Nenya.net

All quiet on the Western Seaboard

After a sustained effort under the previous government the country is getting closer to food self-sufficiency. In fact, according to one report I heard last year, all regions except the Western area were food self-sufficient. This is mainly because there is a very high concentration of the population in the Western Area. One of the problems is getting food from the regions to the city, which always makes prices here much higher than they are up country. The previous government- under the SLPP focused on food security, one of its main pledges in the 2002 was that no Sierra Leonean would go to bed hungry and as such the government subsidised the price of rice. Now, I’m not sure if this worked and given how tough life is here for the majority of the population, it’s possible that no Sierra Leonean ever went to bed hungry but I take leave to doubt that. When the APC administration came into power in September, they announced a change in their focus; they would try to improve the situation regarding power and electricity, as well as other infrastructural issues and so they got rid of the rice subsidy.

The international situation is causing these prices to go even higher, but there’s (as yet and as far as I’m aware) no likelihood or threat of rioting or protests about the higher food prices. I was confused, since the prices have increased dramatically for basic food stuffs and spoke to some friends about this and the reason for the lack of discontent is politics. The ‘Youth’ in Freetown (anyone aged 18-35) who are the majority of the unemployed and therefore/also those most likely to riot, voted in overwhelming numbers for the APC in the elections last year and therefore are much less likely to riot under this government than they were under the previous government due to the issues of political allegiances and loyalties and the need for the party that ‘they’ put into power not to lose face by having to deal with rioting youth. They may make their concerns known when the local elections occur in July/August this year, but since the President does seem to have delivered on his promise to bring power to Freetown (even if the method used does not consider the long term fiscal impacts that this will have), so the people are more likely to consider him as a man to keep his promises and that he will be doing all he can to sort out the current problem with the food prices.

posted by Nenya @ 10:25 am