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Audited data, since 2018, has revealed that Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown’s financial growth is significantly affected by inflation and depreciation of the local currency, Leone, as against the US Dollar.
The Mayor of the city, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr said that this affected the potential of her city significantly. However, in a Facebook post, Aki-Sawyerr released data that shows the city faring relatively well, beating the odds of inflation and other economic challenges. The data contains information of the city’s financial statement since 2018.
The graph shows the great work done in growing revenue from 2018 and how that growth has been impacted by inflation and depreciation of the Leone,” Aki-Sawyerr noted.
The visual data, publicly available and extracted from FCC’s annual audits, reveals a steady increase in nominal revenues, particularly from own-source funding, thanks in part to reforms such as the digitalisation of the property rate system.
The charts further show that while FCC’s own-source revenue now makes up the majority share of total income, government grants have dwindled, with no devolved sector funding received for 2025 to date. External donor support has become an increasingly vital supplement in recent years.
In USD terms, the data paints an even more striking picture, real dollar values of total FCC revenue have seen a steep decline since 2019, showing the impact of currency devaluation on the council’s operational capacity.
Yet, FCC continues to deliver essential services and execute its mandate through robust partnerships with development agencies, private sector actors, philanthropists, researchers, and academic institutions.
Freetown is Sierra Leone’s largest city by population with over 1 and a half million people residing in the city centre and the Freetown Peninsular. While the city is major gateway for trade in the country, overcrowding and poor urban planning pose a major challenge to the local council.
A city without better housing facilities for the average workers or affordable homes can always attract inflationary tendencies as the majority residing in its will only concentrate in buy groceries and non essential commodities.
The biggest issue is it’s disappearing income collection as not one department officially publishes their fees and charges nor how they are calculated. Lack of transparency is a major issue in Sierra leone in our public bodies. It’s a total scam.
FCC revenue should be much healthier after more than 10 times ncrease in council and business rates. Not exactly encouraging private investment.
The constant travelling of the mayor abroad and her fleet of expensive cars may explain where the rest of the income disappears to.