Sierra Leone’s President opens Africa Caucus in Freetown

President Ernest Bai Koroma

Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Bai Koroma, today opened the African Caucus meeting, which comprised of over 300 delegates of African Finance Ministers and Bank Governors at the Miatta Conference Hall, West of Freetown the capital city of Sierra Leone .The meeting is expected to end on the 13^th of August 2009. The meeting is discussing issues relating to Africa in the context of the current global financial and economic crises, lessons learnt and the way forward. Africa has not been speared by the global recession and this meeting could be used as a platform to get solutions to the global financial crisis.

Sierra Leone was chosen as venue for the meeting following the election of that country’s Minister of Finance as chairman for the Caucus for 2009-2010. The meeting is seen as an international boast for the country following the end of the civil conflict some years back, and also being the first international meeting of such nature to be held in the country after the O.A.U Conference in 1980.Declaring the meeting open, Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Bai Koroma said the current global crisis is manifested in many ways in Sierra Leone ‘ranging from the fall in the production and sale of diamonds and other mining products, partly in response to declining global demand, to low inflow of direct foreign investment, remittances and foreign currency’

President Koroma said Sierra Leon has articulated and is now implementing an ‘Agenda for Change’ and this agenda, he said, sets clear priorities like energy, agriculture and roads as the drivers of growth and necessary conditions for human development. He spoke of the strategies that are being used by his government in delivering these priorities and these he said include, ‘improving public sector capacity, enhancing state-private sector partnership and addressing the shortcomings of our domestic financial system’’

Speaking on the world economy, President Koroma said if the concerted efforts of policy makers around the world fail to re-establish trust in the international financial system, then the world economy risk a deeper and more prolonged recession. African countries, he said, will suffer from reduction in the external demand for their commodities.

He called on the Caucus to use the opportunity of the conference to send out a message in respect of all initiatives that are currently being conceived, designed and implemented to respond to the crisis. ‘ We need to protect and sustain our achievements in growth and poverty reduction. It is critical that earlier commitments made at several international fora be respected and implemented.

These include among others the Monterrey Consensus and the Doha agenda’.

‘It is clear that weaknesses in the regulatory mechanisms of our national financial systems and those of the international financial institutions impact negatively on our countries, irrespective of whether they are responsible or not for causing the financial crises. The impact goes beyond the borders of responsible nations. It should therefore be a matter of global interest to create effective mechanisms for surveillance of the international and national financial systems.

President Ernest Bai Koroma furthered said that there is an urgent need to create a rapid response framework to help countries in need of stemming and reversing the effects of global financial crisis and economic downturn. This should be done in a manner that is timely and free of all influences. He is hopeful that those present will use ‘this unique opportunity to have a more open and candid discourse that will help us face the future more confidently together’

Every year, the Chairman of the African Caucus hosts colleague African Ministers of Finance and Governors of Central Banks to deliberate on issues of importance to their respective economies, in particular, and to Africa in general; and of course to the wider global economy. Several Ministers of Finance and Bank Governors from around Africa are attending the meeting, which is slated to end tomorrow. The meeting in Sierra Leone is expected to go a long way in reaffirming the confidence that the donor community had in post conflict Sierra Leone.

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