Africa-Press – Sierra-Leone. Mr Kaisamba, many thanks for such a frank and patriotic piece on the conditions of the people and country called Sierra Leone. As one who aspired to the leadership of this country as member of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), I am utterly disappointed and saddened about the lack of direction of this administration. I decided not to make any pronouncements that could be perceived as critical or as out of line of our party.
But the worsening economic situation and the extent of wasteful spending and increasing salary and wage bill of this administration and hardship experienced by fellow citizens, will concern every right-thinking persons of good conscience.
Agreed that the COVID-19 pandemic has made conditions worst for the people but government economic policy before the pandemic didn’t inspire great hope on improving the standard of living or the unemployment situation in the country.
Increased spending of the executive and legislative arms on salaries and other benefits for unproductive work in a period of reduced revenue, only exacerbated budgetary challenges and crowd out resources for social and economic development in dire need to support poverty reduction and creating sustainable livelihoods for the poor.
I think if the government reduces the salary and wage bill and other wasteful expenditure and increase social investments, support job creation initiatives especially in agricultural development and agro processing and increasing overall productivity, renew all mining licenses after a thorough review to increase foreign exchange earnings with resultant impact on the value of the Leone, I am sure we could reduce inflation, reduction of price of commodities and improve standard of living.
Going around politicking on petty projects with very little impact on the lives of people, is no way of representing the people or win hearts and minds.
The dismal and disgraceful performance of the WAEC examination this year, and perhaps the worst in the history of this country, is a clear demonstration that there’s something fundamentally wrong with the so-called free and quality education flagship programme of this administration.
As a grand chief patron of the SLPP, I cannot be silent anymore about the lack of sense of purpose and direction of this administration. And it’s a pity that they don’t seem to be aware that something is fundamentally wrong.
