The people of Sierra Leone are confronted with increasing hard times and difficulties day in day out as they work hard to improve their living condition in this part of the world.
While they struggle hard to eke out a living in order to survive, they continue to battle with rapidly increasing inflation and rise in prices of goods and services, especially foodstuffs and essential household needs.
A recent report by Statistics Sierra Leone – the institution that is charged with the responsibility of collecting, researching, collating and keeping records of national facts and development in Sierra Leone – has shown that the country’s inflationary trend has continued to soar into the stratosphere, which is tantamount to making life more difficult in the country.
Rapid or galloping inflation has continued to hit the country hard over the last four years and more so in recent months, weeks and days.
Latest facts by Statistics Sierra Leone show that the country’s national inflation rate for the month of April has skyrocketed to an alarming 22.44% from 22.06% in March 2022, registering a further increment of 0.38%.
Report indicates that household equipment registered an inflation rate of 4.29% rising to 33.04% in April from 28.75% in March.
While the prices of other goods like alcoholic beverages and tobacco fell by 4.80% from 23.57% in March to 18.77% in April, essential miscellaneous goods and services increased by 3.94% from 13.54 in March to 17.48% in April.
Also, while the prices of clothing and footwear dropped by 1.16% from 8.51% to 7.35% in April, food inflation also increased by 0.04% and non-food items by 1.06%.
Stats Sierra Leone also gave some rundown of the runaway inflation in the regions across the country, saying the Eastern region of the country experienced the highest increase of 4.25% from 25.56% to 29.81% and the West also grappled with a rise by 0.06% from 20.02% to 20.08%, while the Northern province experienced a drop of 3.03% from 19.55% to 16.02%.
The soaring inflation in the country is mainly attributed to the Russia-Ukraine war. But is this the whole truth or causative factor?
It is a fact that both the Russia-Ukraine war and the Covid-19 pandemic have seriously affected world economies including the Sierra Leone economy, causing shortage and hike in price of fuel and gas across a large part of the world.
However, there is still more to the economic hardship and soaring prices of goods and services in Sierra Leone than meet the eye (thanks to economic conditionality from some international partners and donors).
The fact remains that the country is also challenged by bad economic management by the Bio administration, which has even caused a renowned economist in the country Prince Macauley to denounce the current economic pathway of the government and call for the Bank Governor to be removed from office.
Sierra Leone’s economic challenge and runaway inflation is largely due to poor handling of the political, social and economic affairs of the country, to the extent that Freetown, which is the hub of business transaction and centre of economic activities, is today starved for electricity supply to the detriment of the country’s productivity and national income.
Except for some few districts, most of the country is suffering from constant power outage and stifling economic activities and business growth.
A recent case in point is Kono, which, few days ago, was described as the darkest city in Sierra Leone by the Member of Parliament for Constituency 27 in Kono District, Hon. Francis Saa Bhendu, whilst he was deliberating on the latest 2022 Presidential Speech at parliament.
In recent times, the hardest hit on the life of people in the country has been the skyrocketing pump price of petroleum products, which has seen gasoline and kerosene rise to Le15,000.00 (about US1.4), and it is expected to soon rise again. This rise in fuel pump price has shot up the cost of transportation and prices of virtually all goods and services in the country, leading to a killing cost-push inflation that has aggravated hardship and poverty in Sierra Leone.
The negative economic realities of the society have gone so bad that today there is so much cry in the heart and eyes of Sierra Leoneans as regards the current dire straits of the national economy, which has rendered the country and the people in a state of sixes and sevens. And with the runaway inflation terrorizing the economy of the country, more suffering, hardship and poverty continue to be the portion of the people under the current state of affairs.
Inflation, which is merely a persistent rise in the price level of goods and services, needs effective management from the relevant state authorities such as the Bank Governor, the Finance and Economic Affairs minister, the Trade and Industry minister among others. Inflation, therefore, should be managed so effective and well that it is prevented from going galloping or runaway.
Inflation, which may be one of four types: demand-pull inflation, cost-push inflation, structural inflation, or social inflation, can continue to cause severe hardship and deepening poverty in society if it lacks effective and efficient management.
Demand-pull inflation, sometimes referred to as excess-demand inflation, is much more likely to occur in a fully employed economy because of the difficulty of producing additional goods and services to satisfy societal demand.
For cost-push inflation, it takes place when material costs or wages do increase for some reason. Producers in turn are likely to increase the prices of their finished goods and services to protect their profit margins, which leads to increase in prices of goods and services, and the spiral trend continues.
Structural inflation does occur when there is a substantial shift in demand to the products of one industry away from other industries. And Social inflation results from the increasing demand for more government services in the form of higher Social Security payments, improved unemployment benefits, the distribution of more welfare, wider health care coverage, better rent subsidies, and a host of other social services.
In the case of Sierra Leone, we experience more of cost-push and demand-pull inflations, which can be engineered by excessive human needs and or by hoarding or artificial means by business operators to make more profits.
By and large, economic management requires effective and efficient managers who are prudent and genuine in serving the nation, using transformative and carefully selective actions or steps to build the economy, which is largely lacking in Sierra Leone.
Forum therefore upholds the conclusion that Sierra Leone deserves better economic managers to salvage the country’s economy and place its economic infrastructure on a progressive pathway of national development.
