It started as Commodity Monitoring and Marketing Unit as an agency under the Ministry of Trade and Industry in 2013.
The agency oversees the production, processing and marketing of agricultural products in Sierra Leone. Licenses are issued out to companies or organizations that deal in agricultural products and small -scale farmers are exempted.
The agricultural products that are targeted include; palm oil, coffee, cacao, cola nut.
The regional agency of the south has been largely dormant but with the coming to office of a young man, Saidu O. Jalloh,he took up office recently and has made some reforms by renting a decent office and has furnished it very well. The office was almost moribund and less known about. But with Saidu O. Jalloh at the helm, there is huge injection of life into the southern office. There was huge reluctance on the part of organizations to pay licenses fees but that has changed. He met a paltry Le.750, 000 (old leones) in revenue from licences and has raised that to Le. 18,000,000(old leones) which is an over 100% increment. This goes to show that there has been massive tax evasion by farmers in the south. Government has been denied much needed revenue but with the intervention of a young manager in Saidu O Jalloh things are changing.
“We are slowly making reforms but we are not there yet and for people to comply I use a lot of persuasion and awareness rising,” Saidu O Bah said. Asked if fines are levied on those who defaulted he remarked that it “is the last resort.” Prominent among institutions that defaulted are SOCFIN Agricultural Company in the Pujehun district that deal in palm oil production and Sierra Tropicals that deal in pine apple juice production. Produce Monitoring Board, southern regional office also would like to introduce block farming to increase produce. But the process of negotiating with landholding families is key in this. They also plan to support farmers who are just coming up and are struggling. The future looks bright for the agency in the south.