May 5, 2021
By Mohamed M. Sesay (Lucky)
This piece is set to analogously situate the legacy of Mr. Jacob Jusu Saffa; fondly called, “the Bread-and-Butter Minister or the Messi in Bio’s administration” as the country’s best performing Finance Minister, and also appraise his meritorious appointment as the Chief Minister. His appointment as the Chief Minister did not come as a surprise to many Sierra Leoneans due to his staunch leadership so far executed in the Finance Ministry in order to revitalize the country’s ramshackle economy which was shattered and battered during the Koroma APC’s administration. People were actually thinking the unthinkable that this Messi (J.J Saffa) in the Bio administration, could not address the inherited economic austerity which was declared sine die under the Koroma Administration; an economic austerity or a state of economic bantingism, that was never declared free until the Bio Government ousted the Koroma APC’s government democratically due to the shenanigan dwindling of the economic status of the country by then.
The Courier is not claiming that a once battered economy coupled with massive state graft as per the content of the reports of the three judge led Commissions of Inquiry and the Government White Paper which may probably need double decades for it to be fixed up, has been fixed up. But I can unremorsefully assert that under the supervision of the newly appointed Chief Minister then as the Finance Minister, the country had a magical-alike U-turn in terms of sanitizing, reforming and remedying an economy that was once decorated with the worst shattered nightmares that even precipitated development partners including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to take a tactical withdrawal in terms of financial support to the country. The recent Bio cabinet reorganization wherein, the superficially untouchables have been touched the likes of Professor David Francis, has just reaffirmed that the Bio Administration is a performance-based-administration wherein, only the result-oriented Ministers or State Actors are recognized and motivated for their faithful and nationalistic service to the nation, and equally reprimand those who are slow to swiftly align themselves within the broader mission and vision of his New Direction Administration.
Someone somewhere reading this piece may want to say that “we are not out of the wove yet” under the leadership of Jacob Jusu Saffa as Finance Minister especially with the popular aphorism gallivanting mainly among supporters and sympathizers on the other side of the political spectrum that “D GRON DRY” (things are difficult in terms of livelihood). The Courier will definitely underscore this aspect somehow because for a nation that was once faced with horrendous economic strangulations characterized by high level of a well-orchestrated egregious racketeering enterprise, poverty, huge domestic and external debts, huge arrears to suppliers, double digit inflation, low domestic revenue collection, corruption, poor financial management and as well as poor relationship with development partners including the IMF and the World Bank, cannot be addressed “KUN FAYA KUN” (working transliteration of an Arabic phraseology meaning ‘BE AND IT IS’).
I would equally like to refresh the minds of these purveyors of the adage “D GRON DRY” (things are difficult), with the 2018 Sierra Leone Integrated Household Survey (SLIHS) which indicates that, poverty remains high in Sierra Leone with official poverty rate at 56.8% in 2018. This literally means out of every 10 households in Sierra Leone, 6 are poor and had no access to “Bread and Butter.” The aforementioned poverty survey conducted in 2018 further indicates that poverty is not a new phenomenon in Sierra Leone and therefore, the “Bread and Butter” Minister has actually tried and he is still trying harder to butter the bread of Sierra Leoneans. On his previous media appearances, Jacob Jusu Saffa dubbed as “the Bread and Butter Minister” has been referencing the total external debts in 2018 which was estimated at over US$1.6 billion, domestic debts of about US$650 million and verified arrears to suppliers estimated at about US$340 million. Total revenue (including grant) GDP ratio was estimated at 14.8% in 2017. Before 2018, not more than 60% of the national budget was financed from domestic revenue.
Chief Minister Saffa was explicitly vocal few weeks back at the Ministry of Information and Communications’ Thursdays Press Conference that the reported average daily revenue collected under the Koroma Administration was barely Le 10 billion before April 2018 putting average domestic revenue collected for 22 working days at Le 220 billion, which was far insufficient to meet monthly domestic wage bill of about Le 250 billion and debt service of about Le 100 billion was and therefore, obviously warranted bank financing of the persistent huge fiscal deficit. Between 25-30% of government revenue is spent on debt service monthly. This means that since 2018, on average, he said for every Le 100 billion collected monthly, Le 30 billion (equivalent to the construction of 30 schools with each having 6 classrooms, office, store, WASH facilities and furniture for 300 pupils) is used to service debt. Inflation was about 18% and exchange rate about Le 7,500 to US$1. Two large scale mining companies were closed for various reasons. IMF had ceased funding because of economic indiscipline and by extension all partners withdrew or slowed down operations in Sierra Leone. There was no policy programme with the IMF and all budgetary support from World Bank, EU and ADB were withheld during the Koroma led Administration.
