CHURCH OF ENGLAND/ ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY- WONGAD!

Wonga: Archbishop Aims To End Payday Lenders

 

            http://news.sky.com/story/1120128/wonga-archibishop-aims-to-end-payday-lenders

Wonga boss Errol Damelin insists he welcomes competition from the Church of England's plans to expand credit unions.

4:02pm UK, Thursday 25 July 2013

The payday lending industry is currently under scrutiny

Archbishop Justin Welby

Church of England

Payday lender Wonga is facing a fight for survival after the Archbishop of Canterbury insisted he wants to "compete" it out of existence.

The Most Rev Justin Welby wants to force it out of business by expanding the Church of England's credit union plans.

Mr Welby said he had delivered the message to Errol Damelin, chief executive of Wonga, one of Britain's best-known payday lenders, during a "very good conversation".

"I've met the head of Wonga and we had a very good conversation and I said to him quite bluntly 'we're not in the business of trying to legislate you out of existence, we're trying to compete you out of existence'," he told Total Politics magazine.

"He's a businessman, he took that well."

Errol Damelin -Wonga founder

The Archbishop's remarks come after he launched a new credit union for clergy and church staff earlier this month at the General Synod in York.

Mr Welby, who has served on the parliamentary Banking Standards Commission, has said he plans to expand the reach of credit unions as part of a long-term campaign to boost competition in the banking sector.

There are also plans to encourage church members with relevant skills to volunteer at credit unions.

The Government announced an investment of £38m in credit unions in April to help them offer an alternative option to payday lenders.

The entire payday lending industry, worth £2bn, was referred last month for a full-blown investigation by the Competition Commission after the trading watchdog uncovered "deep-rooted" problems with the industry.

Wonga said in March that it welcomed any attempt to encourage responsible lending and that it had been "instrumental" in helping to raise industry standards.

Mr Damelin said: "The Archbishop is clearly an exceptional individual and someone who understands the power of innovation.

"There is mutual respect, some differing opinions and a meeting of minds on many big issues.

"On the competition point, we always welcome fresh approaches that give people a fuller set of alternatives to solve their financial challenges. I'm all for better consumer choice."

 

Welby Defends Wonga After Church Link Emerges

http://news.sky.com/story/1120531/welby-defends-wonga-after-church-link-emerges

The Archbishop of Canterbury heaps praise on the payday lender after an embarrassing funding link with the Church is revealed.

Justin Welby: 'It's very embarrassing'

The Archbishop of Canterbury has insisted he was not picking on Wonga after it emerged the Church of England invests in the payday loan firm.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby admitted being "irritated" and "embarrassed" by the revelation but went on to heap praise on Wonga and its management.

Mr Welby hailed the company for its professionalism and suggested it was far from the worst organisation in the loan sector.

The link between the Church and the firm emerged hours after the Archbishop said he wanted to force Wonga out of business by expanding credit unions.

The Financial Times found the Church's pension fund had put money into Accel Partners, a US venture capital firm that led Wonga's 2009 fund-raising efforts.

Until the report emerged, Mr Welby had no idea about the connection.

Sources suggested he was "furious" but on Friday, in a lengthy interview, he merely said: "I was irritated for a few minutes but, you know, these things happen."

Justin Welby: 'It's very embarrassing'  

He did admit the affair was "very embarrassing" and vowed to investigate, signalling there could be a review of the Church's entire investment portfolio.

But he said: "I never took on Wonga in particular. The context was talking about the entire payday lender movement.

"Wonga is actually a very professionally managed company. Errol Damelin, the chief executive is a very clever man, [who] runs it extremely well."

Despite praising the company, he said he was still unhappy about the Church's investment.

"They shouldn't be investing in Wonga. We don't think that's a good thing," he told the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme.

And he insisted he was not backtracking on his commitment to clamp down on the industry, which is currently the subject of a Competition Commission probe.

"We need to provide a proper alternative to these very, very costly forms of finance. The worst people are not Wonga. There are plenty of others much worse," he said.

Mr Welby said Church policy allows investments in a company where 25% of its business is in the loan area, indicating the arrangement with Wonga may be against its rules.

"I think we have to review these levels and make sure we are consistent between what we're saying and what we're doing," he said.

The Archbishop conceded that it was almost impossible for the Church to make an investment that was not somehow tainted.

He said: "If you exclude any contact with anything that directly or indirectly gets in any way bad, you can't do anything at all."

Lambeth Palace has said it will ask the Assets Committee of the Church Commissioners to investigate the link to Wonga and review the holding.

