By Ambassador Kabs Kanu
Sierra Leone’s spirit of dependency during the infelicitous and hapless regime of clueless President Maada Bio is interminable.
The Bio government has turned Sierra Leone into an abhorrent beggar nation. Profligacy and exorbitance with the country’s resources by the government have left President Bio with only one option-Borrow more money to cover the economic holes the government keeps digging through the president’s wasteful travels and the excessive misuse of the country’s money.
If this SLPP government stays in power, Sierra Leone will never get out of debt. Sierra Leone is heavily indebted to the World Bank, IMF, ADB and international donor nations and organizations.
Sierra Leone’s external debt is estimated to be U.S $3 billion and much more of this was incurred by the Bio government. According to the World Bank, here is the progression:
“Sierra Leone external debt for 2022 was $2,331,196,990, a 4.88% decline from 2021.
Sierra Leone external debt for 2021 was $2,450,704,006, a 16.19% increase from 2020.
Sierra Leone external debt for 2020 was $2,109,178,657, a 13.65% increase from 2019.
Sierra Leone external debt for 2019 was $1,855,825,335, a 5.61% increase from 2018.”
Macrotrends.net
According to the World Bank, Sierra Leone’s debt burden reached 98.9% of the GDP at the end of 2022 and this problem of debt was exacerbated when this government came to power in 2018. Bio plans to add more debt on the nation with his white elephant projects like the Lungi Bridge which is expected to thrust at least U.S $4 billion more debt on Sierra Leone.
Though the government spokesman, Apha Kanu, in a national TV appearance last month said that the Lungi Bridge project had been abandoned because it was not cost-effective and profitable, President Bio, who has lost the goodwill of the Sierra Leonean people and thinks he can impress them with wasteful projects, has been talking once again recently of still pursuing the Lungi Bridge pipedream.
Bio has destroyed the Sierra Leone economy which is characterized by stagnation of the resource base, poor growth performance, low productivity from the mining sector due to bad economic management, inordinate greed, self-aggrandizement, ostentation, rampant corruption, wasteful expenditures on worthless foreign trips by the president, and his lackeys in government, dreadful governance, leading to extreme poverty, escalating prices of basic commodities and consumer goods and deliberate depreciation of the national currency by a psycho Bank Governor (Kelfala Kallon) , who fled the country to escape the wrath of the aggrieved people.
At a time like this, President Maada Bio should have been seen putting together sustainable structures to help Sierra Leone, one of the wealthiest nations in Africa, maximize profits from its prodigious mineral resources like gold, diamonds, bauxite, rutile, iron ore and its human resources. Instead, President Bio was today hailing and celebrating the country’s beggar nation status.
Bio tweeted:
“I am delighted to state that, due to our economic progress, the IMF has agreed to support us with a new Extended Credit Facility Programme and potential access to the Resilience and Sustainability Facility. Additionally, I warmly welcome the IMF’s commitment to assist us in our reforms within the mining sector, particularly through the establishment of the Mineral Wealth Fund to maximize revenue generation.”
When the president talks about economic progress, you know Bio is being Bio —-absolutely deceitful.
To show the ignorance and myopic thought processes of this man calling himself President, Bio considers it a thing of joy and pride for the IMF to grant Sierra Leone more extended credit facility.
Apart from the economy, Bio, the imbecile, has also destroyed his country’s democracy and political stability and Sierra Leoneans are eagerly awaiting the deployment of the ECOMOG troops to help stabilize the country and restore constitutional sanity.
Note: Views and sentiments expressed in this piece are the personal opinion of the writer. They do not in any way represent the editorial position of FORUM NEWS.
