Editorial:
From 54% to Fantasy…SLPP’S GREAT INFLATION LIE
By Ibrahim Alusine Kamara (Kamalo)
In a world where facts matter and numbers guide policy, Sierra Leone’s SLPP government chose fiction over truth — and has now been called out for it on the global stage. At this year’s IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings, officials from Freetown found themselves stripped of credibility as international partners laid bare the farce: inflation figures miraculously slashed from 54% to 10% in less than a year — without a single meaningful economic reform to back it.
This wasn’t economic genius. It was statistical fraud. A desperate attempt to paint lipstick on a bleeding economy and deceive both the international community and the people of Sierra Leone.
The SLPP government thought the world wouldn’t notice. But the IMF did — and the fury behind closed doors was seismic. One IMF official reportedly described the data as “economic fiction”, while others openly questioned the government’s grasp of basic macroeconomics. And they were right to.
You cannot fake your way out of a crisis. Inflation is not just a number on a report — it’s the difference between whether families eat or starve, whether businesses survive or collapse. Manipulating such a critical indicator is more than dishonest — it is dangerous.
It undermines the trust of international lenders. It erodes investor confidence. Most of all, it insults the intelligence of Sierra Leoneans, who feel the real inflation every single day — in bread prices, in bus fares, in medicine shelves that go empty.
But this scandal doesn’t stand alone. It’s part of a broader pattern of deception and decay. From the overpriced Karpowership contract to phantom road projects and vanishing public funds, this government seems obsessed not with progress, but with appearance. Not with fixing the economy, but with faking it.
And now, the consequences are here.
Donors are pulling back. Budgets are buckling. Even basic salary payments are uncertain in the months ahead. And yet, officials still posture with doctored figures, hoping to maintain a lie that’s already collapsing under the weight of reality.
The truth is clear: Sierra Leone is in a fiscal crisis of its own making — and no amount of number-fixing will hide that anymore.
The people deserve transparency. They deserve real reform — not cosmetic lies. Because you can’t build trust on cooked books. You build it by facing the hard truths and doing the hard work.
The question now is: will this government finally come clean? Or will it continue to gamble the nation’s future on a lie that’s already been exposed?