Information Minister, Chernor Bah Admits Hardship in Sierra Leone

The Minister of Information and Civic Education, Chenor Bah has admitted that there is hardship in Sierra Leone but preached about hope for the future. 

Minister Bah linked the economic hardship to global crisis like the war in Ukraine. “We live in tough times, the world is on fire,” the minister said. “The Ukraine crisis continues in uncertain times.”

Bah continued by citing the actions of the recently elected president of the United States, Donald Trump as one of the driving forces of the country’s crisis. He maintained, “the elections of a new president in the United States is throwing new allies. It’s challenged global alliances, structures, and things that people consider a taboo are now all up the air. So that has led to a new period of uncertainty that we are also contending with.”

While relating the country’s inflation rate with the ongoing Israel-Palestine war, he claimed that the country’s inflation was rated above 50 percent but that the governemnt has reduced it to 10 percent.

The minister stated the effort the Bio administration is making to cushion the effect of the economy including the establishment of rice formula. He explained, “We have seen for example the introduction of the rice formula which was meant for the decrease of price of rice. That’s a reality, people can attest to that.”

The Minister also claimed that there has been a massive investment in local food production leading to more production and availability of rice. He stated, “we are not suffering from scarcity in Sierra Leone especially when we talks of essential commodities.”

He also stated that they have been able to address the fuel crisis in the country. He stated that fuel has been a “massive problem” in the country but that the government has been able to sucessfully keep the price at an affordable rate and supply of the commodity being in abundance. He added that these do not mean that everything is rosy in the country

The Minister continued by commending President Julius Maada Bio, stating that he is working to ensure that Sierra Leone is transformed. He concluded that the President is aware that transformation takes times for it to be achieved.