By Saio Marrah
The Paramount Chief Member of Parliament (PCMP) from Bo District has called for the decentralisation of the Government Printing press and bookshops either at the district or at regional headquarters.
Speaking in Parliament during the final debate of the 2021 Appropriation Act, PC Joe Kangbai Macavoray said people in the provinces found it difficult to access government documents.
He noted that during the Paramount Chieftaincy election, candidates and other interested parties had to travel as far away as from Kailahun District to Freetown for a gazette that would cost just Le 5,000.
He said decentralising it would minimize delay and cost of travel.
Speaking to Politico later, said that because the printing press was only situated in Freetown all the 190 Chiefdoms in the country always come to Freetown for the printing of their local tax receipt books.
“There are 190 chiefdoms in this country. All our local tax books which we pay for are printed by the government printing press. Just imagine the workload they have. If all of us or all our clerks come to Freetown to get those local tax books by taking them to us in the chiefdoms it will be very useful for us to distribute them to our chiefdoms to collect the local tax,” he said.
But that’s not all. He said they spent days or even a whole month in Freetown waiting for their local tax receipts.
He added that the tax receipt books which they were supposed to get in January were received around August. This, he said, gave them a tough time to collect their local tax from the chiefdoms because most people in the rural areas being farmers would find it difficult to pay for the local tax even though it’s Le 5,000 because they would not have harvested their crops.
While supporting the chief’s plea, Ibrahim Ben Kargbo – MP for Constituency 034 in Bombali, also highlighted the importance of the Government Printing, saying it had been abandoned.
He called for the budget of the said printing press to be upgraded. He also said that most of the machines in the department were dilapidated and called for the procurement of new machines.
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