Samura Kamara Lashes SLPP’S Abysmal Governance
All Peoples Congress (APC) Party Standard Bearer Aspirant for the 2023 Presidential Elections in Sierra Leone, Dr. Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara in his New Year message to the people of Sierra Leone on the 1st January 2021 blasted the battered economic performance of the ruling Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) led government of President Julius Maada Bio.
Speaking about the economy, Dr. Samura Kamara stated that the Julius Maada Bio led administration never inherited, “a broken economy”, adding that the GDP growth is still where the EBK administration left it in 2017, at 3.5%, after having recovered from an unprecedented decline to -20.5 in 2015, largely due to the effects of EBOLA and unexpected sharp fall in international commodity prices, from a positive growth rate of 20.5% in 2013 (the highest in the world) and 6.3% in 2016.
The APC strongman continued that comparatively, according to the Minister of Finance in his 2021 Budget Statement, the economy is expected to contract by 2.8% due to the adverse impact of the Corona Virus. And, unfortunately for the people of Sierra Leone, according to the Minister, the economy is expected to recover by a miserable 3.3% in 2021 and 3.9% in the period 2022 to 2023. He asked “The question is: What if the adverse impact of the Corona virus was as deep-seated as that of the Ebola virus”? he maintained that “What we have in the Bio administration is a textbook example of gross ineptitude and inexperience in the management of a nation’s economy. The sudden and unexplained scarcity of our local currency in the economy, essentially the fault of the Governor of our Central Bank, and the inability of the commercial banks to give back to their customers amounts that are due them clearly manifest this characterization”.
“Fellow Sierra Leoneans, I fully understand the current economic hardship that is ravaging our country. I have seen first-hand evidence during my trips around the country of the severe difficulty families’ encounter trying to put food on the table for their children. I met Madam Hawa Kallon from Daru, Kailahun district; she explained how she needs to help neighbours with their domestic work in order to get a plate of rice for her family because her husband is jobless. Mr. Abu Kamara, a former civil servant working in one of the ministries, was sacked by this government without pay because of his perceived tribe, party and region of origin, as such supporting his family is now impossible. It is now very clear that the promise of solving the bread and butter issues by this government within six months in office will never come, even though we have waited for almost three years now”. Dr. Samura Kamara Blasts.
The APC 2023 flag bearer aspirant, Dr. Samura Kamara expressed how he feels about the Okada and Kekeh riders, Sweissy and Belgium Sellers, from Dove Court, Abacha, Kroo Town Road to Lumley Petty Traders, carpenters, domestic workers and farmers, adding that he is with them through this tough times. He went on to say that certainly these stories of joblessness, starvation, hardship, tribal and regional sackings, which we’ve never experienced in our 60 years history, are caused by the Bio government’s ill-informed policies of dividing the country and stifling the economy. He maintained that corona virus cannot be used as a scapegoat for such economic incompetence and regional divide. “Managing an economy such as ours should not be based on some flimsy rhetoric of propaganda, populism and lies made to appease political party loyalists or to turn one region against another. It should be on a sound understanding of how the economic fundamentals work, and how they should be applied and sequenced toward the path to economic transformation”. Dr. Samura Kamara asserted.
By Emmanuel I. Kamara
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