By Ibrahim Joenal Sesay
FREETOWN, July 13 (232news.com) – The Vice President of Liberia Jewel Taylor has said that the 30% quota in the Liberian constitution was responsible for her being Vice President of her country. Madam Taylor was speaking on Thursday June 30th 2022 when she visited the Sierra Leone Parliament. She used the opportunity to call on African countries such as Nigeria. Liberia, Sierra Leone that will be holding their elections to give women more seats in Parliament.
The Vice President of Liberia stated that she was invited by the First Lady of Sierra Leone Fatima Bio to attend the 10th Conference on Sexual Gender Based Violence at the Bintumani Conference Hall at Aberdeen in Freetown. Forty one countries took part in the conference where they discussed women, girls, sexual violence and early marriage among others which she said was not peculiar to Sierra Leone as those issues were also challenging in Liberia. She noted that a Gender Bill was also in the Sierra Leone Parliament and used the opportunity to call on the Sierra Leone Members of Parliament especially the men to be champions of HeForShe so as to help reduce Gender Based Violence in Africa. Madam Taylor called on the men to support the process.
The President of the Female Caucus Hon Veronica K. Sesay said she was happy for women and was also proud of the Vice President of Liberia to visit Sierra Leone Parliament and that past leaders of the have been yearning for more women in Parliament. Madam Taylor, she said, is a woman of substance and that there are also in Sierra Leone who can do better than their men counterparts
Hon Foday Mario Kamara NGC said the Vice President of Liberia should teach Africa countries that hard work pays as he believes that it was not legislator that pushed the Vice President to where she is now but it was due to hard work.
The Leader of Opposition Hon Chernor R.M. Bah reiterated that women do not occupy top seats by fate but through hard work and encouraged women to be more involved in the upcoming election. The Leader of Government Business Hon Mathew Nyuma also addressed the injustice in Sierra Leone by our political parties noting that they were taking actions to address gender imparity. He said that people should not support the process to give women safe seat just because of bad politics. The Speaker of Parliament Dr. Chernor Abass Bundu informed the vice President that Sierra Leone Parliament is hung Parliament and that there were 146 members of Parliament including Paramount Chiefs. He said the Vice President’s visit to Sierra Leone would neither be first nor the last and asked her to revisit Sierra Leone as it is a friendly country.
The unaudited financial statements of the Government of Sierra Leone that is always prepared by the Accountant General of Sierra Leone has put the government of President Bio on a proper financial footing despites the seeming global economic crisis.
According to the report, the gross foreign exchange reserves (excluding swaps) is estimated to have increased from US$677 million (equivalent to 4.6 months of imports) at end of 2020 to an estimated US$ 936 million
This according to the report is equivalent to 6.1 months of imports at end of 2021.
“The increase in reserves was as a result of the inflows from development partners during the period including the disbursement of the balance of payments support by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and budget support by the World Bank,” the report added.
That domestic revenue increased from Le 5.5 trillion (13.8 percent of GDP) in 2020 to Le 6.8 trillion (15.3 percent of GDP) in 2021.
That The improved performance in domestic revenue was attributed mainly to the recovery in economic activities, stricter enforcement of tax laws, as well as the roll-out of the Electronic Cash Register for the administration of GST and the Integrated Tax Administration System (ITAS) for the electronic registration, filing, and payment of taxes.
