Sierra Leone Minister of Finance and
Economic Development, Momodu Kargbo has angered many people and even President
Koroma by a blunder statement he made recently about the pump price of fuel.
The Chairman of the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on Finance, Hon.
Hassan Sheriff, had said in the Well of Parliament that the Minister of Finance
Momodu Koroma misled the nation when he told Parliament that the new price for
fuel was Le5,500 (five thousand, five hundred Leones); when the actual pump
price of fuel is Le6,000 (six thousand Leones).
The MP was contributing to the debate on the 2017 budget that was
tabled in Parliament last Friday by the Minister of Finance and Economic
Development. He had other issues with the manner in which the budget was
presented.
According to Hon. Hassan Sheriff, “the
2017 budget should have been laid in Parliament two months before the end of
the year-either by 31st October or 1st November. “But the minister presented it
November 11th, which is very wrong,” he said.
Dilating on the issue of tax waiver, Hon. Sheriff said Parliament
has the mandate to issue waiver and that it also has the power to investigate
the Ministry of Finance for all duty waivers that were not brought to
Parliament. He said that the Director of Revenue and Tax Policy is an
Economist, who could not undertake effective tax calculations, claiming that
the former did not have the requisite experience to do the job because he was
on a six -month crash program.
The Member of Parliament further said that the fuel subsidy should
have been removed long before now and that the timing to increase the price of
fuel was wrong. “The price for fuel according to the
2017 budget was supposed to be Le5, 500 (five thousand, five hundred Leones)
and was to take effect in 2017; so why the rush?” he questioned.
He went on to inform Parliament that the Government was still
contributing Le2,250 as subsidy, and urged the Chairman of the Parliament Trade
Committee to invite the Minister of Trade to interrogate him as to why the rush
to increase fuel price at this point in time.
“These issues are not about party, but
about the country that we love,” he
maintained.
He also commented on the Le7.7 billion Leones allocation to
Parliament, arguing that the allocation should be increased and that
Parliamentarians should be part of the budget process as salaries and other
benefits should be determined by them. Following this explanation by Hon.
Sheriff, the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Momodu Kargo did not
deny that the actual pump price was calculated at Le5,500 (five thousand, five
hundred Leones) but that it was being sold at Le6,000 (six thousand Leones).
He is reported to have publicly apologized for
the inaccuracy. Meanwhile, there are still calls from various civil society
groups for the price of fuel to be reduced to at least Le5,000 (five thousand
Leones) which many people say would be manageable.
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