It added: "We will also be requesting the Church Commissioners to investigate whether there are any other inconsistencies as normally all investment policies are reviewed by the Ethical Investment Advisory Group (EIAG)."

Mr Welby is seeking to expand the reach of credit unions as part of a long-term campaign to boost competition in the banking sector and clamp down on short-term loan firms.

The Government announced an investment of £38m in credit unions in April to help them offer an alternative option to payday lenders.

The Office of Fair Trading referred the entire payday lending industry, which is worth £2bn, to the Competition Commission last month after finding "deep-rooted" problems.

It said it decided to make the referral because it continues to suspect that features of the market "prevent, restrict or distort competition".

Wonga said in March that it welcomed any attempt to encourage responsible lending and that it has been "instrumental" in helping to raise industry standards.

Mr Damelin, its founder, said: "The Archbishop is clearly an exceptional individual and someone who understands the power of innovation.

"There is mutual respect, some differing opinions and a meeting of minds on many big issues.

"On the competition point, we always welcome fresh approaches that give people a fuller set of alternatives to solve their financial challenges. I'm all for better consumer choice."

The company has launched a new advertising campaign setting out "ten commitments" about its lending practices in an apparent tongue-in-cheek reaction to the Archbishop's original remarks.

 Church Of England Backs £1bn RBS Branches Bid

 http://news.sky.com/story/1108747/church-of-england-backs-1bn-rbs-branches-bid 

The Church's involvement in offer for branches will involve multimillion pound investment from £5.5bn fund, Sky News learns.

 

 

By Mark Kleinman, City EditorThe Church of England’s endowment fund is backing a bid for more than 300 Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) branches amid intense pressure on the banking industry to reorient its moral compass.

Sky News can exclusively reveal that the Church of England Commissioners, who manage £5.5bn of investments, have agreed to plough the money into a consortium being led by Lord Davies, the former trade minister.

The development comes a week after a parliamentary commission whose members included the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, published a wide-ranging group of recommendations aimed at reforming the City’s ethics and governance.

The size of the Church Commissioners’ investment in the consortium attempting to buy a substantial stake in the 316 RBS branches is unclear, although it is expected to be measured in the millions of pounds.

The other members of the bidding group are Corsair Capital, a private equity firm where Lord Davies is a partner; Centerbridge, an American investment firm; RIT Capital, a vehicle headed by Lord Rothschild; and Standard Life, the insurance and pensions group.

The consortium wants to buy a major stake in the network ahead of an initial public offering on the stock market.

Insiders believe the Church Commissioners’ involvement will enhance the consortium’s appeal to the board of RBS and the Treasury, which is likely to play an important role in deciding the outcome of the £1bn auction.

The Corsair bid is vying with another offer comprising around two dozen big City institutions such as Foreign & Colonial, Schroders and Threadneedle Investments. A third bid involving Blackstone and AnaCap, two private equity firms, is still in the frame but is thought to have only an outside chance of buying the branches.

All of the bidders are now conducting due diligence on the branch network, with a decision expected in the coming weeks about a preferred buyer. RBS may decide to float the business on the stock market in the conventional way, or it could do so in conjunction with the sale of a minority stake.

The branches auction was triggered by Santander UK’s withdrawal from a deal last year to buy the network, citing IT challenges.

RBS was ordered to offload the network, which has a roughly 5% share of the UK business banking market, by the European Commission in 2009 in return for the £45.5bn of state aid required to rescue the bank.

It is not unprecedented for the Church Commissioners to invest in a corporate bid of this kind, although it is thought to be the first time that they have sanctioned participation in a consortium bid for British banking assets.

The church fund holds a wide range of equities, property and other assets, but does not invest in industries such as tobacco or payday lending.

The Commissioners’ fund aims to generate an annual return of RPI plus 5%. According to its annual report the private equity part of its portfolio, which invests in unlisted companies, achieved a return of 2.9%, while it made new private equity commitments during the year of almost £25m.

The Church Commissioners also hold shares in Barclays, and said in the recent annual report of their Ethical Investment Advisory Group that the bank’s involvement in the industry-wide Libor-rigging scandal demonstrated that it had “lost sight of its fundamental role in society and its wider obligations”.

“We have engaged intensively with Barclays since last June, including at Board level. We have been encouraged by the determination of the bank’s new leadership to turn a corner and to foster a more ethical culture,” it said.

“However, ethical conduct cannot simply be enforced. We will know that Barclays has truly transformed when it inspires its staff to make sustainable profits through serving its customers and fulfilling its fundamental role in society.”

