By Joseph S. Margai, Strategic Communications Coordinator
President Julius Maada Bio has said that the government is providing foreign exchange facilities for oil companies and food importers in order to facilitate the availability of petroleum products and food items on the market.
President Bio, who was speaking during the commissioning of the Tunde Cole Building on Fourah Bay College (FBC) campus on Monday, July 18, 2022, said some Sierra Leoneans have been spreading disinformation in order to foment unrest in the country rather than to acknowledge how much citizens and leaders are doing to make things better.
“Some people would blame the government of Sierra Leone for not providing cheap fuel even though they are well aware that Sierra Leone does not produce or refine petroleum products. Sierra Leone is at the receiving end of global supply and demand forces over which the country or its leaders have no control,” he said.
He said some people blame the government for not reducing the prices of imported food products even though they are well aware of global price hikes and supply chain disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing global economic crisis.
“More importantly, we have no option but to plant what we eat. We must put more seeds into our own soil and reap what we sow. We cannot expect foreign countries to plant rice and sell their rice to us at prices we determine. Our food security is our responsibility hence my government’s focus on investing in farming,” he said.
He said he introduced the free quality education because he believed that, and it has been proven in other nations, that it is the pathway to empowerment, to developing a productive economy, and to building an inclusive, progressive, and sustainable future for nations.
“So, while pessimists sit on the margin spreading disinformation and hoping for things to go all wrong, good citizens like Engineer Tunde Cole ask what he could do to contribute to training more doctors, engineers, lawyers, chemists, policymakers, etc., will transform the future of this nation,” he said.
He said good citizens is not about being wrapped in partisanship and fomenting civil unrest, it is about doing the right things at the right time about the multiple challenges we face as a developing nation.
“This four-storey edifice with two 170 person auditoria, equipped with smartboards and projectors for video/web conferencing and online content deliveries, six additional virtual learning-ready lecture and conference rooms, and comprehensive WiFi coverage throughout the building,” he said and officially commissioned the Tunde Cole Building.
Minister of Technical and Higher Education, Prof. Alpha Tejan Wurie, said 15 years after late President Ahmed Tejan Kabba of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) commissioned a building at FBC, President Julius Maada Bio has come again to commission the Tunde Cole Building.
He mentioned that since President Bio launched the free quality education, the enrolment has significantly increased in schools, adding that in 2020 alone, President Bio’s government paid fees for 156,000 (one hundred and fifty-six thousand) students who took the West African Senior School Certificate Education (WASSCE) examinations.
“In 2022, President Bio’s government paid fees for 200,000 (two hundred thousand) students that took the WASSCE examinations. Some of these students would have to come to FBC. So, the Tunde Cole Building is timely,” he said.
Vice Chancellor and Principal of the University of Sierra Leone (USL), thanked President Bio for honouring the invitation of the FBC amidst his busy schedules, adding that the Tunde Cole Building would facilitate 700 students to receive lectures at one go.