WHO IS MANIPULATING THE FOREX BUSINESS AGAINST THE PEOPLE?
This week we asked a fantastic Economist to help us understand why the Leone, new or old, continues to fall against the US dollar. We are not oblivious of the fact that a strong US dollar has been doing serious damage to even other major world currencies but the way things are going in this country requires some investigation. Our Economist friend wrote us an interesting article which we published a few days ago. We will look at various aspects of that article from time to time until those who should do something realize they have no choice but to act. Here’s where we begin:
“In order to ensure the availability of forex at commercial banks, the Bank of Sierra Leone undertook two wholesale foreign exchange auctions amounting to USD 16 million in September 2022. Despite this, September witnessed the highest depreciation of the Leone in 2022. One then wonders why this should be the case”.
Like our Economist friend, we congratulated the Central Bank governor when he pumped UD dollars into the commercial banks in September. We stood back to observe the LEONE make gains against the US dollar but things took a different turn – the daily fall of the LEONE against the US dollar accelerated. Today, the decline has continued even as other currencies around the world are making moderate gains.
1. Our sources at the Central Bank told us at the time that their place was to pump US dollars into the commercial banks FIVE times. We call on the man from GREELEY, COLORADO to stop. As long as the objectives of that FOREX injection are not being realized, he should stop. It makes no sense to continue doing the same thing while expecting a different result.
2. Sixteen million US dollars from our Central Bank ended up on the streets with a few greedy unlicensed dealers and their boys who hang in street corners trading illegally. They pay zero taxes while continuously taking business from registered FOREX agents.
3. We call for a halt to these cash auctions because commodity prices continue to rise despite all that is being done by the Central Bank to ease the burden on ordinary Sierra Leoneans.
4. There is a small but extremely powerful FOREX cartel in this country that we must neutralize. They have very powerful clients – MINISTERS of the government, NGOs and even some diplomatic missions who do business with this cartel. Ordinary folks like us don’t have US dollars to play with. We have just called things by their right names. We can’t continue like this.
SPEAKER BUNDU ORDERS TOLONGBO MPs TO FACE PARLIAMENTARY JUSTICE
Since the day some so-called MPs took upon themselves to bring shame on this country yet again, it was clear that Speaker Abass Bundu was against the Force for Good arresting, detaining and bringing them before a judge. His ruling on the November 23 disgrace, has just confirmed that. The ruling simply told Fayia Sellu to back off. As the ruling noted, this was the THIRD time MPs have rioted in parliament like high school pupils disputing the result of a football match.
We suggest to the Speaker that because he failed to grant the police permission to arrest and charge the rioters, the three named in this report have been encouraged to do it again. We believe that as we reach the last days of the life of this parliament, things will go from bad to worse and he will regret not allowing Fayia Sellu to bring law and order to the homes of those who ought to know better.
Suspending those THREE Tolongbo MPs, subjecting them to inquiry in the Committee on Privileges and ordering them to pay more than 300 thousand New Leones for the damages caused to our property in that House not necessarily a bad idea but handing them over to the police was the best thing to do as far as we are concerned. When MPs decide to behave in the way the Speaker described them, they should be made to have a date with a judge in the High Court.
Speaker Bundu says the rioters simply forgot to follow laid down parliamentary procedures, opting instead to bring ghetto behavior into the House of NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. What a shame. They have just played right into the hands of those people who believe that since Tolongbo was forced into opposition in 2018, politics from the opposition benches has changed forever. Why did somebody take a DAGGER to parliament?
Speaker Bundu says “those who feel they cannot play by the elementary rules of decency and civilized behavior do not deserve the people’s trust to be elected to this well nor to call themselves honorable”. We Agree.
FSSG AREA CLEARED AT LAST BUT FOR HOW LONG?
The area just outside the FSSG wall on the Hannah Benka-Coker Street end looks a little fresh now after police moved in and cleared the place of petty traders, keke boys, cesspit vehicles and cookery sellers. The place was a complete mess.
In this space we have complained many times about the implications of allowing that situation to persist all these years so close to one of our prominent schools for young girls. We urged the SMILING MAYOR of Freetown to do something about that but as somebody who thinks only in terms of being re-elected she pretended life was normal and Politico was out to make mischief. We are not even sure she had a hand in what happened three days ago. She is always quick to go on social media to tell the world she had no hand in such actions. We are waiting for her to repeat that trick as always.
All we can hope for now is that the FCC and the FSSG will not take steps to make sure those people don’t return because this is the way things happen in Salone. It’s not for us to tell them what to do or how to do it but we are sure those people would gradually return to base unless something is done to put that possibility beyond them.
PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT PLASTIC BOTTLES ON OUR STREETS
We have called attention to this issue in this column many times. It’s one of those issues about which the authorities decided they will completely ignore us. We have to return to it now to remind them that we will not allow them to ignore us and also because by doing nothing about it, things have gone from bad to worse.
Let’s make it clear that we are not against any local company selling soft drinks to our people. We want Sierra Leoneans and their locally produced goods to dominate the market but what we have noticed from the local soft drinks companies is that their plastic containers are polluting our environment and the authorities who cleared them to operate in this country have not told them to stop making huge profits while polluting our environment and in a way contributing to the factors that cause flooding particularly in Freetown.
Here’s what we saw at St. John two days ago. SLRA workers cleared the drainage for waste water to flow freely but two days later the rubbish drawn out of the gutter is still on the side of the street. It’s clear from this picture that the plastic bottles we are talking about are all over the place. We want action now.
1. Cancel the license granted to these soft drink producers until we are convinced that they have put in place a robust system of cleaning after themselves. We should also put in place a system by which we monitor that to make sure they don’t quickly return to their old ways after one week.
2. Let’s take them to court and get some big money from them for the damage they’ve caused so far or to simply recover the money we’ve spent clearing our drainage system blocked by their plastic bottles since they came into operation.
3. As consumers we should consider an initial ONE month boycott of such drinks to force the producers to clean up now and commit to cleaning regularly. This is not an attempt to squeeze local producers out of business, it is a sensible move to end pollution.
4. This government NEEDS to now go to parliament with legislation to ban single use plastic from Sierra Leone. Other countries in our neighbourhood have done it. We can also do it.
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