Last week, Antony Jenkins, the chief executive who replaced Bob Diamond in the wake of the Libor debacle, joined the Archbishop of Canterbury at a City debate about banking ethics.

“In the last 10 years, banks adopted remuneration policies that meant that a relatively small number of employees took such a large part of the overall revenues as to make it impossible for the widest number to benefit – or for there to be adequate capital, in some cases, for the enterprise to remain self-sustaining,” said Dr Welby.

Many of the recommendations of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, including deferring bankers’ pay for 10 years and cancelling their pensions in the event that their institution requires taxpayer support, are designed to restore public trust in the industry.

The Treasury will issue its detailed response to the report next month.

In a speech at Mansion House last week, George Osborne, the Chancellor, said there was a case for examining whether the sale of the RBS branch network, which has the code-name Project Rainbow, and a larger set of assets by Lloyds Banking Group would go far enough to enhancing competition in British banking.

A spokesman for the Church Commissioners declined to comment on the fund’s involvement in the RBS bid.

  Wonga Ad Delivers Riposte To Archbishop

http://news.sky.com/story/1120539/wonga-ad-delivers-riposte-to-archbishop

 

The payday lender's advert will attempt to soften its image following remarks by the head of the Church of England.

 By Mark Kleinman, City Editor 

The payday lending group Wonga will on Friday attempt to begin changing public perceptions of its business model following a vow by the Archbishop of Canterbury to "compete it out of existence". 

Sky News has seen a copy of an advertisement that Wonga will place in a number of national newspapers, in which the company will set out 'ten commitments' about its lending practices.

The Ten Commitments

Among the pledges to be made by the payday lender are that it welcomes competition, would "always help customers in financial difficulty" and that it would never charge interest at an annual percentage rate running into the thousands.

The description of Wonga's manifesto as its 'ten commitments' is understood to be a tongue-in-cheek riposte to the Archbishop but follows a bruising period for Wonga and the wider industry. 

Last month, the sector was referred to the Competition Commission amid political anger about the activities of some short-term lenders.

The row was stoked on Thursday when comments made by Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, were published in the magazine Total Politics.

Referring to a meeting that he had held with Errol Damelin, the chief executive of Wonga, several weeks ago, Dr Welby said:

"We had a very good conversation and I said to him quite bluntly 'we're not in the business of trying to legislate you out of existence, we're trying to compete you out of existence'. He's a businessman, he took that well."

The Archbishop was referring to the emerging credit union movement, a form of financial co-operative which lends money at comparatively low rates.

However, the Church of England faced being embarrassed by the debate on Thursday night when it emerged that its pension fund was an investor in one of the funds that helped to establish Wonga in the UK.

Wonga has sought to counter mounting criticism by pointing out that it only lends money to consumers who have been subjected to credit-checks, and that customers can repay loans early with no additional charge.

In remarks to be published on its website on Friday, Wonga is expected to say: "Since 2007 Wonga has responsibly lent over £2bn and we now have over a million customers.

"We've done that despite declining three quarters of all first loan applications and ensuring a principal default rate (money lent that we don’t get back) of around 7%. This is comparable to other forms of short-term credit, such as credit cards.

"We work hard to lend only to the people who can pay us back, and our mainstream services for individuals and businesses are now available across three continents."

Wonga has also been caught up in a row over the refusal of Papiss Cisse, the Newcastle United striker and practising Muslim, to wear a shirt bearing the name of the payday lender, which is the club's sponsor. He has now agreed to do so, Newcastle announced on Thursday.

  

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

 MORAL LESSON:

1.   

  Regardless of who you are and whatever the circumstances  facts must be thoroughly   checked to avoid  big embarrassment!

2,

Having discovered that you have made a mistake, based on the information available to you at the time, you must be humble and loyal to your God and your conscience  and admit you were wrong ( PUTUP YOUR HAND AND SAY - SORRY!)

 

                                     

                                            

AGENDA FOR PROSPERITY: LET'S RE-VISIT SOME HOSTORICAL DISTANCE TRAVELLED; (Part 2)

Sierra Leone - [MORE RECENT DISTANCE TRAVELLED]

                                      

                                   

President Earnest Bai Koroma

 Global Issues in Context Online Collection, 2013.

[Gale Document Number: CP3208530148]

 

 

 CLICK LINK TO HEAR AUDIO VERSION OF ENTIRE ARTICLE!

