PRINCIPAL CONFRONTS THE ISSUES AT USL CONGREGATION
The theme for the USL congregation of 2020 is EDUCATION TOWARD ENTERPRENEURSHIP – a great theme indeed. And given how things turned out, that theme presented Principal, the Chancellor of the University of Sierra Leone, the perfect opportunity to confront some serious national questions particularly regarding how to channel the youthful talent and energies unleashed on the nation at every graduation toward creating jobs and therefore generating wealth and building a strong economy.
We will now quote a few portions of the speech and in our normal way throw in a word or two as citizens of this great country.
PRINCIPAL - “Education toward Entrepreneurship,” especially resonates with my vision for the future of this country. The easy and most unproductive option would be to declare young persons as lazy and harangue them about a mentality change. That approach will not expand national GDP and create jobs. It creates an undignified beggar mentality: “Pappay you borbor dae ya.” Of course, we now hear the refrain, “Pappay, the gron dry,” from the teeming population of young persons in mainly urban areas of Sierra Leone.
POLITICO – We get your point sir. We believe the situation you have so correctly described is the product of many years of economic stagnation and increasing dependence of many young people on the so-called BIG MEN in this country for almost everything. The BIG MEN in question are normally corrupt public servants and businessmen.
We know this is will be difficult to do but we really want Principal to come in disguise to the stadium to watch a local football match, especially when two of the big teams in the country are playing. After the match please stand in a little corner outside the presidential pavilion and see our young people at work with their “Pappay you borbor dae yar mentality that you talk about here.
It’s a complete disgrace to see these boys, and they are all boys, running from one BIG MAN car to the other harassing them for little handouts. For those people as long as the BIG MEN continuously dish out a few thousand leones, de gron nor dry. They couldn’t care less if that money is stolen from our treasury. This is what we call large scale “dregging”. And they go about it shamelessly. These are the same people who expect the world from governments. Somebody should tell them unless they quit this mentality, their “gron will remain dry”.
PRINCIPAL - Graduates are not excluded. “All man dae ala say the gron dry.” But what are you doing “for make the gron soak for you” and for your community and nation?
POLITICO – Well, it’s difficult to determine whether graduates are among those involved in the large scale dregging we just spoke about but we will not argue against that suggestion. But we know that graduates have their own relatively sophisticated dreg patterns – they go around seeking support for projects that never see the light of day, they pay regular visits to offices and all that. The truth is a good many of them really want to “soak de gron” for themselves and their communities but would ultimately need the government to provide small grants for them. Principal, you will notice we did not mention banks. That’s because we have the question of collaterals at the back of our minds. In fact some of these institutions that call themselves banks are not providing normal banking services at all. All they do is buy treasury bearer bonds and declare profits annually.
So please help in that direction and some, at least some of these graduates will “soak de gron” in their communities. Is the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency still in this country?
PRINCIPAL - You see, our economy as it was constituted over the last decade and more is characterized by low to no diversification, low productivity, mainly survivalist “han-to-mot” petty trading or microcredit schemes, and a teeming surplus of labor in urban areas. There is also rural poverty. And all of this as we sit on over 1.5 million hectares of fertile, arable land traversed by more than half a dozen rivers and with over 7 months of rain, a generous coastline and natural deep harbors to boot.
POLITICO – Our economy has been like that since Siaka Stevens hosted the OAU in 1980. We are still in this situation almost two years into your administration but we are encouraged that you are thinking along the lines of creating a change from what you call “han to mot” petty trading to much more rewarding and sustainable income generating activities. It’s a really long shot but there’s nothing wrong about dreaming of big things.
In Freetown, we see people selling all sorts of things from razor blades rat poison on all street corners.
Challenge them on how they came to be in that position and not in agriculture as you suggest - in other words working the 1.5 million hectares of land you refer to and you will get nothing substantial. There are huge potentials in that sector but again you need to inject some good cash into getting those who are ready to start creating wealth and jobs. Unfortunately there will be continuous migration into Freetown from certain parts of the country for the foreseeable future with all the consequences associated with that. This is very sad.
PRINCIPAL - So as you graduate this morning, I want to challenge all of you to be bold entrepreneurs. Relieve yourself of the old and stale logic of “the other party say the gron dry, so leh we vote for dem neks tem.” Adopt a new logic that says “I or we can develop a solution for adding value to agricultural products and market those locally and internationally” or “We can develop solutions or products to cater for tourism, transportation, or other services.” We can roast locally grown Arabica coffee to various tastes and package and label those as organic products from the rainforests of Sierra Leone (and they are). When marketed accordingly, it will create a brand Sierra Leone, contribute to GDP, create jobs, and create wealth for the entrepreneurs in Sierra Leone.
POLITICO – So, you really confronted the issue her sir. Let’s now see the Ministries, Departments and Agencies responsible to support such programs in action. We suspect those structures are in place but what are they waiting for? We are in the YEAR OF DELIVERY.
Recently we saw what was branded as local rice on social media. In fact we don’t know how many bags are really available because we’ve been trying to switch from creating jobs in Vietnam and Cambodia by eating white to buying our home grown rice but we have no idea where to by the rice. In other words the marketing information was incomplete. Or was this just one of those social media things?
If the rice supplied to the security forces is produced locally a lot of money will go to our farmers. We should also set a policy of not serving white rice at any official functions and we will then proceed to drastically reduce and eventually ban importation of rice.
Anyway it was good to hear something like this from you. Please also remember as you travel around the world looking for investors don’t just concentrate on those who want to mine our minerals. Bring those who are into agriculture. We need them here.
Copyright © 2020 Politico Online
