By Saio Marrah
Dr. Kandeh Kolleh Yumkella, Member of Parliament for Constituency 062, has questioned governments' continued hiring and increasing spending on an economy that has been projected to decline.
Yumkella raised this concern to the Deputy Minister of Finance I, Dr. Patricia Nyanga Laverley, during the final day of debate for the Appropriation Bill 2021 at the well of parliament on Wednesday, 25th November.
This bill will authorize the government of Sierra Leone, through the ministry of Finance, to spend from the consolidated fund for the service of Sierra Leone for the year 2021 and for other related matters.
The opposition National Grand Coalition (NGC) lawmaker argued that it is stated in the bill that the country is expecting a contraction of the economy by 2.8 percent. He noted that reports in the international media suggested that the Covid-19 pandemic continues to rise in Europe and North America, which posed a threat to the global economy. Yumkella therefore wondered why the Sierra Leone government continued to hire and spend more amidst the uncertainty.
“The government has said the economy will contract by 2.8%. We also know that mining is not picking up yet, so I asked, where will you get the money to do all these things you are promising people. You know already we have problem with the university,” Dr. Yumkella later told Politico in an interview after the proceeding.
“We also have a problem wherein we approve budgets with ministries [and] they don’t receive their money, sometimes until after second quarters. If you’re delaying giving them their money they can’t perform and that is happening because we don’t have enough money to be able to finance government operations. This is why I tell them don’t spend more than you have, otherwise it will be what I called ‘cut ya put ya’. You pay some people, you delay [paying] the others for three months, then you pay them. You will be doing musical chair. Like now, you can’t even meet the commitment to the universities.”
According to Yumkella, the government should rather take care of those it has on the payroll, by making sure it pays the teachers on time, preventing the strikes in the universities and to stick to the commitments, instead of hiring more and spending more.
“It also means you cannot have longer term prosperity. The hiring of more seven thousand teachers within the last two years and the hiring of one thousand health workers means more burden on the economy,” he said.
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