In this episode, we examine the role of the United States Development Finance Corporation (DFC) in Sierra Leone’s electricity corruption, showing how the DFC inherited a corrupt electricity contract from British financed corporations, and how US international investment is now financing corruption and deepening underdevelopment in Sierra Leone.    This episode is part of the VOICE FROM EXILE commentary series of the Africanist Press.  

In 2011, Sierra Leone politicians enacted a new electricity legislation that created two parallel institutions, the Electricity Generation and Transmission Company (EGTC) and the Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority (EDSA) to replace the state-owned National Power Authority (NPA). Since 1982, NPA oversaw electricity supply in Sierra Leone, including the fixing of consumer tariffs. In 2016, international financial institutions ranked Sierra Leone 178 out of 189 countries with lowest...

Sierra Leone's Energy Minister, Kanja Sesay announced on Friday that he is resigning from the Maada Bio regime because of the alleged failure to pay outstanding debts owed to the Turkish Karpowership contracted to sell electricity to Freetown residents. Kanja Sesay's resignation was later followed by Maada Bio's announcement that the energy ministry has now been placed under his direct supervision as president. These dramatic developments came after the Africanist Press Podcast revealed how...

The privatization program in postwar Sierra Leone was supposedly advanced by international financial institutions – the World Bank, IMF, African Development Bank – as a multi-sectoral development strategy aimed at reducing poverty and corruption, and improving economic growth and quality of governance and service delivery in the small West African country.   Since 2005, this World Bank and IMF supported privatization agenda has been called different names by successive regimes in Sierra...

In previous episodes, we mentioned  how the United States Development Finance Corporation (DFC) issued more than US$500 million in debts between 2019 and 2023 to the Maada Bio regime through unscrutinized and non-transparent infrastructure and service related contracts awarded to shell companies registered and operating out of Lebanon, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Kenya, and elsewhere. These non-transparent loan agreements include US$150 million to the Summa Group for the...

Walter Rodney was a historian, political activist, and academic. Born in 1942 in Georgetown Guyana, Rodney’s research focused on slavery and colonial imperialism in Africa and the Caribbean. His notable works include How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, first published in 1972. Rodney was assassinated in Georgetown, his home city, in 1980 at the age of 38.  In this episode, we produced Walter Rodney’s lecture on “Crisis in the Periphery: Africa and the Caribbean.”

In this episode, we discuss how hidden competition between British financed corporations and United States-backed companies for control of non-transparent service-related contracts and corruptly awarded critical infrastructure projects in Sierra Leone have worsened the country's foreign debt crisis. We examine the risks such developments pose to democracy and real economic propserity in the small west African nation. We highlight how Ernest Bai Koroma and Julius Maada Bio enabled these...

Carlos Cardoso was assassinated in the Mozambican capital of Maputo in late November 2000 while investigating the theft of US$14 million from the Commercial Bank of Mozambique (BCM). Born in 1951 to a family of Portuguese exiles, Carlos Cardoso supported Mozambique’s armed struggle for independence from Portugal, but as the years went by he became increasingly critical of FRELIMO government policies that mostly benefited wealthy businessmen and leading politicians. Eventually, Cardoso...

Between July 2021 and June 2023, United States Development Finance Corporation (DFC) approved over US$360 million in debts to supposedly finance critical infrastructure projects in Sierra Leone. The debts include US$150 million to the Summa Group for expansion of the Lungi international airport, and US$217 Million loan to Milele Energy and TCQ Power Limited; also to allegedly finance an electricity project in Freetown.  These critical infrastructure projects were awarded to the Summa Group,...

Robert Franklin Williams was a black American civil rights leader who served as president of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP in the 1950s and early 1960s. Williams advocated armed self-defense against racism decades before the black power and black nationalist movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s made it a central message of their activism. Rob Williams lived in exile in Cuba for five years, during which he wrote Negroes with Guns in 1962; the book that formed the...

In October 2023, international organizations and foreign diplomats stationed in Sierra Leone organized a meeting in Freetown to negotiate a political settlement to the electoral crisis without first investigating the disputed elections and the accompanying human rights violations. Held at the Bintumani Hotel in Freetown, the meeting developed an agreement that authorized politicians of the All Peoples Congress (APC) and Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) to take over the institutions of...

In July and August 2023, the United States government announced visa restrictions on officials who undermined democracy in Sierra Leone and called for an investigation into the conduct of the elections and accompanying human rights violations. The move followed the disputed June 2023 general elections, which international and domestic elections observer groups described as "undemocratic and non-transparent." However, in October 2023, the United States Embassy in Sierra Leone issued several...

