By: Thaimu Bai Sesay
On Tuesday 21st November 2023 at the government press briefing, the Deputy Sectary General of the Sierra Leone Importers Association Alhaji Sheriff Barrie has disclosed that they as importers get the know-how and can unlock the secret of inflation in the country.
“With regards to prices fixing which I want to make it very explicit today here, we have the solution to make prices go down. The 1969 Indigenous Act provided that importers should sell in wholesale while retailers should sell to the consumers. Today, there is no difference between the wholesalers or importers and the retailers.
The second area that tied price fixing that has made the country very difficult is the raw called exclusive right. This law made provisions that only one person should import a particular product in the country. And when only one person owns a particular product, he determines the price not the government because there is no competitor,” Deputy S.G for Sierra Leone Importers revealed.
As a private sector he claimed that they had in several occasions engaged with the pasts and presents Ministries of Trade in the country in order take off the exclusive right policy as he said Sierra Leone is a very small country that is trying to develop. He appealed to the current Ministry of Trade to painstakingly take notice of the act and if possible to remove the exclusive right and make it easier for everyone to import his or her goods.
In response to the claims made by the Sierra Leone’s Importers Secretary General, the Chief Director and Professional Head Ministry of Trade and Industry Emmanuel Billy Koji clarified that there was no law in the name of exclusive right, but said what they had was trademark and patent under intellectual property right. He further clarified that the law only gave right for people to register as a trademark after acquiring the agency contract from the producers that mandated the sole ownership of product
He intimated that Sierra Leone had moved from that level and the country is now producing most of those commodities. He said in the past five years of the current government, they said they had increased their manufacturing contribution to the GDP from 3% to 17%. “Today we have seven companies that produce soft drinks, seven cement companies, we have companies that are into different varieties of food production. It is because we have learnt lessons that we need to look inwards,” he said.
Konji said the legal environment in the country made no provision for exclusivity as said that they had opened the way for everyone to use it, adding that the trade was not for one person. He affirmed that a lot of laws in the 1969 Indigenes Act had been promulgated. He said as a government they recognized that the global inflation is trucking the country, posing difficulties in the cost of living. To address such an issue, he revealed that they were working on what he called as the “Essential Commodities Act,” which he said would force Sierra Leoneans to take active actions in the trade sector.
The Chief Director of the Head Ministry of Trade asserted that trade, architecture and governance are a critical phenomenon and said it is not the way everyone may see it. He stated that Sierra Leone is signatory to the international and global trade standards and said there is a principle of reciprocity, adding that Sierra Leone is never ready for international trade war.
The Chief Director and Professional Head Ministry of Trade and Industry said government recognized that the private sector is the engine for the country’s growth and development. As a Ministry he said they recognized the importance for the private to get a saying in the policy space. He intimated that they designed policies based on need, gap or cry from the public.