Agriculture-C5 Traveling- A1 Energy- E8 Economy- D7 Youth Employment- F9 Education- D Health-C4 …Bio’S Eight Years Report Card

Just this past Sunday ,Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio and his Sierra Leone People’s Party ( SLPP) Government clocked 8yrs in Office and three years since he was re-elected in a controversial elections in 2023. The government outlined it priority areas in a people manifesto which have been transformed into a Medium Term National Development Plan (MTNDP). Through Desk Research and observation, NEW AGE provides the 8yrs Report card of President Bio.
AGRICULTURE
Government of Sierra Leone launched Agriculture as its flagship project for the second term of President Bio with a promise of feeding the people of the country. There have been visible projects and implementation particularly of onions and eggs in the country. PEE CEE and Sons with support from IFC is cultivating over 70 hectare of onions in Lungi which has scaled up onions production with a potential to cultivate over 170 hectare a year with the right investment in mechanization and irrigation. PEE CEE and Sons is currently averaging a yield of about 55 tons per hectare of which significant proportion is being supplied to the local market, impacting reduction in import and lower prices. Also, there are several poultry farms in the country which have helped in egg production.
The Country Report of the World Food Programme (WFP) noted that improved economic conditions were a defining feature of the year and that the easing of inflation reduced pressure on household purchasing power and contributed to greater affordability of staple foods, particularly rice.
“Price stability during the lean season helped mitigate the seasonal deterioration in food consumption typically observed among rural and urban poor households. As a result, the proportion of the population facing acute food insecurity declined from 28 percent in 2024 to 13 percent in 2025,” WFP reported
However, the same WFP stated thast substantial share of households remains in moderate food insecurity which was classified as ‘Crisis’ indicating that households continue to experience food consumption gaps or are relying on unsustainable coping strategies, requiring urgent action to prevent further deterioration.
OVERSEA’s TRAVELLING
Overseas Travelling continues as a very lucrative government area more so in a situation where the President is considered as the Chief Traveler. It seems as if the President and his Ministers are racing on overseas traveling. Government Spokes people have stoutly defended this extended area of Government business, explaining that they have gained more from this frequent travelling than they have spent.
This defense come in handy particularly from a government that lampooned the last administration. “ Over the last 10 years, overseas travel was an expanding Government area. Despite the cosmetic austerity measures, reports show that the travel budget after austerity is higher than the pre-austerity period. For example, the attendance of the President to UN, AU or ECOWAS Summits cost over Le4.0 billion in each case. Overseas travel expenses across the MDAs are uncontrollably higher, estimated at over Le250 billion or more than $30 million a year,” the new direction manifesto revealed. But under President Bio, a special account on travelling has been created to fuel the flying of the President while the Government is spending up to $10M on travelling.
ENERGY
This has been one of the failures of the Bio’s administration. Although they claimed to have increased access to electricity to like 34% from 23%, the reality on the ground is different. People are experiencing rampant power cuts in most part of the city not to talk about other parts of the country. For this, government has relied on emergency power supplies which has posed significant fiscal risk to the country’s economy. The World Bank Report on Sierra Leone’s Energy Sector states that Access to electricity is a significant bottleneck to enhancing private sector growth, pointing out that the sector has suffered from inefficiency, frequent outages, and high costs.
“Not only does it take 16 days for a firm to obtain an electricity connection, but also 66 percent of firms in Sierra Leone experience power outages. These outages impose high costs as firms are forced to turn to heavy fuel oil generators to power their factories or suffer disruption of production,” the report stated
World bank furthered that buildups of arrears to independent power producers (IPPs), especially Kapowership, have typically resulted in the IPPs’ cutting power to the electricity distributor (the Electricity Distribution and Supply Agency, EDSA), causing widespread power outages that affect both households and businesses, revealing that while repeated spending overruns have cast doubt on fiscal sustainability, the energy sector poses a significant fiscal risk.
ECONOMY
This is another area where the country is not making much gains. According to World Bank, Fiscal performance remains a key vulnerability, pointing out that Weak fiscal discipline, characterized by significant and recurrent budgetary overruns, threatens to jeopardize macroeconomic stability and sustainability and that overall deficit widened to 5.1 percent of GDP in 2024, exceeding budget targets for the fourth consecutive year, driven by large capital expenditure overruns.
The recent Monetary Policy Statement of the Central Bank accentuated that the overall fiscal deficit widened in the first quarter of 2026 relative to same recorded last year, pointing out that the increase was largely due to lower government revenue and slight increase in government expenditure
“Domestic revenue improved by 1.8 percentage point of GDP—rising to 9.2 percent of GDP in 2024, supported by tax policy measures implemented through the 2023 and 2024 Finance Acts, expanding the coverage of tax audits, and tax education. However, revenue remains constrained by pervasive tax exemptions, weak enforcement, administrative inefficiencies and a narrow tax base due to the high level of informality,” the World Bank said
The World Bank report also revealed that Debt risks have heightened, with very high debt servicing burdens and refinancing costs, driven by short-term domestic borrowings at real interest rates of over 10 percent, threatening fiscal sustainability.
YOUTH EMPLOYMENTY
The Medium Term Development National Plan makes it clearly that they target the creation of 500,000 new jobs for youth by 2030, recognizing them as a critical demographic for national development. The government plan projects that 70 percent (or about 350,000) of these new jobs will be generated directly by the private sector, with the remaining 30 percent (around 150,000 jobs) expected through public sector-coordinated projects with private sector participation. But this seems to be something that is far-fetched because private sector development is rather slow in the country.
World Bank states that the jobs challenge going forward is significant, revealing that the country will need to create an additional 2 million jobs between 2020 and 2050 just to maintain its current employment-to-population ratio of 51 percent.
“This objective requires that around 75,000 new jobs are created every year for new entrants to the working age population for the next 30 years, compared to about 41,000 jobs per year that have been generated in recent years. If Sierra Leone wants to achieve an employment-to-population ratio of 60 percent–the average of Sub-Saharan African countries–then an additional 100,000 jobs will be needed every year. A revitalized private sector will be central to that task,” World Bank states.
EDUCATION
Since the introduction of the Free Quality Education in Sierra Leone, there have been increase in enrolment but the facilities in schools don’t match the number. Most schools across the country lack classrooms and other enablers that will make education conducive. There are many teachers who are yet to be approved while the approved ones are crying for increase in salary. Even subsidies which are used to run the schools are difficult to come. Children taking external exams from government and government assisted schools are not performing and for that, most people have described the Free Quality Education as Free but lacks quality
HEALTH
The appointment of Dr Austin Demby has been a blessing for Sierra Leone’s health sector. Despite the numerous challenges, Sierra Leone recorded drop in maternal health of over 70% with over 90% vaccination coverage for children. Currently Government Hospitals are on off grid solar electrification. Government together with partners just launched a CT-Scan and Burns Unit at the main referral hospital in Freetown. There has been some form of improvement in public health facilities in the country despite the challenges