October 7, 2021
Albert Baron Ansu
Haramun in Swahili means illegal. It is the same idea that we get from the word when we are discussing the plague-like syndrome of profiteering that has been allowed by successive government to stunt the growth of the country.
Haramu in our Sierra Leone context is an existential problem that is artificial in nature. People have been conditioned to fleece each other. It is in the dog eat dog way of life that we are seeing- a sub culture forming cancer. We have to dig out the locus of haramu- questioning who is promoting Haramu?
The simplistic answer has always been thrown at the door step of the government. This government is clearly not responsible for the inflationary trend. The importers and traders are actually responsible. Beyond that the layer of the problem is linked to egregious conduct of the road transport sector with actors like drivers, and Police officers creating the condition for the hiking of local products.
Traveling along the provincial routes you can visualize the ugly spectacle of check point extortion of drivers. This has knock on effect on the transport fare transferred to consumers as a burden. Something has to be done in checkmating the issues that have snowballed into profiteering habit creating a discomfort for even the profiteerer.
A colleague is so worked up about the incident and has provided a contextual evidence to show that the citizenry is complicit in the haramu way of doing business. A bag of coal some fifty kilometers away from the capital is for instance sold at Le25, 000.
When it is hauled to Freetown, it is sold at close to Le 50,000. Astronomical profit making tendency in real of small businesses is often justified by the fact that importers are selling goods like rice at high rate. It smacks of tit for tat. It is the extension of the heartlessness of the Sierra Leonean. More to these bits and pieces of interconnected factors is the bad politics.
The government has for instance dropped tax on rice but why are we having the rising cost of rice? Certainly there is need to have some political actions in the price monitoring even as we operate a free market economy. The haramu issue has become politically suspicious. We have gathered that there are people from the opposition clandestinely animating the sellers in the market to hike prices and make the public feel agitated that the government is not performing.
It is a false impression; and it must not be left to whims and caprices of those fixing the prices arbitrarily. Maybe there has to be an urgent action plan in for instance fostering a national dialogue with a view to rationalizing the prices of goods and services for national good. This point is of essence as we enter into a post COVID gear in building resilience and rise above nefarious pettiness that keep us whining for food to eat and thus sap our ability to think big beyond mediocrity.
The irony of the haramu sub culture that had been nurtured by those politicians gloating in the corners is the fact that they lack the moral pedigree to make things improve for the better should they by accident come to power by their trademark devious antics.