The Price Consumer Index Report for January 2019 has confirmed that the skyrocketing prices of food, clothing, footwear, furniture household equipment, alcoholic beverages and other social services is as a result of the depreciation of the local currency as against the foreign currency, especially the US dollar.
The National CPI measures the change in prices, on average, from month to month, of the goods and services bought in by households in Freetown, Bo, Kenema, Kono and Makeni, including all expenditure groups.
The report has referenced an increase in health spending, from 1.32 percent in December 2018 to 1.58 percent in January, 2019. The rate increased by 0.26 percentage point.
Education also increased from 0.25 percent in December 2018 to 0.45 percent in January, 2019. The rate increased by 0.20 percentage point.
Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels increased from 1.18 percent in December 2018 to 1.48 percent in January, 2019. The rate increased by 0.30 percentage point. Fuel prices, according to the report, have not affected market prices.
Annual National Consumer Price inflation stands at 17.08 percent in January 2019, down from 17.46 percent in December 2018, while the monthly consumer price inflation for January, 2019 is 1.34 percent.
The Governor of the Bank of Sierra Leone has recently stated in Freetown that dollarization, which is the use of foreign exchange in non trade goods, was critical to the stabilization of the leone. He noted that Government effect serious measures to ensure that individuals who trade in foreign currency are fully registered with the Bank of Sierra Leone.
The Government of President Julius Maada Bio, which is almost a year in office, is struggling to stabilize the economy and the task has proved difficult to attain at the moment. The Government has kept on rolling out economically ambitious projects, including the roadmap for future development activities in the country, the Medium Term Development Project, which costs USD 7.70 billion.
Even though the Government continues to make the defence that they inherited the worst economy since independence, domestic revenue generations continues to rise by the day, with the NRA taking a robust posture in the collection of taxes. This is further supported by the introduction of the Single Treasury Account and other extraordinary measures.
International support has began trickling in against the backdrop that the Government has made significant strides in combating graft, with the ACC already collecting billions of leones of stolen money. This in itself has restored the confidence of the international financial institutions, including the International Monetary Fund, which has committed in restarting the Extended Credit Facility Program in the country, the World Bank and other multilateral partners like Britain, China and the EU have committed to support various sectors of the country’s development trajectory.
With all these good economic recovery steps, the effects are still not being felt back home. The ordinary Sierra Leonean is still worried whether things will change. They are concerned that the President is increasingly criss crossing the world with little impact back home, coupled with overspending in pre-election promises.
The release of the 2019 consumer price index against the one year reign of the Government is in essence an evaluation of their performance even though not in totality. Most indicators have proved improvement in the areas of education, energy and other variables.
Opposition critics have taken advantage of the gaps created by the inability of the varied Government communication outfits to infiltrate the ordinary man and provide a justification for the frequent travels by the President, including what this will mean for our economy and our international relations.
As we head for the second leg of the President’s five year, we will continue to gauge the mood around prospects for the growth of the economy.