 

http://find.galegroup.com/gic/docRetrieve.do?searchPageType=BasicSearchForm&inPS=true&prodId=GIC&userGroupName=dist214&docId=CP3208530148
 

The violent civil war that saw the deaths of fifty thousand people between 1991–2002 severely deterred progress in Sierra Leone. Despite growth in recent years, the country still suffers from high rates of poverty and illiteracy and from slow reconstruction efforts. Sierra Leone is also known for its prevalence of Blood Diamonds even though the government has made attempts to end the trafficking of conflict minerals in recent years.
Sierra Leone is located on the west coast of Africa and is bounded by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the south and west. In addition to the mainland, the country includes the offshore Banana and Turtle islands and Sherbro Island. Mountains cover much of the Sierra Leone peninsula in the extreme west, and the rest of the coastal areas consist of mangrove swamps. Coastal plains extending inland become wooded hill country and then a plateau region in the north and northeast interior. The Loma Mountains lie on the eastern border with Guinea. Sierra Leone has high temperatures and humidity, with a dry period that lasts from November to April, after which rains fall heavily for the rest of the year. The capital city of Freetown on the Atlantic coast gets an average of 144 inches of rain annually. The average temperature in Sierra Leone is 81°F.
The population of Sierra Leone is estimated at 5,353,669 (as of 2011) and is composed of 90 percent native Africans from some twenty ethnic groups. The largest of these groups are the Temne (35 percent) and the Mende (31 percent). English is the official language, but is used regularly only by the literate minority. The Temne and Mende tongues are spoken widely in the north and south, respectively. Kriole, the mother tongue of the Creoles, is understood by 95 percent of the population. Sierra Leone's population is 60 percent Muslim, 10 percent Christian, and 30 percent practitioners of indigenous religions. Some 38 percent of the population lives in urban areas, of which the most populated is the capital of Freetown with 875,000 inhabitants. The prevalence of HIV/AIDS has had a significant impact on the population of Sierra Leone, and it affects an approximate 1.6 percent of adults. In 2010, the average life expectancy was 56 years.
Sierra Leone's efforts to improve living conditions and life expectancy resulted in slow but steady progress. In 2009, the country began a policy of free healthcare for pregnant women. In just two years, 2011 reports stated that infant mortality rates had improved. To help bolster this trend, in early 2011 the European Commission's Humanitarian Office (ECHO) sent €6.6 million ($8.1 million) to help the country achieve its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on reducing child mortality and improving maternal health. In another area of healthcare improvement, a hospice located in the outskirts of the capital city of Freetown began offering morphine to the elderly and terminally ill, relieving many individuals of extreme pain.
Although Sierra Leone has an abundance of natural resources, including diamonds, gold, and a number of agricultural products, it is an extremely poor country with a severely depressed economy. It suffers from low production, poor export performance, large budget deficits, shortage of essential goods, and deterioration of infrastructure, among other factors. The agricultural sector is the largest, accounting for nearly 53 percent of national income. Approximately two thirds of the population is employed in subsistence farming. The mining sector serves as a primary source for exports and foreign investment. During the civil war of 1991–2001, the exchange of "blood diamonds" in areas controlled by rebel groups cast a dark shadow over the diamond trade, as rebels used funds from diamond smuggling for weapons and supplies. The government has since instituted regulations, known as the Kimberley Accord, that have attracted foreign investors once again. Bauxite and platinum are also mined in the country.
In 2009 and 2010, the U.S.-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp discovered two oil fields off the coast of Sierra Leone, boosting the hopes of the government that the addition of oil wealth may be possible within a few years. Upon announcing the second discovery in November 2010, officials from Anadarko said they would be working closely with the government to accelerate appraisals of the fields and further exploration in the area throughout 2011.
In July 2010, the Chinese firm Shandong Iron and Steel struck a deal with African Minerals Tonkolili for a 25 percent share in the latter's iron ore mining project in Sierra Leone. The $1.5 billion investment will be used to finance the construction of the mine, which is expected to result in about five thousand new jobs for Sierra Leoneans throughout the construction and operational phases. As part of the deal, Shandong has guaranteed that it will purchase iron ore from the mine at reasonable rates, thus providing much needed revenue for Sierra Leone. The first shipment of ore is expected to be available by the end of 2011. By the end of 2012, the mine is expected to have a production capacity of twenty-five million tons per year.
Youth unemployment and illiteracy were extremely high in Sierra Leone as of January 2010—60 percent and 69 percent respectively—severely limiting the economic prospects for many young people in the country. In 2007, the United Nations Development Program in Sierra Leone launched the Youth Enterprise Development program, which aimed to develop entrepreneurial skills in young people in the country. While well funded and considered successful by many analysts, the three-year program was scheduled to end in the middle of 2010.
