OLD LEONE NOTES ARE GONE AT LAST
Finally the so-called OLD LEONE notes are gone –forever, we hope. We wouldn’t mind seeing them stuck on the walls of our museum or in the home of some collector but not on our streets. Somebody visited our office the other day and wondered what the delay was all about?
The Professor from Greeley, Colorado was this stop start man who was busy flip flopping all over the place. His dates for phasing out the old notes kept shifting to the extent that many in Sierra Leone didn’t believe the deadline set by his successor would hold. People were openly telling others on the streets that like the Greeley Professor, Stevo was only blowing hot air. In fact, because Stevo was part of the team, it was easy for conspiracy theorists to describe them as birds of the same feather.
Now, we want Stevo to tell us why phasing out the old notes had to be postponed at least THREE times. BSL is a very conservative institution and we are not likely to hear from them on this issue so let’s make an attempt to explain what really happened.
1. The Greeley Professor was totally unprepared for what the job of running the central bank in Sierra Leone really was. He thought it was like running the Federal Reserve in the US. Sorry sir!
2. It took the man several years on the job before he summoned some local business people to the BSL office for serious conversation on the depreciation of the Leone. By that time the guy had lost control of the Leone against the dollar. One guy told him he wasn’t in charge of the economy because things were controlled from the streets, not from his powerless office in central Freetown.
3. Maybe the Professor tried to do it all by himself – why not? He is an American Professor with several years of teaching experience in good Universities. Do you now understand why he didn’t easily know the Sierra Leone economy is controlled from Sackville, Goderich and Lumley streets?
4. Anyway, was he being sabotaged by those running the place now? The man ran an expensive advertising campaign to raise awareness about the coming of the new Leone and kept pumping money into it because the date was shifting all the time. How did the board of BSL allow that to happen?
5. The Professor is gone now and the OLD NOTES are also gone but we want to inform our readers that when you decide to do withdrawals from the banks please take a wheelbarrow along because they can only now give small value notes. Brother Stevo where are the big notes? We don’t want criminals attacking our homes because of Five thousand Leone notes in a plastic bag.
6. We call on our readers to also go to the banks expecting their withdrawals to be disgracefully short by several Leones. Including those nicely wrapped up in plastic. That’s the new reality.
PAKISTAN VOTES BUT IMRAN KHAN IS OUT OF THE RACE
In the next few days the people of Pakistan will elect a new government and the former Prime Minister, the world famous Cricketer Imran Khan will not be part of the process. He is now sitting in jail convicted of this and that crime and jailed for a total of 24 years to run concurrently. His wife is also in jail.
None of the powerful countries in the world is listening to his cries from jail that the charges were politically-motivated and solely intended to stop his PPP from returning to office after being ousted by parliament. We wonder why. In fact, the global silence gives us more reason to now read around and see if his idea that there was an international plot to get him out of office has some truth to it.
We hold no brief for Imran Khan, in fact we hate corrupt politicians but why is nobody listening to him? Is this not a clear case of using the courts to stop Khan from winning the coming elections?
The Pakistan People’s Party will be on the ballot but with their charismatic leader in jail, voters are simply being told to ignore them. We know that some of their other prominent leaders have been forced to leave the party under pressure from the authorities.
Like South Korea, Pakistan likes jailing their former leaders. Analysts are saying that the powerful military is in the background and that after the election, Khan and his wife will get bail on appeal and go off to Dubai. Once they patch up their differences with the military they will one day return from exile and win another election or be killed. There’s enough evidence of that in Pakistan.
LIBERIA’S JOSEPH BOAKAI IS READY FOR A DRUG TEST
The new guy in charge of Liberia has put himself forward to do something unusual. He has asked his second in command to join him and take a drug test. Old Pa Boakai says smoking KUSH, a very dangerous drug, is now so settled in his country that he has to take extraordinary measures to deal with the situation. He calls it an “existential threat” to his country.
Anyway, they say the new broom sweeps clean. Well done Joseph Boakai. We hope you really know where this KUSH thing is going. It’s not a bad idea to talk about an issue like that but when the concern reaches the pages of your maiden STATE OF THE NATION address, it amounts to a handshake reaching the elbow and that gesture qualifying to be called a wrestling match with the blessing of Chinua Achebe.
Liberia is not the only country in this region with a Kush wahala. In this land that we love, we are yet to declare a state of emergency but we are in a bad shape with KUSH. Taking a drug test is a nice publicity stunt for old man Boakai but how does that change anything?
In this land that we love we are still trying to find those behind the trade. They are powerful, rich and well-connected in this country and beyond. The fight is not easy.
Maybe we should start by making it mandatory for all government workers and graduates looking for jobs in the public service to pass that test before being considered, including those looking for government contracts. This is just a mad idea but maybe we should start there and fight it as a sub-regional battle. It makes no sense to chase dealers out of Liberia only for them to take refuge in Sierra Leone and return quietly when attention moves to other sectors.
YOUYI BUILDING NEEDS ATTENTION NOW
We know we are not the only people complaining about the situation at Youyi Building. This is one of the most powerful buildings in the country, housing several government ministries, departments and agencies but the way things are going in that place right now, leaves much to be desired.
The last time we visited the lifts were down. We struggled our way to the ninth floor for a meeting that lasted less than half an hour. We asked a few questions about the lifts but the grudging answers we got convinced us that fixing the lifts remains a pipe dream for now.
How can we allow a building of that importance to go without lifts for months? And it’s not as if those who should fix it up don’t know that workers struggle to access their offices and work is severely disrupted. The last we heard was their ministers were still arguing about the budget to deliver that job. For how much longer are we going to endure this?
Maybe the only reason we have not had to station an ambulance out there is that we have young ministers this time but if we check the rate of absenteeism among civil servants the result will be shocking.
In the far corner of that compound a glorified car wash enterprise is in operation. The young guys doing the business aggressively chase every vehicle going by. Not far from their base is a cookery shop. Now church services are becoming a bit of a normal feature inside Youyi Building compound. What’s really going on?
Copyright (c) 2024 (Politico 02/02/24)
