The Government of President Bio has seemed to get it everywhere, but many have noted that they have missed the economic formula and hence the country’s private sector is crumbling. This is largely attributed to over taxation.
The Bio Government is on record of having a very impressive scorecard in revenue mobilization, the best in the history of the country. The Government has been able to singlehandedly fund most of its flagship projects for the first time without external donor support.
While the Government continues to register such successes, the private sector, which remains the engine of growth in any economy, is virtually crumbling as a result of the levying of Goods and Services and other indirect and direct taxes on their businesses and services.
This state of affairs is further fuelled by the depreciating nature of the leone against the dollar and the pricing of non-trade goods in dollars, etc.
The Governor of the Bank of Sierra Leone, Professor Kallon, has advised the Government to cut down on taxes, fight the trade of non-trade goods in dollars and the illegal trade in foreign currency as ways out of this present economic quagmire.
The country’s private sector community is crying that Government is placing very taxes on their businesses and services, while the business climate is challenged by a number of limitations such as unsustainable electricity, weak laws and regulations largely incompatible with other countries in the sub-region.
The investors in the country’s mobile sector are challenging Government over a recent proposal by the National Revenue Authority to tax FREE CALLS AND PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITIES.
They have argued that they, as mobile network operators, pay SPECTRUM Fees to NATCOM just like in other countries and that it would be unfair to pay to the NRA other taxes again. They have complained that they spend over 30% of their total income on taxes and NATCOM is also equally taxing incoming and outgoing international calls.
The change of management at SALCAB is also an issue for them, since this has resulted into them being removed from the Board as agreed in the PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP ARRANGEMENT between them and Government.
They have noted that this is challenging their efforts to get an appreciable mobile penetration and population coverage for Sierra Leone, which remains low compared to Senegal, Mali and Guinea.
These issues and many more are increasingly challenging the private sector. This is in many ways correspondingly having a devastating impact on the ordinary man, who is at the receiving end in terms of the being the direct recipient of goods, works and services produced by the PRIVATE SECTOR.
President Bio has openly noted, in an interview with the BCC, that indeed his people are suffering. He acknowledged that this was largely due to the policies they have adopted at the macroeconomic level. He disclosed that such policies have definitely had an impact on the low class.
While we continue to wait for a solution many petty and big businesses continue to close down and things continue to bite as many are finding it difficult to leave by their meager salaries.
How will we come out of such an economic quagmire, which has been translated to the ‘Gron Dry,’ is on the lips of many Sierra Leoneans.