THE PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE – DESIGNATE to the United Nations, Ambassador Adikalie Foday Sumah, has hailed Sierra Leone’s return to economic and business growth.
The Ambassador, who will soon arrive in New York to take over at the Permanent Mission of Sierra Leone to the UN, was responding informally at the social media to the article, titled : “Back To Growth: Sierra Leone Has Re-Opened For Business” , written by Ms. Rebecca Perlman, a pro bono British lawyer of Herbert Smith Freehills , who has worked on secondment with Liberty (the National Council for Civil Liberties) and with the Government of Sierra Leone as legal adviser to the PPP Unit in the Office of the President and also a Trustee of the Prisoners’ Advice Service and a co-founder of the UK Sierra Leone Pro Bono Network.
The article , published by Cocorioko, can be read at : https://cocorioko.net/back-to-growth-sierra-leone-has-re-opened-for-business/
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AMBASSADOR SUMAH’S INFORMAL RESPONSE
Fantastic news for us as Sierra Leoneans!
If any thing, to hear that, despite the odds blowing from all angles in checking and balancing the activities of the Ernest Bai Koroma – led All People’s Congress – (Party) Government, the news presaging an over 5 points Economic Growth for the 2016 Fiscal Year as stated by the leading Financial Institutions in the world, thus placing Sierra Leone as the 9th fastest Growing Economies in Africa, and articulating well at the global economic growth trends, should attract the patriotic attention of every well- meaning Sierra Leonean.
On record is the fact, support by the probative evidence that; before the deadly EBOLA Virus Disease struck our Nation between March and April 2014, the Economic Outlook of Sierra Leone was oscillating between the High Point Single and the Threshold Double digits growths. The then economic development trends which, until the Ernest Bai Koroma led All People’s Congress- APC (Party) was only seen as a Hallucinating Set Goal. However, on the dawn of the September 2007, the status of the National Economy was steadily transformed from one of hallucination in target to that of realistic and achieved status. And, it is interesting to note that even at the ravaging episodes of the EBOLA stretching to over one year period, the economic growth of Sierra Leone only scaled down to a four points level: apparently it still remained stronger than her MRU Member States counterparts in same pandemic health tribulations.
Less than a year after the containment of the disease, the IMF and the World Bank have now projected a national economic growth at over 5% for the 2016 FY. This means, the management of the economy under the current national dispensation is, for all intents and purposes, encouraging. And a commonsense analysis of the review would arrow to the direction that it challenges the – largely undistracted Government that, where vigilance is intensified in the area of sound budgetary management, and focus is continued to be centered on developments which champion the transformation of the lives of the majority poor segment of the Sierra Leonean society such as those articulated under the Agenda for prosperity as well as the Post-Ebola Economic Recovery Programme, growth would not only be seen as a dream, but as an actually achievable economic variable under a well disciplined, focused and well determined President Ernest Bai Koroma.
For, no meaningful development of a nation battered by a 11 years protracted Civil War would be realised where the roads network remain appalling to negotiate. Sierra Leone direly needed what President Ernest Koroma has done : opening the country up and connecting communities for the purpose of facilitating the movement of good from the areas of productions to the markets; reducing the loss of lives either through avoidable road accidents or delays in commuting between inner city and rural communities to health centre facilities around the country; enhancing the maintenance of law and order by the law enforcement agencies; bolstering national security through the rapid movement of security personnel between the administrative points and redress mechanism facilities around the country, connecting families; encouraging the retention of rural populations thereby contributing to the decongestion of urban centres up and down the country, promoting intra-social connectivity; improve productive time utility for both local and external investors, and encouraging the plethora of Sierra Leoneans in the Diaspora to come to their country of origin with the yearning desire of reuniting with their families in the county sides of the nation .
For a long time, my compatriots in the Diaspora were inhibited from venturing to their local communities outside of the Capital city, Freetown, by reason of very poor roads facilities to the countryside before the advent of the current responsible Government.
Since 2007, many of my compatriots are now visiting, and in some cases, returning to Sierra Leone (meaning every corner of the country) rather than staying in Freetown for the rest of their holy day period in the country. Thus Freetown is no longer the limit of Sierra Leone as it were the perception entertained by some in the recent past, but it goes beyond for instance, Waterloo, to encompass the remaining Urban Regional Cities of Bo, Kenema and Makeni. All this has been made possible and easy to travel up and down the territory of the Republic of Sierra Leone, consequent of the well though of and sound policy draftsmanship of President Koroma and his responsible and Government.
