When people worked they are expected to be paid. People have worked since the month of July to this time with no salary. But in the beginning it was not so. People have worked and expected to be paid. But what is causing the delay to their payment remains the answer of the Finance ministry.
The new political dispensation promised to run the nation on a clean slate and with no backlog payment to workers. They also promised to solve the bread and butter issue, announcing revenues collected from the National Revenue Authority (NRA) on almost a daily basis. We had all the hope that the economic problem of Sierra Leone has been solved, when one calculates the amount of money that could have been collected in a period of one month. This announcement of revenue collected from the NRA went on for some time and later vanished into thin air with no one to give a full financial update.
The Finance Minister J.J Saffa was over vociferous that he has the solution to our economic situation. We waited and we grumbled because of no solution. He came up again to inform the nation that even if they had to change the minister of that ministry, it is not easy for the problem to solve.
Minister of Finance J.J. Saffa is an economist with vast working experience from the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) commonly known as the World Bank. But whether his duties at the World Bank were on fiscal policies or to aid the administration of the bank, demands clarification.
Trading was done by the Bank of Sierra Leone through the bank Governor Professor Kelfala Kallon, selling the Dollar to the public, and to make it readily available to the business community. He thought that was the best way of bringing down the price of the dollar. In few days, the dollar became scarce and with astronomical value. For now the dollar is trading at the cost of One million and sixty thousand Leones (LE 1,060,000.00) which is believe that the Adam Smith, Lionel Robbins and many economists cannot easily stabilised if they were to be resurrected to correct the anomalies.
The COVID-19 is here, and we are worried by the scenario it has already caused to our nation and the world at large. The COVID-19 is still a problem demanding high attention from the medical experts. Every day, there is a new description of its devastating effects to countries of high socio-economic enhancement. We have received bailout to manage the situation and with the hope to receive a positive result. But whether Sierra Leone could produce the best result to prevent its spread remain unanswered.
If the COVID-19 is gone and our economy is not moving, then where do we expect to get more money to finance our expenditure? The bailing out received to address the COVID-19 issue went a long way to augment some of the economic predicament of the nation. If the COVID-19 money is not fully or properly utilized, then the need to go without salary becomes paramount for the next few months.
We have been reading news on some government parastatals facing parliament. The news on Sierratel is not encouraging, and it seems to be a burden to the government if allowed to continue without privatization. Serratel is supposedly set up to help in resource mobilization for the government to meet some of it daily expenditure. The lack of a board to supervise the work of Sierratel has made it difficult for the company to even buy the required amount of fuel to run some of the machines. And again, the issue of personality differences is highly contending against the total collaboration to produce positive result for the company. This is a State owned institution and needs the attention of government. Sierratel cannot run effectively on its own if the government cannot supervise it efficiently. The exorbitant salaries paid to the workers without government realising any dividend from it, is enough to collapse the company.
The government boasted they were going to stop all the financial leakages to ensure effective and efficient utilization of generated resources. If Sierratel is observed as one of the leakages, it is better to close or privatize it to avoid spending unnecessarily on things that paid no dividend to the State.
Coming back to those that are still crying for their monthly salary, it is good for the government to address the issue now. These people have family to look after, pay their rents, and have other financial obligation to settle. Leaving them without addressing their issues will serve as a recipe for corruption. To save the government from corruption, government should give more priorities to the payment of salaries. You cannot expect workers to lick their hands in the absent of payment. And in the absence of payment, whatever comes their way will be surely utilized unlawfully to make ends meet.