The country has received substantial amounts of aid from foreign nations and international organizations. The UN Integrated Peace-Building Office in Sierra Leone (UNIPSIL) was established in October 2008 to assist the nation in reconstruction and political reform.
In September 2010, the UN Security Council lifted the last of its sanctions against the nation, which included an arms embargo set in 1997 and a travel ban for rebels. In announcing the change, Security Council officials agreed that the government of Sierra Leone had successfully reestablished control over its territory and that the former rebels had been effectively disarmed and demobilized.
Sierra Leone was raided for slaves for the Atlantic slave trade from the sixteenth through the early nineteenth century, during which time it was settled by the British. It became an independent nation in 1961 but suffered constant political unrest. A civil war began in 1991, as a military opposition group known as the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) began a series of invasions targeted toward gaining control of the nation's diamond mines. The rebels stormed villages, raiding supplies and killing or maiming thousands of people. The rebel forces grew, and violent conflict continued until 2000, when a series of ceasefires and peace agreements finally began the process of disarmament. Tens of thousands of people were killed throughout the conflict that officially ended in 2002. At that time, Sierra Leone's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Special Court for Sierra Leone were established to investigate and try those accused of committing war crimes and to serve as a forum for reconciliation between the government and victims of the war.
The UN Special Court of Sierra Leone was established in 2004 to oversee the trials of leaders of the pro-government militias, the Civil Defense Force (the Kamajors), and the RUF. By early 2006, thirteen people had been indicted (three posthumously—Foday Sankoh, Sam Bockarie, and Johnny Paul Koroma). Former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who faced seventeen counts of war crimes, was exiled in Nigeria until March 2006, when Nigerian authorities handed him over to the UN. After several delays, Taylor's trial began at the International Criminal Court in 2007, with UN justices presiding. Throughout the trial, Taylor adamantly maintained his innocence, denying any involvement in the atrocities that occurred during the war. In April 2012, the court finally convicted Taylor on eleven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, torture, terrorism, and the conscription of child soldiers. Although the court also found him guilty of providing significant support to the RUF (particularly through the supply of weapons), and having knowledge of the criminal actions of the RUF, the judges ruled that he could not be held responsible for ordering the crimes committed by that group, stating that the prosecution had not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Taylor was involved in a joint criminal enterprise. The prosecution called for a sentence of eighty years, but the judge believed that this would be excessive for the charge of aiding and abetting. On 30 May 2012, Taylor, age 64, was sentenced to fifty years in a UK prison. Taylor filed an official appeal against the ruling in June 2012 and will remain in The Hague during the appeal process.
The president, who serves as both the chief of state and the head of the government, is elected by popular vote. Ernest Bai Koroma of the All Peoples Congress was elected as president in 2007.
In September 2011, Sierra Leone pledged to send military troops to Somalia in support of the African Union (AU) decision to provide 3,000 soldiers as reinforcements in the capital city of Mogadishu. Since 2007, the insurgency in Somalia has claimed the lives of 21,000 Somalis and driven more than 1.5 million from their homes. Western analysts consider the Somali insurgency an outgrowth of the al-Qaeda terrorist group. The AU has supported several troop deployments over the years as part of its peacekeeping mission.
By November, the peacekeeping force had grown to 12,000, with the AU advocating for an eventual force of 20,000 troops. Sierra Leone's pledge to send additional troops was made official through a commitment to deploy 850 soldiers by the middle of 2012.
On 24 November 2012, President Koroma was reelected peacefully in the third election since the end of Sierra Leone's bloody civil war in 2002. Koroma received almost 59 percent of the vote against eight other candidates. Julius Maada Bio, his most formidable opponent, received 38 percent of the vote.
Charles Taylor began his official appeal before a United Nations-backed court in The Hague on 22 January 2013. Taylor's lawyers argued that the trial's verdict was based on "uncorroborated hearsay evidence" and have filed more than forty grounds for appeal. The prosecution is seeking to extend Taylor's prison term to eighty years.
On 9 April, Save the Children revealed in a report that "children often make up the majority of victims of rape and sexual abuse in many of the world's war zones." According to the children's rights group, 70 percent of the sexual violence cases in Sierra Leone since 2012 involved girls under age 18, with more than a fifth of those cases involving girls under age 11.

