By Feima Sesay
Parliament of Sierra Leone has on Thursday 9th November 2023 passed into law the 2024 Finance Act in the Chamber of Parliament.
The new 2024 Act will see the placing of import duty on rice, tobacco, fuel and alcohol among other social services.
Addressing members of Parliament, the Minister of Finance, Sheku Fantamadi Bangura said one of the reasons they have put small percentage of import duty on rice was the fact that, even though before now they had removed the duty on rice, yet importers are still increasing the price of rice, and this affected the ordinary citizens.
Responding, the Chairman committee on finance, Hon. Kaisamba said that there should be a price formula so that business people will not take advantage of the situation of increasing the price on rice.
According to him, putting duty on plastics is good stating that there are a lot of plastics littering all over the place, this he said will one way or the other control the use of plastics across the country.
Making his submission, the Hon. Aaron Aruna Koroma from Tonkolili District said they are a constructive opposition. He commended the ministry for the extension of the GST from the previous 100 million to 500m. He said Liberia still maintains “0” duty on rice while in Sierra Leone is astronomical.
He maintained that if the government increases the prices of cement, iron rods and other building materials will be transferred to the tenants and other users thereby noting that the 2024 Finance Act will increase suffering on the people of Sierra Leone.
He called on colleague members of Parliament to critically look into the new finance bill, so that the suffering on the people will not increase.
Other Members of Parliament from both the ruling and opposition made meaningful contributions towards the bill. The 2024 Finance Act was unanimously debated and passed into law.