One may definitely want to ask what are/were the commendable interventions of Jacob Jusu Saffa as one of the nation’s finest Minister of Finance in order to address the marathon malaise of fiscal indiscipline that was inherited under the Koroma Administration. The Double Crowned Minister, Jacob Jusu Saffa recommended for the fiscal consolidation through the establishment of Treasury Single Account (TSC) aimed at enhancing efficacious economic management, and also putting his vim and vigor on increasing revenue and efficiently managing expenditure for human capital development and job creation. As part of his success stories, Minister Saffa justified that Economic Growth was estimated at 5.4% in 2019 compared to 3.5% in 2018. Total revenue (including grant) GDP ratio increased from 14.8% in 2017 to 17.7% in 2019. In 2019, about 75% of the national budget was financed by the domestic revenue. Average daily domestic revenue collected increased to about Le 20 billion and by extension monthly revenue collection for 22 working days estimated at Le 440 billion.
Despite the increment of the wage bill to Le 250 billion plus Le 100 billion for debt service, government through the Finance Minister has been able to uninterruptedly pay salaries. Minister Saffa also noted that the New Direction Government currently has about Le 90 billion for other recurrent and capital budget financing. Although this is not enough, Minister Saffa observed that the above sum has enabled government to seamlessly manage the economy. Coupled with the strong leadership of the President and effective fiduciary management, Sierra Leone has attracted huge budgetary support and project financing that has also enabled the government to implement ambitious development projects in water, electricity, roads, education and health with minimal recourse to bank financing. A pragmatic example to this is the recent disbursement of 66.4 billion Leones for the electrification of seven districts headquarters towns, which are: Matru, Bonthe, Pujehun, Kabala, Kambia, Kailahun and Moyamba.
Also part of the many strides of Jacob Jusu Saffa to extricate the popular notion of “D GRON DRY” (things are difficult for livelihood) especially with the adverse effect of COVID-19 global economic strangulations, he also recommended to the President for the launch of a Quick Action Economic Recovery Programme (QAERP), which led to the launch of the much-talked-about ‘’MUNAFA FUND’’ (The benefit fund in my local colloquial dialect) at the Tonkolili District Headquarter town of Magboraka on Friday the 12th February 2021 with a sum of one hundred billion Leones for a start. It is an undisputable fact that the “MUNAFA FUND” (benefit fund) has started providing finance for youth and women in small businesses and artisan activities ranging from five million Leones per person, to ten million Leones per group. On that beautiful and memorable day at the Magboraka town field, I saw at a glance thousands of youths and vulnerable women all in their euphoric gratifications hailing and chanting praises on President Bio and his “BREAD and Butter” Minister Jacob Jusu Saffa for indeed providing bread and butter for them, and also “4 soak d gron for them” (easing the inherited hardship on them). The Munafa Fund would also provide at least 10,000 jobs for youth and women every year due to its efficacious implementation.
The Courier would want to end this edition by asserting that Mr. Jacob Jusu Saffa, formerly the “BREAD and BUTTER” now the “DOUBLE CROWNED” Minister, has truthfully done a commendable job by helping to revitalize and resuscitate the economy of a once broken state to the satiation of not only Sierra Leoneans, but also development partners. As part of his legacy, the inflation rate of the country has progressively reduced from 18% in 2018 to about 11% slightly over 10% in November 2020 and he has also assured for the inflation rate to be in single digit by end 2021 as long as he continues to superintend the Finance Ministry. We experienced exchange rate depreciation of about 10-15% in the 2018 due largely to weak export capacity but has been fairly stable since October 2019. External reserve that was estimated at 3.5 months of imports in 2018 substantially increased to nearly 5 months of imports by end 2020 and exchange rate has remained stable for over 15 months now.
Minister Saffa is also worth celebrating for his astute income policy recommendation to the Bio led Government especially in his annual budget allocation which has resulted to the increment of salaries of workers, raising the minimum wage and minimum pension. Since 2018, the Bio led Government has raised salaries of health workers by over 100%, teachers by over 50% and general work force by at least 20%. By April this year again, Minister Saffa has also assured that government intends to increase salaries for all security personnel and staff of tertiary institutions. Minimum wage of salaries has also been increased from Le 500,000 to Le 600,000 and minimum pension from Le 25,000 to Le 250,000 under his leadership as Finance Minister. At least 7,000 teachers and health workers have been brought on the payroll. With average household size of 6 persons, this means at least 42,000 persons will benefit from this recruitment. In addition to recruitments in the Police, Teacher Service Commission and many other MDAs can bring the number of jobs created in MDAs to over 20,000. All these is being actualized due to Jacob Jusu Saffa’s inundated fiscal policy implementation aimed at cushioning the effect of the “D GRON DRY” syndrome. If I were to give my candid opinion on Mr. Saffa’s appointment as Chief Minister, I would have recommended for Him to stay at the Ministry of Finance and score more goals being that he is the ‘’Messi’’ in President Bio’s Administration. Also taking into cognizance that he being the country’s Chief Minister, he equally has the power to play a supervisory role among all other Ministries, Departments and Agencies. I pray we have Mr. Saffa’s adequate replacement at the Finance Ministry because he is indeed an epitome of admiration in terms of fiscal management policies.