On Friday February 21 the National Assembly once again approved two loans for agriculture amounting of millions of dollars. If indeed the NAMs had done a little bit of study and analysis, I am sure they would have rejected the loans and its accompanying grants. This is because the amount of loans and grants contracted for agriculture related projects over the years runs into billons of dalasi yet the objective of food sufficiency and food security including rice value chain have not been met.
What is clear is that the Government has so far failed to achieve the objectives of those loans as the country’s capacity to produce and feed itself continues to dwindle while national debt and poverty continue to skyrocket. For example, between 2012 and 2015 the number of agricultural projects alone was at least 38 which all combined received a total of loans and grants amounting to 2.3 billion dalasi. This is according to the Ministry of Finance’s aid bulletin published in July 2016.
The bulletin reported that the country received overall 10.6 billion dalasi in grants and 5.3 billion dalasi in loans amounting to a total of 16 billion dalasi between 2012 and 2015.
Therefore, one wonders where have all of these billions of dalasi gone to in this tiny country of 2 million people? Currently the national debt stands at 73 billion dalasi when the national budget is only 21.3 billion out of which more than 7 billion goes to service our debt! NAMs should not have allowed sentiment to override them just because the Minister of Finance said the projects were focusing on women, youth and persons with disability.
These projects are about rice value chain improvement and strengthening of local farmers but these were exactly among the same objectives one will find in previous projects between 2012 and 2015. What has been the outcome of those projects? This is the question NAMs should raise? Yes, a number of NAMs raised pertinent questions and observations such as those by Halifa Sallah, Sidia Jatta, Ya Kumba Jaiteh, Sulayman Saho and Dawda Jawara, however it was necessary that the NAMs totally reject these loans and grants and rather demand a total review of the agriculture sector instead.
The obvious is that the level of loans in this country is now unsustainable which the Finance Minister himself lamented in his budget speech in December 2019. Therefore, why should that same Government continue to ask for more loans when the benefits of those loans on the lives of the people are not felt? Despite the billions of dalasi of loans and grants received over the years this country remains food insecure, our farmers continue to be poorer while processing and overall industrialization of the agriculture sector remains low.
Let us urge our NAMs not to approve any more loans for this Government until there is a clear assessment of the state of affairs in each sector. The amount of loans taken for agriculture so far over the years is enough to have made this country truly self-sufficient in food production. The same could be said for the education or health or energy sectors yet each of these sectors continue to be beset by underperformance, low capacity and massive corruption thanks to their poor procurement management. We need system change! Let the National Assembly take the lead!
