Sierra Leone’s Killer 2021 Finance Act
13 November 2020 – the Minister of Finance, Jacob Jusu Saffa, presented the budget for the fiscal year 2021 in the well of Parliament.
This is to ensure that the House of Representatives debated and approve the projected expenditure for the government in the next financial year as required by the country’s laws.
Whilst reading the budget in the well of Parliament, the Minister projected a whooping 3.5 trillion expenditure for government in the financial year 2021 which included an increment of the wage bill in the areas of the security sector, education amongst others.
However, the 2021 budget presented to Parliament by JJ Saffa has been described by majority of Sierra Leoneans as a killer finance act which will deepen the sufferings of the already improvished masses.
This, according to many, stems from the proposed several astronomical increments in the provision of several critical services which in turn would have devastating impacts on the poor masses.
Services such as the acquisition of birth certificates marriage certificates to name but a few, which used to be Le 10,000 and Le 250,000 respectively have been proposed to now cost Le 100,000 and Le 1,000,000 respectively in the 2021 Finance Act.
It could be recalled that one of the areas the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) led government woefully failed in the MCC Score Card is the area of fiscal management as citizens continue to suffer unbearable poverty under the New Direction Government.
Rather than striving to make amends in order to ease the sufferings of the citizens, the SLPP has now decided to add salt to the injuries of Sierra Leoneans by making propositions in the Finance Act 2021 that would have devastating effects on the lives of the ordinary Sierra Leonean.
The 2021 Finance Act is indeed a killer Act that would have catastrophic impacts on the lives of Sierra Leoneans.
By Ibrahim Alusine Kamara
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