Even as hardship , lack of money in the banks and economic bankruptcy threaten nation……..
PAOPA GOVERNMENT IN SIERRA LEONE TO OPEN MANY MORE EMBASSIES AND DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS ABROAD
By KABS KANU
According to competent sources close to the administration and a FREETOWN newspaper report, the PAOPA Government in Sierra Leone is planning to open many more embassies and diplomatic missions abroad, in spite of the extreme hardship stalking citizens , rising fuel and food prices and threatening national economic bankruptcy.
When he came to power in 2018, President Maada Bio increased the number of embassies and diplomatic missions, appointing cronies to highly-paid ambassadorial and diplomatic positions and bloating the number of diplomats representing the poverty-stricken country abroad. As if that was not enough, President Bio is about to open many more embassies and missions, heightening fears that the SLPP Government was about to raise its economic profligacy to new levels.
The NIGHTWATCH newspaper of Freetown was the first to break the sad news to the nation in October. In an editorial then, titled PAOPA RESUMES PROFLIGATE SPENDING, the newspaper complained : “The news that the SLPP government is determined Paopa to keep on multiplying embassies around the globe is unsettling to patriots ….a government that seeks popularity by expanding its activities externally while leaving the citizens to suffer for bread and butter issues is heading for a blind alley. “
The paper went on to postulate : “One of the peaceful wars President Bio promised to launch , according to his manifesto, was on poverty, but his selection of a coterie of citizens for preferential treatment outside the country is the very wrong way of prosecuting that war. ‘
The NIGHTWATCH newspaper further complained that : “ The spendthrift appetite of the Paopa government is whetted by the establishment of five more embassies in South Africa, Morocco, Turkey, France and India. …There is unacceptable unemployment. Teachers whom the president himself described as the nation’s best assets are not being treated consummately. Monies spent on all the proposed superfluous embassies could be used to increase the salaries of teachers by hundred percent.”
A competent source within the Sierra Leone Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Copperation told COCORIOKO that President Bio is opening the new embassies because he wants to forge more diplomatic and economic cooperation with capitals around the globe. But our question is, did the president consider the cost-benefits ? Given the economic meltdown in the country , with the banks having no money to even service its customers satisfactorily, where will th Paopa get the money to fund these new embassies and missions ?
The cost of running the present diplomatic missions and embassies has always been a nightmare to governments because of the bloated salaries, emoluments, allowances and benefits of diplomats ,and nothing makes running an embassy or mission so costly than the fact that senior diplomats are allowed to also have domestic workers, who include cooks, stewards, housemaids, watchmen who all place excessive burden on the national payroll. The cost of moving these diplomatics and their families and domestic workers and repatriating them alone runs into millions of millions of dollars. It is the reason that wise nations like South Africa have decided to cut down on their number of diplomatic missions and embassies abroad.
Sierra Leone is one of the poorest nations in the world and should be acting likewise to dramatically reduce its number of embassies and missions abroad and choose the method of accrediting ambassadors to countries closer to them.
When Bio would have opened many more embassies and missions, one would be looking at expenditure running into more millions of dollars. A country where people can hardly afford one square meal a day cannot afford to be opening new missions and embassies around the world just like that. But this government is the most wasteful we have had since Independence.
Many citizens approached by COCORIOKO to give their opinions on the issue decried the Paopa government and said that President Bio and his government do not care for the welfare of the people.Instead of tackling bread-and-butter issues, they complained, the government is planning to waste billions upon billions of precious leones on self-aggrandizement in the international arena
