Lawyer Francis Ben Kaifala is the Director of
policy and recruitment in the Renaissance Movement in Sierra Leone and in an
exclusive interview our reliable source explained about their views on the
austerity measures and its disadvantages to the economic situation.
“The austerity measures will not
address the overall economic woes of sierra Leone, I think what the measures
will do is to provide savings and liquidity to the government but it does not address the issue
of inflation, increase of price of commodities in the market, address the
balance of trade deficit, that has led to the Leones depreciating to dollar. It
does not address water, electricity supply; it does not address
self-sufficiency so that we can reduce on the high rate of import”.
Kaifala stated that “we are in this economic mess because government became arrogant; they feel like they have a popular support so they can
do anything and get away with it. They have not been listening to advice
whether national or international”, he furthered that the APC led government has
done lot of things including weak economic decisions and policies that are
wrong and has led us to this situation.
“the government has incurred a lot of debts and
the beginning of the collapse of the Leones against the dollars was based on
the policy implemented by the then Bank Governor in 2013 wherein they tried to
squeeze the access to dollars to the formal sector but left the informal sector
(black market) to flourish. The formal sector is easier to control than the
informal sector and when they did the price of the dollar shoot up and since
then they have not been able to catch-up. That policy was disastrous” he maintained.
Source: Sierraloaded
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