A trader at Guinea Store in Freetown said trade between Guinea and Sierra Leone has improved significantly. Mummy, who sells flip-flops at Guinea Store op Abacha Street, has been in the trade for almost ten years, However, Sierra Leone and Guinea have had a strained relationship regarding business transactions since at year, when ex-President Alpha Conde was overthrown by a junta.

The insurrection broke out after Professor Conde had overstayed in power for decades junta led by Colonel Mamadou Dumbuya, a senior military officer, surprisingly dethroned Mr Conde on 5 September last year

The sporadic conflict stalled businesses and threatened livelihoods in Conakry, Guinea’s capital city. Shops were looted, and curfew was imposed, a move which stalled the free movement of goods and people.

Business transactions were ducted surreptitiously among traders, fearing spiral attacks by soldiers Leonean traders were seriously affected too.

Guinea and Sierra Leone have had a bilateral relationship since the 80s. The latter highly depends on the former for manufactured goods such as rubber or plastic shoes, jewellery, phones, etc.

Guinea and Sierra Leone’s also supplies raw materials like palm oil, rice to Conakry as well.

To the tense atmosphere in Guinea over the past years, business operations between the two nations became paralysed resulting from the seed of acrimony that initially sown in Yenga, a piece of land at the border separating both countries .

Both Countries claim ownership of the land where farming activities are conducted by Leoneans mixed with Guineans. The previous governments led by Presidents Ernest Bai Koroma tried hard to bring stability on the ground. The -war inflicted pains on inhabitants of Yenga.

Nonetheless, Sierra Leone traders going into Guinea spite of the constraints faced along border checkpoints. passed by, under the leadership of President Julius Maada Bio, stability only in the first two years of his leadership.

The roar of bad blood erupted lately causing President Conde to impose a ban on Sierra Leone’s government interfering in Guinea’s national politics.

The sanction prevented goods from entering politics, a move which affected almost everyone in Sierra Leone.

That ban lasted for months before President Bio sent representatives to Mr Conde for talks In on the border. But the delegation failed to convince Mr Conde to relax the ban.

The Sierra Leone’s border remained closed, prices of commodities in Sierra Leone went unimaginably high. Inflation further squeezed a double digit figure out of the economy

. A bag of rice, for example, went up to about Le260,000 then.

Traders who normally travelled to Guinea were unable to pass through the main causing them to take chances using perilous routes.

We had to use the by-pass road to reach Conakry,’ explained a trader at Guinea Store. Noticing the consequences of the border closure, President Bio visited his counterpart in Guinea for a meeting which later saw the re-opening of the border.

Guinea Store is an open ground market on Abacha Street in Freetown where Guinean products are housed. It employs many traders whose tax payments significantly contribute to the country’s economy.

The Guinean government also benefits from exchange rate tariffs and dues paid to labourers there working for Sierra Leoneans traders, which is a major source of employment for them. The home traders a good number of them, have improved their lives through trading in plastic in plastic materials (rubbers flip flops, clothes) manufactured in Guinea. And the lifting of the border closure measure brought hope to traders in both countries .The coup and its effects.