COPYRIGHT 2013 Gale, Cengage Learning

Source Citation Citation temporarily unavailable, try again in a few minutes.

Gale Document Number: CP3208530148

The violent civil war that saw the deaths of fifty thousand people between 1991–2002 severely deterred progress in Sierra Leone. Despite growth in recent years, the country still suffers from high rates of poverty and illiteracy and from slow reconstruction efforts. Sierra Leone is also known for its prevalence of Blood Diamonds even though the government has made attempts to end the trafficking of conflict minerals in recent years.
Sierra Leone is located on the west coast of Africa and is bounded by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the south and west. In addition to the mainland, the country includes the offshore Banana and Turtle islands and Sherbro Island. Mountains cover much of the Sierra Leone peninsula in the extreme west, and the rest of the coastal areas consist of mangrove swamps. Coastal plains extending inland become wooded hill country and then a plateau region in the north and northeast interior. The Loma Mountains lie on the eastern border with Guinea. Sierra Leone has high temperatures and humidity, with a dry period that lasts from November to April, after which rains fall heavily for the rest of the year. The capital city of Freetown on the Atlantic coast gets an average of 144 inches of rain annually. The average temperature in Sierra Leone is 81°F.
The population of Sierra Leone is estimated at 5,353,669 (as of 2011) and is composed of 90 percent native Africans from some twenty ethnic groups. The largest of these groups are the Temne (35 percent) and the Mende (31 percent). English is the official language, but is used regularly only by the literate minority. The Temne and Mende tongues are spoken widely in the north and south, respectively. Kriole, the mother tongue of the Creoles, is understood by 95 percent of the population. Sierra Leone's population is 60 percent Muslim, 10 percent Christian, and 30 percent practitioners of indigenous religions. Some 38 percent of the population lives in urban areas, of which the most populated is the capital of Freetown with 875,000 inhabitants. The prevalence of HIV/AIDS has had a significant impact on the population of Sierra Leone, and it affects an approximate 1.6 percent of adults. In 2010, the average life expectancy was 56 years.
Sierra Leone's efforts to improve living conditions and life expectancy resulted in slow but steady progress. In 2009, the country began a policy of free healthcare for pregnant women. In just two years, 2011 reports stated that infant mortality rates had improved. To help bolster this trend, in early 2011 the European Commission's Humanitarian Office (ECHO) sent €6.6 million ($8.1 million) to help the country achieve its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on reducing child mortality and improving maternal health. In another area of healthcare improvement, a hospice located in the outskirts of the capital city of Freetown began offering morphine to the elderly and terminally ill, relieving many individuals of extreme pain.
Although Sierra Leone has an abundance of natural resources, including diamonds, gold, and a number of agricultural products, it is an extremely poor country with a severely depressed economy. It suffers from low production, poor export performance, large budget deficits, shortage of essential goods, and deterioration of infrastructure, among other factors. The agricultural sector is the largest, accounting for nearly 53 percent of national income. Approximately two thirds of the population is employed in subsistence farming. The mining sector serves as a primary source for exports and foreign investment. During the civil war of 1991–2001, the exchange of "blood diamonds" in areas controlled by rebel groups cast a dark shadow over the diamond trade, as rebels used funds from diamond smuggling for weapons and supplies. The government has since instituted regulations, known as the Kimberley Accord, that have attracted foreign investors once again. Bauxite and platinum are also mined in the country.
In 2009 and 2010, the U.S.-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp discovered two oil fields off the coast of Sierra Leone, boosting the hopes of the government that the addition of oil wealth may be possible within a few years. Upon announcing the second discovery in November 2010, officials from Anadarko said they would be working closely with the government to accelerate appraisals of the fields and further exploration in the area throughout 2011.
In July 2010, the Chinese firm Shandong Iron and Steel struck a deal with African Minerals Tonkolili for a 25 percent share in the latter's iron ore mining project in Sierra Leone. The $1.5 billion investment will be used to finance the construction of the mine, which is expected to result in about five thousand new jobs for Sierra Leoneans throughout the construction and operational phases. As part of the deal, Shandong has guaranteed that it will purchase iron ore from the mine at reasonable rates, thus providing much needed revenue for Sierra Leone. The first shipment of ore is expected to be available by the end of 2011. By the end of 2012, the mine is expected to have a production capacity of twenty-five million tons per year.
Youth unemployment and illiteracy were extremely high in Sierra Leone as of January 2010—60 percent and 69 percent respectively—severely limiting the economic prospects for many young people in the country. In 2007, the United Nations Development Program in Sierra Leone launched the Youth Enterprise Development program, which aimed to develop entrepreneurial skills in young people in the country. While well funded and considered successful by many analysts, the three-year program was scheduled to end in the middle of 2010.
