China’s investment alone will be of little aid to Sierra Leone without the United States, United Kingdom, European Union and other regional and sub-regional organisations who have been the country’s traditional development partners.
The Chinese are businessmen with little interest in funding elections, human rights, security, justice, rule of law and democracy which constitute the bedrock of governance. Reason for lack of interest is not hidden: it involves gratis spending which China is not ready to ho into.
They spend their money only where they hope to reap profit and nothing else. They offer loans to poor countries in Africa and Latin America who pay back with interest sometimes high interest rate. The toll gate project between Freetown and Masiaka is a splendid example.
The Chinese went into 25-year agreement with Sierra Leone Government to construct Freetown-Masiaka road and collect the money on a toll system. Government will have only 5 per cent as China takes the lion share.
This press recently learned that government’s percentage has reached 10. According to the terms of agreement, the Chinese will continue to collect money for 25 years before the road is handed over to the state. Similar business deal also applies to Freetown’s National Stadium whose agreement for the Chinese is well underway.
Had APC (All People’s Congress) won the elections, China would have gone into agreement with government for the construction of a standard international airport but with a debt of over US$200m thus worsening the country’s debts.
Currently, it is no more a secret that President Bio is mesmerising China to express an interest in the construction of the Targrin-Lungi bridge which has been one of Bio’s key promises in the 2018 rallies.
If the deal goes as planned, Sierra Leone, for centuries, will remain under China as a debtor and will readily answer the quick call for a China-Africa summit in Beijing owing to its pecuniary obligation to the Chinese.
Bio’s choice to work with China instead of UK, the United States, the EU, World Bank and International Monetary Fund will surely worsen the debt stress into which the country has been plunged for the past five years.
Most times, the Chinese come closer to a country of huge mineral wealth as they hope to enjoy lucrative business. Sierra Leone is blessed with Iron Ore, Diamonds, Gold, Rutile, Chromite, Bauxite and other minerals which are of strategic interest to China, and therefore would not hesitate to have a foothold in Sierra Leone.
For them, it is a land of milk and honey as the resources to fuel their factories back home are derived right from here in Sierra Leone. In their business transactions with African countries, debt diplomacy has always been China’s most effective weapon.
They give out loans to impoverished countries with relatively high interest rate talk less of countries which default on payment.
The Chinese are everywhere on the continent, but with little or no contribution to governance, economy, politics and other sectors.
In their quest to exploit the mineral wealth, they care not whether bad or good governance prevails, and all that they know is business with little or no knowledge that good governance is the bedrock of peace, stability and prosperity. Despite its attendant challenges, democracy is the entry point to good governance as it is based on recognition and respect for the holder of power and authority.
It is indisputable that power and authority belongs to the people and not government. Constitutions in several African states contain clauses that points out that sovereignty belongs to the people from whom government derives their powers, legitimacy and authority.
Any act that falls short of the accepted mode of power acquisition, most times, lead to conflicts, revolutions, wars and coups as seen in Guinea, Niger, Burkina Fasso, Mali, Gabon, Somalia, Libya and the list continues. The conflict phenomena raises the question of how can one invest in business and ignore good governance on which every activity of the state is anchored.
It also brings about the question of how Bio quickly turns his back against the West particularly Britain, United States, Ireland and European Union.
In the first place, Britain is Sierra Leone’s former colonial power who immensely contribute to what Sierra Leone is today.
The European Union, the United States and Ireland as well as other Western countries have been helping Sierra Leone in no small measure especially during and after the war although President Bio says the West and the United States did not help Sierra Leone in the war period.
Bio came closer to China after June 24, 2023 elections after he was isolated by the United States and Europe owing to the fraudulent nature of the elections. Currently, the Americans and the Brits are after Bio to publish the election results or go for a rerun, a request which Bio has openly turned down fostering bad blood between him and the world powers.
While in opposition, Bio heavily leaned on the West and the United States to come to power, but now relies on China once he is in power.