This publication, Understanding Sierra Leone's Development, is an author’s dream comes true. Sierra Leone, my birth place is at the core of what this book represents and, in its entirety, is about the country's economic and social ordeals and the problems the government is encountering in trying to resolve them. It premise is developmental and it commences with the author's attempt to arouse the interests and emotions of his readers so as to win their attentions. It contents are reliable, precise and simple, intended primarily for a variety of reading audiences but, in particular, our sixth form and college students planning to enter the business world. There are challenging issues for every-one African, Asian, Arab and other foreign students worldwide, and this is also suited for those whose second language is English.
A prelude to the author's introduction enumerates the wave of troubling social events, some of which he considers alien and warns that unless there is the desire of the sitting government to resolve them, they may become obstacles to the country's economic growth. While addressing the country's social problems, the author takes the opportunity, on behalf of his college buddies, to dedicate this publication to their dean (faculty of economics, University of Sierra Leone), the late professor N. A. Cox- George, but to win it reader's emotions, especially the older generation, He idolizes the late governor Clarkson's prayer for Sierra Leone. Chapter 1 is a follow- through but is more detailed in raising the misconceptions of Sierra Leone's traditional values and what they represent. The chapter ends with a call to emulate the lives of the country's departed heroes and illustrious sons, in whose memories the nation should seek spiritual guidance.
Chapter 2 is about development and the misconceptions surrounding the meaning itself, its concept, analysis, scope and whether Sierra Leone is underdeveloped or in transition. This chapter exhaustively addresses it's classifications and characterization and, in doing so creates a new dimension of classification involving development, the super power doctrine, quite distinct from it political interpretation. By creating the doctrine and attaching it to development, it becomes part of the realms of economic development and, by it doctrine, represents a combination of exceptional economic and military superiority. The doctrine is guided by the presumption, that in warfare, economic strangulation and the domination of sophisticated weaponry should suffice to determine the duration or speedy conclusion of a military campaign. The doctrine takes cognizance of the fact that a prolonged war causes far- reaching loss of humans, properties and money. However, there are exceptions: Iran, Pakistan and Israel which according to World Bank, are not yet fully developed.
Chapter 3 is about the nation's most controversial socio- economic problems, the land tenure- system, which, archaic by its formation and application, remains an impediment to the nation's economic growth. The obstacles to reforms and how they can be resolved are addressed in chapters 3 4 5 and 6, with recommendations, some improvised with caveats to protect the disposal of communal lands. The chapters on monetary policy, complicated as they may appear, are addressed with the utmost sincerity and understanding of underdevelopment. In Sierra Leone, some of it monetary policies are unwise and tainted with precarious government interventions but, our professional experts themselves have their own sides of the ugly stories. Monetary policy, from my perception of underdevelopment is addressed under three improvised crisis levels, (1) the impotence of Sierra Leone's land- tenure system, (2) a new hypothetical approach called, the Faulkner's tug of monetary war sessions, or the Faulkner's hypothesis and (3) the Bank of Sierra Leone dilemma.
