Presidential Aspirant Dr Samura Kamara, has justified in an interview with BBC the rationale behind the  adoption of austerity measures  during the reign of president Ernest Bai Koroma .

In the said interview with the BBC correspondent Umaru Fofanah, Dr Samura Kamara revealed that “People misuse the concept of Austerity.  Austerity doesn’t mean a country is falling apart all it means is that it reaches a certain point where you rationalize balance between expenditures and your revenues.” He emphasized.

He further made an analogy that sometimes you reach a certain point where you have mountain expenditures obligations with non growing revenue base and automatically the need to rationalize your expenditures comes in.

He further simplify the definition of austerity as a situation where the expenditure budget is much higher than the revenue stream.it is like a wake up call he stated

The measures by the then APC government was aimed at the reduction in government’s spending.

In 2013, the country had one of the fastest growing economies in Sub-Saharan Africa as a result of iron ore boom.

However, the twin shocks of Ebola and the fall in commodity prices on the international market, had a negative blow on the country’s economy.

President Ernest Bai Koroma had also told his Cabinet during his reign that austerity measures announced in March would be implemented until the first half of 2017 “in order to stabilize the current economic situation.”

However,  some critics are of the view that the APC government should have done more to take the economy to the next level at a time the country was experiencing a growth prospect from 14% to -20%.