Better life for Salone people?

As a believer I have often repeated that I do not believe in anything like a coincidence. No, I like to refer to such episodes as “Godincidence,” meaning that nothing happens in our lives or our environment except as a result of Divine intervention. It is therefore not a coincidence but a Godincidence that recently three things have happened almost simultaneously.

Last Friday the oil marketing companies announced an increase in the prices of their petroleum products by one thousand Leones a gallon. As should be expected, and one need not be a graduate of either the London School of Economics or of the Yale, Harvard, Oxford or Cambridge University Economics Think-Tank to imagine the effect of fuel price rise on the lives of people. It always has a spiral snowball effect.

First is the effect on transportation which affects every area of our activity. Transport fares will go up as has already been announced. Then the prices of local commodities which must be transported from the producing areas to Freetown and other urban areas will rise, adding to an already overburdened populace.

Then yesterday the Central Statistics Office announced a hike in the inflation rate. Here I must confess that I am not sure whether it is too much money chasing too few goods or the other way round with too little money chasing too many commodities, mainly food. As I have already stated all this is having an overburdened effect on the average family, to say nothing about the unacceptably high number of unemployed young people who are idle and form clusters in various sections of the community.

Even the usually high praising New Citizen newspaper has quoted two religious leaders who while hailing this government’s infrastructural strides,  (by the way just how much of it is this government’s contribution?) have sounded a note of warning on the effect of the rising cost of living on the lives of people and urging government to address the issue. But based on its nonchalant reaction to the global crisis what can it do when it has set itself on a spending propaganda spree in order to redeem its continuing battered image. Here are a people who came screaming “down with the corrupt SLPP regime” only for later experience to reveal how deep they are immersed in corruption. How do they expect to address the general effect of the removal of fuel subsidies on the standard of living of the people?

And here is the irony; the pro APC advocate the African Champion newspaper has already begun to sound a grave note of caution to the Anti Corruption Commission. It accuses that body of bias against the APC, blames the decision to pursue corruption officials as an SLPP strategy and writes about SLPP moles being in the commission. In short the newspaper is accusing the hard hitting ACC of anti APC prejudice. I wonder what One Drop Sankoh would describe the alleged phenomenon, an APC Frankenstein monster or what?

In an attempt to draw the public’s attention from the engulfing misery there are renewed cries for the Bambay witch hunt, for the Justice Jammeh commission to resume sittings and for publication at this late stage of the 17 thousand page Transition Report, when our every call for the report to be published has in the past been treated with contempt.

What a way to run a country. Little wonder at the enthusiastic crowds turning out to view the presentation of SLPP flag-bearer aspirants. Is this the better life for Salone people? Somebody must be joking.

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