Jamaican born Marcus Garvey was a prominent political leader, journalist, and public orator. A leading proponent in the African liberation movement, Garvey founded and led the largest mass movement of black people in the early twentieth century advocating for African liberation and unification. This episode looks at the life and legacy of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the organization he founded. Content for this episode is also adapted from a...

Jamaican born Marcus Garvey was a prominent political leader, journalist, and public orator. A leading proponent in the African liberation movement, Garvey founded and led the largest mass movement of black people in the early twentieth century advocating for African liberation and unification. This episode looks at the life and legacy of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the organization he founded. Content for this second episode is adapted from a...

In late August 2023, the United States announced a visa restriction policy against individuals who undermined the democratic process in the June 2023 Sierra Leone elections. This visa restrictions policy followed an earlier United States government statement issued on 14 July 2023 demanding "an independent, outside investigation of the elections process" and integration of "observer recommendations to improve the electoral modalities for future elections" in Sierra Leone. Thus, in the July...

Jamaican born Marcus Garvey was a prominent political leader, journalist, and public orator. A leading proponent in the African liberation movement, Garvey founded and led the largest mass movement of black people in the early twentieth century advocating for African liberation and unification. This episode looks at the life and legacy of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the organization he founded. Content for this episode is adapted from a...

In the previous two episodes of this series, we highlighted how the Sierra Leone elections of June 2023 did not follow the stipulated legal and constitutional procedures for the conduct of presidential, parliamentary, and local council elections. We specifically pointed out that Sierra Leone's Chief Electoral Commissioner, Mohamed Konneh did not wait for districts and regions to complete their vote counting and tallying process before announcing alleged winners of the June 2023...

Jamaica poet and artist, Linton Kwesi Johnson is the second living poet, and the only black one, to have his poems published in the Penguin Modern Classics Series in 2002. Born in Chapelton, a rural parish of Clarendon in Jamaica, Linton Kwesi Johnson migrated to Britain in 1963 with his parents as part of the Windrush generation that left Jamaica on the eve of independence. Johnson attended Tulse Hill School in Lambeth, where he joined the British Black Panther Movement, helping to...

Sierra Leone’s 1991 Constitution, and the Public Elections Act 2022, forbids the inauguration of a President, Members of Parliament, and representatives of Local Government Councils without properly conducted elections. Under Sierra Leonean law, elections are only considered properly and democratically conducted when all votes in each polling station, in each polling center, and in each district, and in each region have been fully counted, properly tallied, completely verified, and...

The Sierra Leone elections of June 2023 ended without a properly published election result. International and local observers who monitored the process agreed that the elections were non-transparent, and were equally fraught with numerous irregularities. Since June 2023, local and international appeals for the publication of the election results at the polling station level by the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone (ECSL) have been completely ignored by the election management body. But...

In this episode, Zimbabwean writer and artist, Lingiwe Patience Sifelani talks about her literary journey and the challenges of being a writer and cultural performer in today's Zimbabwe. This interview was conducted by Tipei Lorata Dube in Gweru, Zimbabwe. This episode is part of a new Africanist Press Series on Zimbabwe that examines the impact of economic sanctions on various sectors of the population, and how communities and individuals in the country have developed independent...

Zvidzai Chiponda is a Zimbabwean healer and practitioner of African traditional religion. In this episode, he talks about his journey from a devout Christian evangelist to becoming a leading advocate of African traditional religion. In the interview, Chiponda higghlights the impact of colonialism on African spirituality, the role of ancestors in the daily lives of Africans, and the need for religious tolerance among African communities. The interview was conducted by Tipei Lorata Dube in...

It has been twenty years since economic sanctions were imposed on Zimbabwe by the European Union, United States, and Britain. International organizations have argued that the sanctions are "intended to pressure and isolate those most responsible for political violence and the collapse of Zimbabwe's economy." Twenty years on, opinions are divided over the actual impacts of sanctions in Zimbabwe. In September 2022, for instance, Michelle Gavin, a Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow for Africa Policy...

In October 2023, Zimbabwe's Vice President, Constantino Chiwenga announced that Zimbabwe has lost more than US$150 billion in revenues due to sanctions imposed by the European Union, United States, and other countries since the early 2000s. "Since 2001, we estimate that Zimbabwe has lost or missed over US$150 billion through frozen assets, trade embargoes, and export and investment restrictions from potential bilateral support, development loans, IMF and World Bank balance of payments...