November 29, 2029
By: MOHAMED M. SESAY
On Friday the 26th November 2021, the Bank of Sierra Leone (BSL) in a press statement, clarified that the Governor, Professor Kaifala Kallon figuratively used “bribery” to describe the sequence of hoarders exchanging their Leone notes for US dollar notes and then withdrawing the circulated Leone notes so that the Bank of Sierra Leone would be compelled to buy them back with US dollars in order to avert catastrophic shortages of cash in the banking system.
In the Question and Answer session following the presentation, the Press Statement disclosed that two members of Parliament asked the Governor why he used the word “bribe”, given that some journalist in the room would go and twist it in ways that the Governor would regret.
To clarify what he meant by “bribe” in the instant case, the press release assures that the governor used the example of the willingness of consumers to pay higher prices for peppers so that farmers would supply more peppers to the market when they are in short supply.
The press statement adds that it was in that context, the Bank Governor concluded that he used the verb “bribe” to explain how the Bank of Sierra Leone used 68 million US dollars to bring Leones back into the banking system.
The Press Statement furthers that it was unfortunate in spite of the explanation made by the Governor, some newspapers and persons on social media chose to deliberately mischaracterize the Governor’s nuanced statement as a confession that he had engaged in bribery.
“The Bank wishes to make it categorically clear to the public that all its monetary policy operations, including that between June 2020 and August, 2021, are driven by only its duty to maintain the stability and soundness of the financial system, and nothing else. The Bank further wishes the public to know that it is unflinchingly committed to redenominating the Leone and putting controls in place to prevent its hoarding in the future”, the Release concludes.