Debt so far incurred by
the Sierra Leone government amounts to USD 1.6 Billion (a tenth of a trillion
Leones correspondingly).
Same has been confirmed by the Chairman and Leader Sierra Leone
People’s Party (SLPP), Chief Somanoh Kapen, in an interview with a local
television station in the country. Chief Kapen said Sierra Leone is dubbed ‘the
poorest of poor’ owing to awful governance course of action.
International financial
institutions the likes of IMF and World Bank some time ago advised President
Koroma and his ruling APC government prioritizes and avoids wasteful spending,
but such weren’t listened to.”
Also, and until September 2016, there have been calls from the
public for the downsizing of public offices, purchase of expensive and gas
guzzling vehicles, overcrowded oversea trips, etc, which clearly has seen
Sierra Leone going into huge and bad debts over the years.
The Citizens Budget Watch, months ago, published a report on
Sierra Leone’s fiscal and consumer price index 2016, in which they stated that
government is constrained and that even to support its operating expenses is a
problem.
“At half year (2016),
the government operating expenses stands at 47.93% making it very difficult to
support other government running costs. Net cash flow from operating activities
is in deficit of Le366, 89 Billion- arrears payments are way off the roof to
Le124 Billion,” the
report states.
Mathew Dingie, Budget Director Ministry of Finance recently said
that the IMF and World Bank have held all forms of funding, in a way compelling
government cut down spending to enable development.
Recent increments in the prices of electricity and passport are
indicators that government is bankrupt and needs money to run the affairs of
the state.
When in 2016 President Koroma was elected president, Sierra Leone
was utterly a debt free nation. Our findings are that debt now incurred, amounting to
approximately a tenth of a trillion, came owing to un-prioritized projects
carried out by government.
Road projects costing millions of dollars have had abundant
corruption implications, consequently seeing Sierra Leone losing huge amount of
money to politicians and private people. Some school of education say the recently announced austerity
measures by government will only reduce wasteful public spending, but will
create no encouraging impact to the country’s daily shrinking economy.
However, things seem not clear as to whether
stances of international financial funders (IMF and World Bank), that which
speaks of the imposed economic moratorium on Sierra Leone cannot be terminated
or until after 2018.
Source: Sierra Loaded
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