The country has received substantial amounts of aid from foreign nations and international organizations. The UN Integrated Peace-Building Office in Sierra Leone (UNIPSIL) was established in October 2008 to assist the nation in reconstruction and political reform.
In September 2010, the UN Security Council lifted the last of its sanctions against the nation, which included an arms embargo set in 1997 and a travel ban for rebels. In announcing the change, Security Council officials agreed that the government of Sierra Leone had successfully reestablished control over its territory and that the former rebels had been effectively disarmed and demobilized.
Sierra Leone was raided for slaves for the Atlantic slave trade from the sixteenth through the early nineteenth century, during which time it was settled by the British. It became an independent nation in 1961 but suffered constant political unrest. A civil war began in 1991, as a military opposition group known as the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) began a series of invasions targeted toward gaining control of the nation's diamond mines. The rebels stormed villages, raiding supplies and killing or maiming thousands of people. The rebel forces grew, and violent conflict continued until 2000, when a series of ceasefires and peace agreements finally began the process of disarmament. Tens of thousands of people were killed throughout the conflict that officially ended in 2002. At that time, Sierra Leone's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Special Court for Sierra Leone were established to investigate and try those accused of committing war crimes and to serve as a forum for reconciliation between the government and victims of the war.
The UN Special Court of Sierra Leone was established in 2004 to oversee the trials of leaders of the pro-government militias, the Civil Defense Force (the Kamajors), and the RUF. By early 2006, thirteen people had been indicted (three posthumously—Foday Sankoh, Sam Bockarie, and Johnny Paul Koroma). Former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who faced seventeen counts of war crimes, was exiled in Nigeria until March 2006, when Nigerian authorities handed him over to the UN. After several delays, Taylor's trial began at the International Criminal Court in 2007, with UN justices presiding. Throughout the trial, Taylor adamantly maintained his innocence, denying any involvement in the atrocities that occurred during the war. In April 2012, the court finally convicted Taylor on eleven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, torture, terrorism, and the conscription of child soldiers. Although the court also found him guilty of providing significant support to the RUF (particularly through the supply of weapons), and having knowledge of the criminal actions of the RUF, the judges ruled that he could not be held responsible for ordering the crimes committed by that group, stating that the prosecution had not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Taylor was involved in a joint criminal enterprise. The prosecution called for a sentence of eighty years, but the judge believed that this would be excessive for the charge of aiding and abetting. On 30 May 2012, Taylor, age 64, was sentenced to fifty years in a UK prison. Taylor filed an official appeal against the ruling in June 2012 and will remain in The Hague during the appeal process.
The president, who serves as both the chief of state and the head of the government, is elected by popular vote. Ernest Bai Koroma of the All Peoples Congress was elected as president in 2007.
In September 2011, Sierra Leone pledged to send military troops to Somalia in support of the African Union (AU) decision to provide 3,000 soldiers as reinforcements in the capital city of Mogadishu. Since 2007, the insurgency in Somalia has claimed the lives of 21,000 Somalis and driven more than 1.5 million from their homes. Western analysts consider the Somali insurgency an outgrowth of the al-Qaeda terrorist group. The AU has supported several troop deployments over the years as part of its peacekeeping mission.
By November, the peacekeeping force had grown to 12,000, with the AU advocating for an eventual force of 20,000 troops. Sierra Leone's pledge to send additional troops was made official through a commitment to deploy 850 soldiers by the middle of 2012.
On 24 November 2012, President Koroma was reelected peacefully in the third election since the end of Sierra Leone's bloody civil war in 2002. Koroma received almost 59 percent of the vote against eight other candidates. Julius Maada Bio, his most formidable opponent, received 38 percent of the vote.
Charles Taylor began his official appeal before a United Nations-backed court in The Hague on 22 January 2013. Taylor's lawyers argued that the trial's verdict was based on "uncorroborated hearsay evidence" and have filed more than forty grounds for appeal. The prosecution is seeking to extend Taylor's prison term to eighty years.
On 9 April, Save the Children revealed in a report that "children often make up the majority of victims of rape and sexual abuse in many of the world's war zones." According to the children's rights group, 70 percent of the sexual violence cases in Sierra Leone since 2012 involved girls under age 18, with more than a fifth of those cases involving girls under age 11.

