Universal Standard Economy

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SPECIAL REPORT – How Did Sierra Leone Performed In The Year 2009 Failed Economy or Gradual Process of Growth

2009 was a very remarkable year for Sierra Leone. As the dust of Ernest Koroma’s assumption of office was just settling by mid-2008, the global financial crunch struck leaving series of unanticipated issues of national interest at stake.

By late 2008, the universal effect of the depression was deeply felt in the country such that it cuts across virtually every facet. As a donor-driven state with a background of just grappling with the reality of rebuilding its infrastructures destroyed in the course of the decade-long civil war, Sierra Leone faced a crucial test which required a solid head-on confrontation to quell.

Economy

For players in Sierra Leone’s economic circle, 2009 started with great expectations especially after President Koroma had disclosed the year before that he intends to run the nation in a business-friendly manner.

However, despite this statement, little improvement was recorded in the business and economic prospect of Sierra Leone in 2009.

With rising costs of basic commodities and a weak Leone, Sierra Leoneans hope for a change in 2010 because the signs indicated by the country’s import-based economy coupled with rising global prices and a weak national currency, are tantamount to an increase in hardship for majority of Sierra Leoneans most of whom still live below the poverty line.

According to Economy Watch, Sierra Leone still remains an extremely poor country (on a per-capita GDP basis) with tremendous inequality in distribution of income as at 2009.

Its annual report stated: “While Sierra Leone possesses substantial mineral, agricultural, agrarian, fisheries and farming and fishery resources, its physical and social infrastructure and facilities is not well developed and major social disorders perpetuate to hamper economic progress. The fate of its economy depends upon the maintenance of domestic peace and the perpetuated receipt of substantial aid from overseas, which is essential to offset the severe trade (imports and exports) imbalance and supplement government earnings.”

2009 also showed that a country beset by several problems from transportation, lack of adequate infrastructure and the menace of armed robbery will be faced with huge impediment as it strives to fulfil its economic prospect.

Many foreign investors and even Sierra Leoneans in the Diaspora still have a shocking thought about an eyesore at the Lungi International Airport which sometimes welcome first time visitors including potential investors with overwhelming darkness. In addition to that is the tricky problems of crossing over to Freetown.

Armed robbery reigned supreme in 2009 targetting business people, mostly foreigners.

Though Bumbuna is almost up and running, electricity posed a huge problem to business people in 2009 especially the small scale enterprises most of which cannot afford the daily cost of fuelling and maintaining their generators.

Despite moving up in the rankings of the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation Doing Business 2009 Report to 156

among 181 countries, the challenges in Sierra Leone are still tough for both local and foreign business people.

According to the African Economic Outlook (AEO) 2009 data, Sierra Leone posted relatively strong growth in 2008 with GDP increasing by an estimated 5.4% despite high oil prices then.

GDP rose by 6.3% in 2009 and is projected to rise by 5.5% in 2010. The AEO commends Sierra Leone for this performance despite our dependence on food and oil imports in a time of global price increases.

That is the main reason for many calls on the government to push up its agricultural budget and commitment for the upcoming years after it would have reduced its current heavy spending on the electricity programme.

Agriculture accounted for 58% of GDP in 2007 and it grew by about 5% in 2008 and 2009 (down from a 14% increase in 2007). Sierra Leone remains a net importer of food despite agriculture’s large share of GDP and employment. The sector has been dominated traditionally by subsistence agriculture and it suffers from a number of constraints including private handling of production and marketing ; poor infrastructure (especially roads) which hinders access to markets ; weak extension services that impede the delivery of training and information to farmers; limited irrigation and financing ; and poor storage facilities.

In addition, weak institutional capacity such as access to information, undermines policy formulation and co-ordination of stakeholder activity. Critics also contend that the rural land tenure system, which precludes free-holding, inhibits investment as land is either communally or family-owned.

In 2009 the government, in coordination with WFP and other stakeholders, made efforts to address these problems and to boost agricultural productivity by promoting the use of equipment and inputs, extending irrigation, providing post-harvest facilities (storage facilities, drying floors, rice mills and threshers) as well as animal feed mills and abattoirs, setting up community banks and financial services associations and improving marketing infrastructure by constructing and rehabilitating feeder roads and community markets.

Despite these moves, hundreds of tractors and other equipment are yet to be distributed to deserving farmers and the WFP has warned that Sierra Leone might not be able to cope with the maintenance and upkeeping of these equipments.

