahmed Fantamadi Bangura, makes another innuendo in his conclusion: “To build the resilience of our economy, we should….implement prudent economic policies and accelerate structural and sectoral reforms….”
And I don’t think President Bio who appears to be creating more financial Samba Gutters, than blocking the promised “leakages” and minimizing presidential overseas travels, is serious about what he promised in the past. As far as I know, the past is still present in the present!
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