COPYRIGHT 2013 Gale, Cengage Learning

Source Citation Citation temporarily unavailable...

Gale Document Number: CP3208530148

&&&&&&^^^^^^^%%%%%%%$$$$$$$££££££££""""""""")))))))(((((((((%%%%%%%%%)))))))

                               Keynote Address by
His Excellency the President Dr Ernest Bai Koroma
at the Launching of The Agenda for Prosperity 12 July 2013

It is with great expectations that I today launch our Agenda for Prosperity. For the next five years, this Agenda will be our road map towards meeting our goal of becoming a middle income country and donor nation within the next 25 to 50 years. This Agenda is the firming up of the aspirations of our people. We made tremendous progress during our implementation of the Agenda for Change. We built roads everywhere, attracted billions of dollars of investment in agriculture, mining and other sectors and ensured one of the fastest growing economies in the world. We commenced the creation of a favourable environment for the private sector to thrive, established a free healthcare program for pregnant women, mothers and children under five, and more than doubled resources allocated to education. We improved electricity supply, provided funds for local government more than any other government before, ensured the reduction of poverty, and continued the consolidation of our democracy through greater respect for human rights, gender equity, and a freer press. We still face challenges, but we are a government dedicated to doing more to sustain the transformation of our country. That was why when Sierra Leone turned 50 in 2011, I constituted a Committee on Development and Transformation, charged with the responsibility to take stock of the progress we have made as an independent nation over the last 50 years and to chart the way forward for the next 50 years. The Committee organised the Sierra Leone Conference on Development and Transformation, which came up with a number of outcomes. I took these recommendations on board when I asked for re-election; my party, the All Peoples Congress endorsed these aspirations when we asked for the peoples mandate for the next five years.   This Agenda for Prosperity is therefore the outcome of the pact between the people of this country, my party, my government and myself to do more. We will do more to complete residual projects in the Agenda for Change and to address recurring and emerging challenges. We will do more to address unemployment, particularly among the youth. We all need to do more to better manage our natural resources for the good of all Sierra Leoneans, we need to do more to add value to our primary products, and we need to extend, expand and sustain the Free Health Care and Scaling-Up Nutrition initiatives. We will reform the education system to meet the emerging needs in the job market, we will finish on-going projects in roads, energy and water supply, and we will build much needed infrastructure, including the new mainland airport, railway, roads and ICT capabilities; provide a social safety net for the vulnerable population; promote good governance; ensure that the public sector is capacitated to deliver; empower our women and ensure equal opportunities for both men and women; and above all, we will sustain our fight against corruption, and provide the enabling environment for the private sector to thrive. We prepared this Agenda for Prosperity to guide our collective aspirations to doing more to sustain the transformation of our country. We hope to draw on lessons learnt and to merge innovations with the strong economic growth we have recorded in the last five years. This new imperative calls for smart work, resilience, and discipline. It calls for the assertion of our best in our relations with each other, with work, with government resources and with our collective inheritance. We are the best nation in religious tolerance, and the friendliness of our people to strangers is second to none in the world. We must carry these attributes of being best to the productive sectors of agriculture, mining, tourism, business partnerships, financial services, education, and healthcare. We must ensure that our economy is diversified to promote inclusive and sustainable growth. We must anchor our Agenda on efforts at being globally credible and internationally competitive. This may require partnerships with internationals in building up capacities in our judiciary, our foreign ministry and other key state institutions. To be successful in the global environment we need to draw upon the best and committed within the country, the best and committed within the Diaspora and the best and committed at the global level. Implementing the Agenda for Prosperity will require concerted efforts, collaboration and coordination among Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). Emphasis will be placed on monitoring of projects to ensure that results are achieved on timely manner. We will continue to attract foreign direct investment by forging strong partnerships with the private sector, especially on large-scale projects. The Agenda for Prosperity is the country's one vision and one plan. Its implementation will be guided by strong commitments by Development Partners as well as the Government. In this regard, Government is developing a mutual accountability framework that will be jointly monitored and reported on. Our goal is to strengthen the partnership between Government and Development Partners as well as ensuring that the voice and opinion of each and every Sierra Leonean is heard in the implementation as was done through wider consultation in developing this national plan. As we embark on this epic journey to become a middle income country, let me remind fellow Sierra Leoneans that we are today re-committing ourselves to asserting our best. Prosperity is not a gift on a silver platter. Abundance of natural resources is only half the story; the reality of prosperity only comes to a people that go for it. We must go for it with determination. We must sweat it out with our hands, with our brains and with our minds. We must set out to embrace the values of innovation, of cultural renewal in the workplace and respect for public goods. Most importantly, all Sierra Leoneans, at home and in the Diaspora, must realise that success primarily depends on what we as a people do for ourselves and not on what others do for us. Ask not what others have done for you, but what you have done for yourself, your community and your nation. The possibilities of growth, renewal and transformation reside in every Sierra Leonean. We must assert these possibilities to seize the destiny of prosperity. I am very optimistic that we will be successful; I believe that we will all do more; and that together we will achieve the goals that we have set out for ourselves in our Agenda for Prosperity.