*Rice (bag): From Le200, 000 to Le600, 000
*Palm Oil: From Le200, 000 to 650, 000
*Cooking Oil: from Le180, 000 to Le800, 000
*Clothing (Jean trousers): From Le70, 000 to Le200, 000
*US Dollar Exchange Rate: From $100 Le750,000 to $100 Le2.1m for
Sierra Leoneans once more have been taken aback following news filtering through the public that the price of rice has again been raised. The new price remains unknown for the moment, but a worried commercial motorist (‘okada rider’), Lamin Jusu left his residence early to investigate the new price.
Jusu said he is used to buying a half bag of rice at Le280, 000 (two hundred and eighty thousand leones) of late.
Upon returning home, he discovered that a bag of rice hovers between Le600, 000 and Le700, 000. Others say a bag for a quality rice will soon hit Le800, 000 (eight hundred thousand Leones), a point of no return. A resident at Calaba Town in Eastern Freetown, Adama Sesay said Sierra Leone today is about seeing tomorrow.
‘It will come to a time when one would live on only a morsel of rice if situation continues in this way,’ she cried out. Adama prays that God provides lucrative jobs for her son so that they could meet their economic challenges. Rice is Sierra Leone’s staple food, and a hike in price means a lot to the people.
Even the size of a loaf of bread has considerably contracted while the price has shot up. Before now, a five hundred leones bread can kill the hunger of a lone wayfarer, but it is the reverse in current times. A loaf is now Le5,000 (five thousand Leones ), and that alone cannot satisfy one man. The size, however, varies as one that is sold Le1,500 (one thousand five hundred Leones) is not enough for a kindergartener, talk less of a mature man or woman.
As the prices of rice and bread soar, many Sierra Leoneans wonder about claims that over 70 per cent of the country’s land is arable. It also makes mockery of SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party)’s bread-and-butter promise to the people of Sierra Leone.
The current Chief Minister, Jacob Jusu Saffa who was Minister of Finance is well known for his bread-and-butter and pro-poor budget ranting. The phraseology, hard it worked well, means that government would have cater for the food needs of all and sundry, but it later turned out to be a mere hoax. Saffa became Finance Minister in the early days of President Julius Maada Bio’s government, an appointment that raised great hopes among the populace. He exploited the people’s desperate need for food in the APC days.
The campaign and rally song at that time meant that food was the people’s topmost priority. The anti-government slogan ‘TOLONGBO NOR DAE SIDON YA, HANGRY BOKU’ which means APC (All People’s Congress) would not rule here again because hunger was too much, sent a compelling message in March 2018.
One of the most basic food stuff in the country, palm oil, too has been badly affected. The price for a jerry can of palm oil currently stands at Le650, 000 (six hundred and fifty thousand leones), a situation that has generated grumblings among women at market centres. In the pre-SLPP days, the price was Le200, 000, and no one expected that it would hit a record high in such a short time.
Closely related to the palm oil price is the price of cooking oil which has shifted from Le180, 000 to Le800, 000 (eight hundred thousand Leones) with an acute fear that it might reach Le1m if efforts are not made to contain it.
Clothing which is also a basic need has become another big challenge for Sierra Leoneans. A pair of jeans pants. which three years ago was sold at Le70, 000 (seventy thousand Leones)is now being bought at over Le200, 000. Clothes of celebrities are much more expensive, but they are better off since they are not in the majority. The have-nots who find it difficult to fend for themselves are in higher proportions in the population.
The soaring prices to a large extent owe their genesis to the foreign exchange rate. SLPP government has found it difficult to control prices because it has failed to optimise the exchange rate between the leone and the US dollar. In pre-SLPP days, a US$100 would fetch Le750,000.
The same amount of dollar now fetches Le2.1m, a worrying sign for a government which aims at winning one of the toughest elections in the country. Former Bank Governor, Professor Kelfala Kallon had been scratching his head for solutions to the economic meltdown up to the time of his departure.
Prof Kallon is gone without any solution for an ailing economy which has seen gloomy predictions coming from top economic experts. For many Sierra Leoneans, the Bank Governor himself was the cause of the economic malaise, but he later feared what he had created.
In early days of the SLPP administration, Prof Kallon imposed tight restrictions on the dollar trade. He ordered street trading of dollars to halt with immediate effect. The ban meant that anyone who needed dollars should go to the Bank of Sierra Leone. Prof Kallon’s order resulted into big-time hoarding of the US dollar as well as other foreign currencies.
A dollar dealer Osman Kamara said the restrictions were uncalled for referring to the Bank Governor’s action as beginning a war he could not win. At the time the Bank Governor announced the restriction, Kamara went on, millions of US dollars was in private hands, and hoarding could not be ruled out.
‘If you say we should not sell the dollar on the streets, we are definitely going to hoard it,’ Kamara told this press in an interview several months ago.
Printing of the new leones to replace the old was a policy that raised new hope again among the public.
Almost every Sierra Leonean expected that the arrival of the new leones would have stabilised the exchange rate, and solve problems of inflation in the country. The move however ended in total failure.
Continuous postponement of the deadline for the old leone to be phased out is a sign of incompetence on the Bank Governor’s side. The heads of two top-ranking officials in the Ministry of Finance have rolled. Former Minister of Finance Denis Vandy and Professor Kelfala Kallon have been replaced, but the problem still remains.