Sierra Leone also has substantial marine resources with a 560 kilometre-long shoreline. Fishing is undertaken at the industrial and artisanal levels. However, widespread poaching of Sierra Leone’s territorial waters was a major problem in 2009 and in what was seen as a real ridicule to justice, questions were raised on how a magistrate in September 2009 fined a foreign fishing vessel and 26 crew members caught fishing illegally in Sierra Leone waters, a sum of $155,000 – which is less than one-twentieth of the mandatory fines for fish poachers proscribed by the 1994 Fisheries (Management and Development) Decree.

Permanent Secretary at the Marine Resources Ministry, Paul Sandi, was outraged at the small fine and told reporters that such lax enforcement of the Act would only encourage poachers and destroy a potentially saucy part of income for government.

Services accounted for 34% of the country’s GDP in 2007. Having contracted by 6%

in 2007, services rebounded in 2008 with 5% growth.

The financial sector continues to expand in 2009 with the number of commercial banks increasing to 14. Though questions have been raised about the strength and efficiency of these commercial banks, one positive thing they have succeeded in achieving is recruiting many of the nation’s unemployed graduates.

Tourism is at present very limited but it is growing and shows good potential. The government has a critical role to play in planning and promoting the sector, particularly in improving the country’s external image and attractiveness as a tourist destination.

More fundamental constraints include poor infrastructure, especially electricity, and the difficulties of accessing the country from Lungi International Airport which can only be accessed by ferry or by helicopter.

Despite some of these actions, the nation is still short of replicating a huge pro-tourism campaign as done by countries such as Ghana and The Gambia. Obviously, more needs to be done in international promotion, restoration and maintenance of tourists’ attractions throughout the country.

Industry growth remained constant as most of the nation’s industries are more of assembly structures in which most of the contents are imported and then packed or assembled here.

Manufacturing accounted for just 2% of GDP in 2008 and was expected to be in the same region for 2009 reflecting the country’s low level of industrial development.

The sector has not witnessed much growth in 2009 and that means continued reliance on foreign imported goods which is a bad thing for the economy.

Sierra Leone’s mineral resources include diamonds, rutile (titanium ore), bauxite, iron ore and gold. However, the mining sector’s importance to Sierra Leone is understated in national accounts. Mining accounts for over 90% of export revenues. It is also the second largest employer providing employment to an estimated 300, 000 people. Semi-industrial production of Kimberlite diamonds began in 2003.

Before then, diamond production was largely undertaken on an artisanal basis with its attendant environmental and physical risks. A large proportion of artisanal miners still live in poverty in 2009 hampered by problems of access to finance and markets.

Establishing secured property rights for these miners and their families is also a huge challenge. To address this, the government established a mining cadastre to provide information on land rights and use. Still, in 2009, many workers complain just like in the past that the government and the labour ministry are not doing much to augment their condition of services in the difficult working environment they found themselves.

In order to ensure tight monitoring, the government continues to participate in the Kimberly Diamond Certification Process which aims to combat trade in conflict diamonds.

It also participated in the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative which seeks to improve the management of mineral resources by publishing information on government revenues from natural resources. Changes to the structure of the mines ministry are planned and the government intends to consolidate regulations.

The mining sector in Sierra Leone still faces several challenges including the application of legal and regulatory framework.

There was however a particularly positive news for the iron ore sector as mineral exploration company, African Minerals, announced in July that it expected $2.6 billion in capital expenditure at its flagship iron-ore project at Tonkolili and forecast production to start in 2013.

The capital expenditure forecast included costs for the mine and the building of a railroad and a deep-water port. This is a good news as the local economy is set to benefit.

Taxation which is also a growing source of revenue for the government was hit by a serious setback when majority of the nation’s business people set up a united front against the government’s much-heralded Goods and Services Tax (GST) saying its introduction will lead to an increase in prices of goods and services.

One of the business people who criticised the GST, Mr Ibrahim Sesay, warned at a joint seminar with the Natioanl Revenue Authority NRA in July 2009 that if President Koroma fails to properly review the GST and avoid what he referred to as the ‘Ghanaian experience’, many business people will run away from Sierra Leone to neighbouring countries.

The NRA still argue that importers will pay less taxation under the GST. Whatever the case will be, 2009 could be seen as the year in which the government was forced to backtrack on a taxation system it was about to institute.

Despite the onset of the global recession towards the end of 2008, government statistics and AEO projection believed the real GDP increased by 5.4% in 2008 with 6.3% and 5.5% growth anticipated for 2009 and 2010 respectively.

In 2008, growth was due primarily to an 8.2% increase in private consumption made possible by the increase in agricultural production in 2007 and 2008 and this trend is predicted to continue in 2009 and 2010.

Gross capital formation is forecast to increase faster than consumption in 2009 and 2010 more than doubling its 2008 growth rate to 12.1% in 2009 and expanding even further by 14.3% in 2010. In particular, public investment is expected to triple in 2009 to rise by 15.2% with private investment predicted to be slightly lower at 11.1%.

