Debt Funded Poverty: The SLPP, APC, and The Foreign Masters Bleeding Sierra Leone Dry

 

By Mahmud Tim Kargbo

Sierra Leone’s tax to GDP ratio has increased in recent years. While this may suggest an improved capacity to collect domestic revenue, it also exposes the growing weight of fiscal pressure on the already suffering majority. In a country where government priorities are increasingly shaped by the demands of foreign creditors, taxation has become less about nation building and more about debt service. It is a tool that penalises the poor while protecting the interests of international financiers and their local collaborators.

High taxation, orchestrated under neo-colonialist and imperialist influence, is not merely a budgetary choice. It is a structural injustice. These policies, implemented through successive post war APC Ernest Bai Koroma and SLPP Julius Maada Bio governments, have exacerbated poverty and undermined national sovereignty. Despite public pronouncements of democratic values, these governments function as local administrators of a global financial order that places debt repayment above public welfare.

The Constitution Rejects Exploitative Taxation

The 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone provides a clear legal and moral basis for opposing exploitative taxation.

Section 7(1)(b) states that the state shall “secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen.” Excessive taxation that impoverishes citizens directly contradicts this provision.

Section 8(1)(a) mandates that “the State shall direct its policy towards ensuring that every citizen without discrimination… has the opportunity for securing adequate means of livelihood.” When tax policies result in hunger, unemployment, and undereducation, the state is failing its constitutional duty.

Section 13(j) highlights the duty of all public officials to “ensure that the wealth of the nation is used in a manner which promotes the national interest and eliminates poverty.”

When taxation enriches the elite while impoverishing the public and serving foreign creditors, it violates these constitutional responsibilities.

SLPP’s Own Manifesto Condemns What They Now Practice

The SLPP 2018 People’s Manifesto committed to “pursue progressive and fair taxation that will not overburden the poor but will increase compliance and generate revenue efficiently.”

(Section 4.3.1, Page 60, Paragraph 2)

http://www.slpp.ws/SLPP_Manifesto_2018.pdf

Yet under SLPP leadership, taxes on essentials like rice, fuel, and medicine have sharply increased. These taxes directly contradict the party’s stated goals and disproportionately impact the most vulnerable. This policy direction reveals that the ruling elite are more accountable to foreign financial institutions than to the Sierra Leonean people.

When Foreign Powers Dictate Tax Policy, Democracy Becomes a Façade

When an elected government allows imperialist institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, or so-called foreign development banks to dictate its tax policies, it forfeits its claim to genuine democratic legitimacy. Such a government becomes an imposition, installed through the appearance of elections but operating under foreign instruction.

These regimes speak of democracy while prioritising external loan repayments over local needs. In reality, they function as administrators of a system that extracts resources and burdens citizens without offering social returns.

The Cost of Neo-Colonial Taxation on the Suffering Majority

The economic hardship facing Sierra Leoneans today is unprecedented in modern times. Excessive taxation on essential goods has stripped families of their ability to feed their children, access quality education, pay for healthcare, or maintain shelter and transportation. Meanwhile, members of both the SLPP and APC, with the exception of the late President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, have consistently aligned with foreign interests and facilitated the looting of public resources through tax havens and corrupt contracts.

The Data Does Not Lie: A Nation in Decline

Human Development Index (2023): Sierra Leone ranks 181 out of 193 countries

http://www.hdr.undp.org/data-center/country-insights#/ranks/SLE

Global Hunger Index (2023): Sierra Leone scores 31.3, categorised as “serious”

http://www.globalhungerindex.org/sierra-leone.html

Oxfam Report: Millions lost annually due to tax exemptions and manipulation by foreign firms

http://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/west-africa-losing-billions-tax-havens

Christian Aid Report: “Death and Taxes” reveals collusion between public officials and investors to exploit tax loopholes

http://www.christianaid.org.uk/sites/default/files/2017-12/Death-and-taxes-tax-avoidance-developing-countries-report.pdf

Audit Service Report (2022): Billions of Leones misappropriated across critical public sectors

http://www.auditservice.gov.sl/reports/annual-audit-report-2022.pdf

These reports confirm what citizens already know. While they are asked to sacrifice, those in power profit without accountability.

Debt Servicing from Koroma to Bio: A Timeline of Betrayal

Debt Under Ernest Bai Koroma (2007–2018)

When Koroma took office, Sierra Leone’s external debt stood at approximately US$500 million. By 2018, it had grown to around US$1.6 billion, a 220 percent increase. Debt servicing over that period totalled roughly US$1.2 billion.

http://datatopics.worldbank.org/debt/ids/country/SLE

Debt Under Julius Maada Bio (2018–2025)

From April 2018 to the end of 2024, Sierra Leone paid approximately US$940 million in external debt service. This figure is expected to surpass US$1 billion by the end of 2025.

During this time, the country’s total external debt rose from US$1.6 billion to over US$3.2 billion, marking the fastest and largest debt accumulation in the post-HIPC era.

http://www.mof.gov.sl

http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/sierraleone/publication/international-debt-statistics

http://www.imf.org/en/Publications/CR/Issues/2023/07/11/Sierra-Leone-Staff-Report-for-the-2023-Article-IV-Consultation-and-Request-for-a-Three-Year-536617

What Have the People Gained?

Despite billions borrowed and repaid, Sierra Leoneans remain trapped in poverty. Roads remain impassable. Hospitals are under equipped. Schools are overcrowded. Entire regions lack clean water, electricity, or functioning sanitation systems.

These outcomes make clear that the majority of loans have not been used for development but for elite enrichment, political survival, and foreign debt service.

Debt Without Dignity: When Creditors Abet Corruption

It is neither just nor sustainable for institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, and bilateral creditors to demand debt repayment from governments that acquired loans under dubious conditions.

Many of these loans were:

Inflated through corrupt contracts

Acquired without parliamentary approval

Disbursed with no transparency or independent oversight

Issued despite repeated audit failures

Used to benefit private actors rather than the public

To continue lending to governments with these records is to encourage and facilitate high level corruption.

Joseph Stiglitz: Lending to Corruption is Corruption

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist and former Chief Economist of the World Bank, has stated:

“When international lenders continue to fund corrupt governments, they are not rescuing countries, they are enriching elites and burdening future generations with illegitimate debt.”

Supporting sources:

Making Globalization Work (2006)

http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/176274/making-globalization-work-by-joseph-e-stiglitz/

Project Syndicate: The IMF’s Role in the Global Economy

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/stiglitz-on-imf-failure-corruption

Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited (2017)

http://www.wwnorton.com/books/9780393355161

If financial institutions truly support transparency and good governance, they must cease rewarding corrupt states with new loans. Instead, they should support debt audits, asset recovery, and the cancellation of illegitimate debt.

The Debt Burden Must Be Judged by Justice, Not Just Contracts

It is morally indefensible for Sierra Leone’s citizens to bear the burden of debts incurred through corruption, incompetence, or neo-colonial coercion. Public resources must be used for the benefit of the many, not to serve the appetites of a few or the interests of foreign powers.

Real reform demands:

Progressive taxation that protects the poor

Full debt transparency

Independent investigations into past borrowing

A development model based on sovereignty, not servitude

Until then, taxation in Sierra Leone will remain not a tool of civilisation, but a mechanism of subjugation.