“SLPP is providing bread and butter,” says Jacob Jusu Saffa, Sierra Leone’s Minister of Finance. The quoted statement means# government puts food on the table for its citizens although food remains one of the biggest problems for the people of Sierra Leone.
Local food is hard to come by, and a bag of 50Kg rice is close to Le400, 000 (Four Hundred Thousand Leones). In this situation, food is fastly becoming a luxurious want instead of a need. The price at which rice is sold has shown that it would be difficult for the have-nots to afford it. Extreme poverty is a clear form of vulnerability.
Successive governments of the post-independence period have always exploited that vulnerability. The exploitation of the hunger status of Sierra Leoneans was made more visible in 2018, during the SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) campaign.
Songs denoting people’s hunger were sung in the city, and they were cascaded to the provinces. The songs are still sung today to unmask the propaganda campaign of the Finance Minister. The media are replete with songs showing the people’s hunger songs of yesterday.
A song in Krio: ‘TOLONGO NOR DAE SIDOM YA, ANGRY BOBU OH’ was one of the songs that killed the APC. Many Sierra Leoneans still believe that APC was voted out mainly for failing to cater for the people’s food need. This means the former government of President Koroma could not provide food for its people, and the SLPP presented itself as a party that would solve the problem overnight.
But, no one questioned what miracles would be worked out to have food on the table. SLPP is here with almost three years in governance, but found it to govern, because food, the most basic of the of the people’s needs is yet to be provided.
Minister Saffa has always provided a defence against the absence of food enveloped in an age-old idiomatic Expression-‘bread and butter.’
In his economic analysis of March, 2021, the Minster based his analysis on three key parametres: Where are we coming from? Where are we now? Where are we going?
These three basic questions which formed the analytic thrust of the minister were given out as supplement to newspapers. The media campaign about food on the table is a complete masquerade that leads to nothing. It is a public relations spectacle meant to squander public resources.
The minister posed the questions, and he answered them, himself. In his attempt to answer the question where are we coming from as a country, the issue of huge debts which was used as one the greatest campaign rhetorics also featured prominently. Endemic poverty and other factors were also not ruled out.
“As at 2018, according to Sierra Leone Integrated Household Survey (SLIHS), poverty remains high in Sierra Leone with official poverty rate at 56.8% in 2018. This literally means out of every 10 households in Sierra Leone, six are poor,” the Finance Minister claimed.
The statement there means the people have no means of livelihood adding that in street economics, the people have no bread and butter. In answering the question of where are we now, the Minister touched on several sectors of the economy, but it is prudent to limit this article on his ‘Bread-and-Butter Mantra.’
Mr Saffa who is still preparing to disburse funds for agriculture says government is finalising a ‘major’ policy shift in agriculture towards the private sector for input supply and tractor management after over 50 years with failed public sector leadership in input distribution. The Minister also mentioned that in 2021, government intends to invest in seed and fertilizer and to provide credit to the private sector to make the business possible.
In the medium term, the Minister went on, government’s role would be restricted to certification and regulation. The creation of debt facilities for farmers was also not left out by the minister.
“Government will create special credit facility for agricultural service providers that will replace government input provision,” he assured.
Also in the medium, government will strengthen Farmer Services Associations and link them to community banks. The purported government effort by the minister is to ensure food sufficiency for the realisation of the bread-and-butter promise.
At the same time, the Minister claimed, government has just signed an agreement for large-scale private sector farming in Kafu Bullom and Samu and is finalising similar agreements for Torma Bum in the south. In the Manifesto of 2018 known as the people’s manifesto, agriculture also occupies a prominent place therein.
The overall goal of agricultural policy, under the New Direction, is sustainable and diversified production of food, including crops and animals, on a scale sufficient enough to feed the growing population as well as providing gainful employment while maintaining the natural resource base.
According to the manifesto, priority actions would focus on increasing investment in agriculture, increasing food crop, cash crop and livestock production. Plans are also made in the manifesto for improvement in water and land management in a bid to provide the bread and butter.
In all the promises, one of them remains the most central one. The development and implementation of mechanised commercial farming for migration from the traditional subsistence agriculture to mechanised commercial farming.
The aura and euphoria on investment in the agricultural sector has not reflected on the realities. Farms and swamps still lie fallow in the countryside. No farming takes place there as the youths have taken to commercial bike riding.
A great number of youths have moved from the provinces to the city to tap into bike riding opportunities. Even able-bodied women who can do the women’s work on the farms have also migrated to the city to trade. Most of them have preferred to earn quick money in the city to going to the farms.
As the migration for an improved economic situation continues, the aged have been left in the villages to do the farming. A recent interview with a local farmer in Portloko exposes the naked falsity of the claims made by Minister Saffa.
Sesay told this press that his village had several acres of land that have been for years without farming.
“In the past, we grew food crops such as rice, cassava, and other crops for our own use at home and also for sale at the local market. But, now we never do that because we do not have money to do so,” he said.
He also went on to explain how an employee of the defunct African Minerals Limited, Mohamed Kamara came to invest in agriculture. Kamara persuaded the villagers to start the clearing first before the cultivation would start.
But, the villagers backed out of the deal after they suspected that he was not a genuine investor. Government’s neglect of agriculture has opened a wide room for rogue investors to flood the sector.
Incidents of fraud in the agricultural sector are commonplace; they are not restricted to only Kamara’s community. Sierra Leone, after the war, has seen a number of fake non-governmental oragnisations and individuals who posed as credible investors in the agricultural sector.
This press also spoke to a local farmer in Valunia Chiefdom 27KM north of the southern headquaters of Bo. The farmer told a story similar to Kamara’s. In his story, a fake investor who claimed to have gone from Ghana, had once gone to Mongeri, Valunia Chiefdom headquaters, and promised the farmers of an investment in pepper production. The agricultural fraudster told the people to register with the sum of Le5, 000 and they did.
“After the registration, he left without planting a seedling of pepper. He embezzled all the money given to him,” he narrated.
A closer look at the agricultural sector would let you know that the local farmers mean business, but government is not ready. The Minister should not talk about bread and butter when farming is low key, and a 50Kg bag of rice is chasing Le400, 000.