Are we overspending, who will foot the bill tomorrow?

His Excellency has just returned from a three day official visit to the Kailahun district. As is usual it is characteristic with our people, especially the chiefs to afford a fitting welcome to visiting dignitaries. The President received a very enthusiastic welcome everywhere which as far I could recollect was never extended to the former SLPP President in any part of the northern region. Not a single opposition APC member of Parliament ever turned up to extend the courtesy of a formal welcome.  (Photo: Dr. Sama Banya)

On this trip the President was reported to have commissioned no less than twelve projects including addressing the different communities. Indeed good leaders must always stay in touch with their people and President Koroma appears to be putting this in practice.

But this also raises several questions and based on past experience it is important to know who will ultimately have to pay the bill? In the 1970s and 80s particularly leading to the OAU summit of 1980, the country spent a tremendous amount of money on OAU and its related projects. It was left to an SLPP government twenty years later to settle the bills, a number of which were  in fact questionable.

According to eye witnesses the just concluded tour of the Kailahun district involved at least fifty official vehicles and others which must have been hired to convey spontaneous cheering groups. Being familiar with the road conditions to the areas visited, the roundtrip must have consumed at least fifty gallons of petrol/diesel for each vehicle. The pump price of a gallon of fuel is LE16,500 . It does not require a mathematical genius to calculate the total amount of 50 x 50 gallons at Le16, 500 plus allowances and maintenance. The country’s self proclaimed best math’s genius is professor peep. Would it be asking too much to expect the answers in next Friday’s edition of peep?

The question really is the necessity of such huge delegations on these internal trips. Would the sectoral ministers and their representatives on the spot not be enough? There was a newspaper report in one of the tabloids last week that the IMF and the World Bank had expressed concern at the continuing high rate of government expenditure; if this is true one wonders whether the National Revenue’s “record-breaking” collection is matching the rate of expenditure? It is one thing to spend on development, much needed as it may be, but it is equally inappropriate to spend “fiti fata” without any regard to tomorrow.

In its eleven years in power I cannot recall a single occasion when the retort to critics of the SLPP government involved personal insults to the individuals. Not even the Saturday morning UN radio’s participants in “Front page” were called names or their genealogy described in abusive terms as we experience today under the APC. The national chairman of the party is often described in derogatory terms. Such behaviour not only demonstrates absolute ignorance on the part of the perpetrators, but exposes them as lacking in the basic principles of civilized and accepted norms. Both local supporters of the APC and their so called Diasporas members appear to ravel in the strongly objectionable practice. As I keep repeating on these pages, such behaviour does not cut ice with Puawui. That brings me to the point raised by Olu Gordon that he was not the author of Philip Neville’s recent vicious attacks on me. But he is not ashamed to propagating the falsehood often lacing with the typical Olu Gordon flavour.

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