OIL MARKETERS MUST STOP THIS POLITICAL BLACKMAIL
The good people of Sierra Leone are being made to queue up again at petrol stations across the country to get fuel. Clearly, people are exhausted with long queues at least once a month because of this on and off supply of fuel to the country. The street logic is that such queues are always followed by an increase in the price of petroleum products. The government and the Oil Marketers prefer to call it price adjustment. They can afford to be euphemistic about inflicting pain on the people. All we know is that no matter how much profit the so-called Oil Marketers make during a normal period as soon as there’s turbulence in the market they will simply pass the burden on to the people.
Industry contacts are telling us that the war between Russia and Ukraine has badly exposed our great and powerful Oil Marketers. Before the war, world production was stable and all the Marketers needed to get products was to get a letter of credit from their banks and the products would land in Freetown. They will quickly sell and pay. Now they are required to pay upfront or get zero products. Serious dealers are queuing up to pay so no time is wasted. Our mighty dealers have resorted to blackmail to get foreign currency from GOSL.
Our Oil Marketers recently asked BSL for US dollars. They told the Professor from Greeley that they have piles of New Leones to exchange. Since the day they were told to go bring the money PHYSICALLY to the bank, they have still not returned. While the Greeley Professor is in his office waiting, the Oil Marketers closed their stations to set the people up against the government.
In the next week or so we expect the price of the products to be ADJUSTED DOWNWARDS. South Africa has just cut the price of diesel. We are fed up with political blackmail.
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 neighborhood have done it. We can also do it.
NO SEX OUTSIDE MARRIAGE IN INDONESIA
Frankly, we thought this law was already in place before now with Indonesia being the nation with the most Muslims on planet earth. The fact that the story made it to the headlines in the world’s major media organizations speaks of how bold the decision is and how powerful the government is on the ground. We are told that the law applies to FOREIGNERS as well and people can be jailed for up to ONE YEAR. Wow!
The law which was unanimously passed by parliament also bans cohabitation. That’s what we call TAP TO ME in good old Sierra Leone. Other noteworthy provisions would punish people for insulting the president or saying things contrary to the national ideology. We have just picked out a few of the issues we can quickly lay hands on and it’s up to other people interested beyond this point to look for the devil in the details.
We call on the foreign ministry of Sierra Leone to put out a travel advisory for our people going to Indonesia to study, as tourists or to work. Here’s our modest contribution to that effort.
1. This country should REJECT all scholarships offered by the government and people of Indonesia. We neither have enough money to hire lawyers to defend our students nor do we have that much international clout to threaten Indonesia.
2. Government officials traveling to that country for meetings should be provided with extra money to take their wives along if they are to stay beyond THREE DAYS. We know what we are talking about. Those Sierra Leoneans who MUST go there because of work should drop this habit of insulting leaders daily. That’s a favorite pastime for many Sierra Leoneans. The Indonesians are having none of that.
3. Sierra Leoneans should avoid the resort of BALI as a tourist destination. Just stay away because by the time the court declares you innocent, you would have spent SIX months in a foreign jail.
4. We don’t yet have all the facts but please don’t take issue with us if we suggest that a powerful religious lobby may have threatened politicians into creating this law. So it’s a win for both sides – the religious people get what they want, despite the obvious fact that tourist dollars would dry up soon and the politicians would remain in office.
5. The world should now keep an eye on Indonesia’s version of RELIGIOUS POLICE as they go about enforcing this law.
We hope EGREGIOUS FRANCIS treats our contribution with the seriousness it deserves.
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.
Copyright © 2022 Politico Online