As such, gross capital formation is anticipated to contribute 1.1% to real GDP growth in 2009 and 1.3% of growth in 2010 though this remains low relative to the effect of total consumption on growth.

On the other hand, the trade deficit widened in 2008 as exports fell 2.6% and imports rose by 10.4% exerting a 3.4 point negative effect on GDP. The global recession is expected to put downward pressure on exports, remittances and foreign aid causing the trade deficit to widen further.

The most positive news for the country’s economy this year was the announcement of oil discovery in Sierra Leone. Though its economic viability is yet to be proven, the Sierra Leone government has already begun to benefit from the discovery with some of the bidding companies already paying up for dimensional surveys (3D surveys).

Controversy has already began to shoot up with critics accusing Anadarko Petroleum of not helping the Sierra Leone economy by not helping the local economy when the company went all the way to Senegal to purchase goods and services which should have been easily done in Sierra Leone.

Recent media reports also exposed rift between Anadarko and a Nigerian company, Oranto Petroleum, about the share of the carved out area the oil deposits are thought to be located.

More importantly however, there was also accusation from the Nigerian company that Anadarko had already begun drilling oil and giving out statistics in the absence of a single Sierra Leonean.

They warned that it was a dangerous signal because the staff on board can give any data or statistics. Although Mr Raymond Saidu Kamara is said to have joined the oil station, there are still serious questions to be asked and issues to be clarified as 2010 emerges and before majority of Sierra Leoneans start asking for the whereabouts of the revenue generated from oil.

The challenges going forward will be to consolidate growth and address the enduring risk factors for conflict such as widespread unemployment and poverty. Rise in inflation, which was a massive concern in 2009, is also important as its far reaching impact affects majority of Sierra Leoneans who are low income earners.

The year 2009 ends up with rising prices of basic goods simply because the dollar keeps going up and importers are having a field day increasing prices and citing the rise of the dollar as the reason for their action.

2009 can be seen as a year of disappointment for the majority of consumers who woke up every morning going to their retailers only to be confronted with a hiked price of their usual commodities.

Media in review

Since the 80s, the media has played a crucial role in the social-political scene of the country but this year can be seen as a true watershed that has always existed between the majority of journalists and the ruling elite in the country.

The coming of Umaru Fofanah to the helms of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalist SLAJ which was heralded as a right choice by most media practitioners and cried down by pro-government supporters as an anti-APC to the core, saw him wasting no time to make good his campaign promise to aid the removal of the obnoxious defamatory and seditious libel part V sections of the Public Order Act of 1965.

On March 9, 2009, SLAJ made a final passionate argument to the Supreme Court in which legal counsel representing SLAJ Yada Williams argued the association’s case for repeal of the criminal and seditious libel law, an act SLAJ deems as inconsistent to the country’s 1991 Constitution.

As expected, the nation’s highest court did not give in so SLAJ took a war path and in June 2009 declared a one-week news blackout on the judiciary. The association branded the inaction of the Supreme Court as “a denial of justice” to the association which might have the tendency to be repeated against other individuals or associations.

The ban which was later extended was modified by SLAJ exempting the Sierra Leone Bar Association later.

That was the biggest and most notable confrontation between the nation’s most notable media body and the Judiciary since the death of late FDP editor, Harry Yansaneh.

However SLAJ was very skilful in diverting some of the pressure on the government of President Koroma whose proponent argued that there was no need for the urgent alarm bells SLAJ is raising because the current government is yet to convict any journalist with the said Act.

Adding to this pressure, SLAJ after serious war of words directly with the IG of Police, Acha Kamara, defiantly demonstrated and handed over a petition to the Ombudsman, Edmond Cowan, and the President’s office for what it said was in reaction to the failure by the Supreme Court to deliver a verdict in the Association’s case for repeal of the Criminal and Seditious Libel Law.

Journalists who supported the move were however buoyed by their meeting with the Ombudsman who accepted their petition.

However, an interesting twist in these events and confrontations is that it led to yet another division within the media, with some media practitioners branding Fofanah and his administration as radicals with a different agenda.

Notable among them are Philip Neville, executive editor for Standard Times and David Tam Baryoh of Citizen Radio who openly castigated Fofanah for taking SLAJ in a wrong direction.

2009 is an eventful year for the media in Sierra Leone from the so-called kidnap/arrest of a journalist by police in the north to the capture in Kenema of female journalists Manja Balama-Samba by some Soweis and other members of the Bondo secret society for allegedly reporting on the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). Variety of dramatic events surrounded journalists.

