Private Entrepreneur Invests in Farming
Answering to the clarion call of President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma on indigenous Sierra Leoneans in the private sector to join his administration and invest in the agricultural sector has been recently heeded to by a local entrepreneurship with the diversification of the operations of Topman Communications, by taking lead this time not only in communication but has also put farming topmost on of his operational time table.
Since the provision of affordable communication facilities to the wider public through Sierra Leone’s only leading national network-Sierratel, Topman deems it fit to take hoes, shovel, matches fertilizers as well as other agricultural implements to til the soil of Lokomasama in Port Loko district north of Sierra Leone, where it has now proudly yielded over four thousands hectares of rice farm.
The Managing Director of Topman Communication Mohamed Gassama said he is being encouraged by efforts of the Koroma administration that according to the businessman has placed so many premiums on agriculture that motivated him to join the campaign to fight hunger in his home country, Sierra Leone.
Gassama said President Koroma and other members of his government have created a business friendly environment in Sierra Leone that has inspired him to set a timetable within the tenure of office of the All Peoples Congress led government in power. “This government is too helpful to the business community and it is also encouraging more investors to come in for business”, he commended government.
Topman’s involvement in farming came as a result of government’s move to prioritized agriculture to enable Sierra Leone to be self food sufficient and be able to export rice to other countries. ‘I am back for good because this government is now ready to work with the private sector especially in the agricultural sector, where I have set myself a time table” said Gassama.
Having been on farming for over two years now, the Topman Managing Director so far saved the lives of more than one thousand people from hunger in Port Loko district with rice harvested from his farms from which has yielded over two thousand bushels in the last harvest’s and hopes to increase yield by next season.
On which conditions he gave rice to people in his farming communities, Gassama most times goes into what he described as a barter trade with the communities by exchanging rice with other goods such as palm oil, groundnuts and normally selling his farm produce at a very lost cost to people on humanitarian grounds.
Asked if he has plans afoot to export, the private sector farmer said “I have no intention to export rice when my people are hungry. I only preserve the exchanged goods and later resell them at a cheaper cost to the community when needed”. A scheme which other villages have already benefited from.
Joseph Kamanda, Freetown
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