As usual in Sierra Leone, the media is not immuned from the political wrangling that goes on within. But this time around, it was the nation’s two leading political parties that took to the media war.

The controversial decision of Vice President Sam Sumana to close both the SLPP and ruling APC radio stations created another heated moment that led to a confrontation between SLAJ and the government.

SLAJ president Fofanah directly accused the government of undermining free speech and setting a bad precedent by closing the radio stations. Whilst some in the media clearly signalled red alert on the implications of that decision, there was also a genuine belief that both stations were inciting hatred and violence similar to what the infamous Radio Milles Collines in Rwanda did in 1994-95.

There were tragedies for the media also this year as journalists lost some of it members including the oldest member of SLAJ Mr Samuel Jocelyn Augustine Short, fondly called Sam Short who gracefully bowed out at the age of 85 years on January 10th 2009.

Sports

2009 was aptly not a good year for sports in Sierra Leone. Much had been anticipated for the nation’s most popular sporting discipline, football; but disappointingly for the majority of us, our darling Leone Stars were eliminated from all international competitions.

Football in Sierra Leone encountered lots of problems in 2009 even though the breakthrough of the new Premier League Board must not be underestimated but there is a lot more to be done.

For the first time in Sierra Leone, a different body from the ineffective SLFA was running the league and giving the clubs more power and revenue in gate takings and deals from sponsors.

The refereeing situations also improved and there were less controversies. This was perhaps a flexible board comprising of reputable professionals who were proactive and effectively addressing issues arising during the league.

According to FIFA, 2009 is the worst year in the history of Sierra Leone football as the country moved 40 places backwards in their rankings in July which is the worst ever mover for the country. We all just hope that the year 2010 will be a marked different from 2009.

Either way round, critics in 2009 have pointed to the lack of proper management and infighting from within SLFA to the nation’s Olympic committee as the cause for some of the huge complex problems that still hinder these sporting disciplines.

Take SLFA for instance whose president, Nahim Khady, has been out of the country for the most part of the year 2009, there have been huge funds in 2009 coming from CAF and FIFA, but what have they actually been doing with it?

This decadent even forced former SLFA President, Justice Tolla Thompson to voice concern in 2009 about the management of the Sierra Leone Football Academy, when he described the Academy at Kingdom as a white elephant and appealed to the new Premier League Board to do something about it before it collapse finally.

Another high point in Sierra Leone sport this year was the participation of Ola Sesay in the world athletics meetings in Berlin 2009. Though she was unable to capture a medal, Sesay brought pride to Sierra Leoneans as she put up a stiff challenge in the qualifying series in the long jump category with the world’s best athletes.

Although most Sierra Leoneans do not understand the game of cricket, the national team did better than any other sporting discipline in 2009. The game brought accolades to Sierra Leone but the highpoint went sour when our flickering hopes of taking part in the Under-19 World Cup were finally put torest when the team failed to arrive in Canada before the expiry of the ICC’s September 5 deadline.

Officially, it was stated that visa applications for the squad were submitted late whereas local newspapers reported that the Canadian Consulate in Ghana refused the players visas on the grounds that there were concerns that some of them will not return home.

However, despite the laurels won by the Sierra Leone Crickets Association SLCA in the past years, nothing has been done by the past government to lift the ban slammed on the Kingtom Oval by the International Cricket Council (ICC) since 2004.

But as 2009 gives way to 2010, there is hope in some quarters that at least some form of rejuvenation will take place within the National Olympic Committee and the football administration.

And as the Director of Sports, Bai Kabia, told Parliamentary oversight Committee on Education, Youth and Sports, the 1964 Act of Parliament which created the National Sports Council Act should be revisited if sport is to take a different turn in the country.

About the Author

Muctaru Wurie is a Sierra Leonean born writer who grew up in Freetown at a time the war in Sierra Leone reached it peak.
Growing up in the eastern part of the capital city, Muctaru said he was inspired to writing when he was a kid attending the Cathedral Boys Primary School, as they used to have various writing sessions & essay in which he usually excelled.
He later attended the St Edwards Secondary School and then Fourah Bay College where he had a BA Honours in Mass Communications. Since then he has written on almost all aspects of Sierra Leonean society, sometimes taking a critical look at issues that are mostly deemed as taboo in the country.
Muctaru’s works have been published in various publications from All Africa.com, Sierra Eye Magazine to Fourah Bay College Journal – Aureol Torch.
He has also edited The New Tempo and Kalleone Newspaper. Muctaru has worked in the humanitarian field also, acting as a Communications Officer for Handicap International Sierra Leone and The Mohamed Kallon Children’s Foundation (MKCF).