Sunday 14th April, 2019 was the grand finale of the most-watched and talked about Housemates Sierra Leone 2019 TV Reality Show organized by Africa Young Voices (AYV) Media Empire and Sierra Leone’s biggest telecom provider Africell. The event which was held at the prestigious Bintumani Hotel conference hall was graced by eminent personalities including the First Lady Fatima Bio, actors from Nigeria, Ghana and elsewhere among many other personalities.
At the end of the exciting episode full of celebration, stage performance, drama and lots more, Kenchine Palmer and Monica Yeani Ghaliwa emerged the last standing couple of Housemates S/Leone 2019.
Kenchine Palmer was crowned the winner with 26.29% of the votes cast, while Monica Yeani Ghaliwa scored 22.81% to emerge second. Ibrahim Shehab got 21.15%, Dylis George 13.73%, Suad Kamara 9.66%, and Henry Fornah 6.35%.
Housemates Salone is without dispute the most watched television reality show ever in the history of Sierra Leone as it generated millions of fans from across the world. The show was staged with the purpose of unearthing youthful potentials in a process of learning and also empowering them through entertainment.
Kenchine who is nicknamed ‘Dizzy West’ is popularly known for being a rapper which he demonstrated two years ago on the AYV Cypher Uncensored, representing Team One Heart Nation. He is also from the streets and at an early stage in his life he lost both parents. But regardless of the unfortunate situation he kept pushing for greener pastures.
Monica was presented with a cheque of Le50,000,000 as runner-up of Housemates Sierra Leone.
All the Housemates did their best individually to capture the attention of members of the public to get their votes but only one has emerged the lucky winner.
The organizers of the 2019 Housemates Salone Contest, Africa Young Voices (AYV) Empire and Africell have both made their mark in staging such a spectacular TV Reality show. Both have once more demonstrated the strong commitment to provide a platform to unlock and tap the potentials of young talents across the country.
Ambassador Anthony Navo Junior, Chief Executive Officer of AYV is held in high esteem for continuing to raise the bar high for youth from all walks of life. Incontestably, he is an icon in his own right which is why he continues to bag prestigious awards in and out of the country.
Africell, the leading telecommunication company in the country has been supporting youthful initiatives and is poised to continue in that direction.

In his brief remarks, Ambassador Navo told his massive audience that without any doubt AYV and Africell delivered the biggest reality TV show in the country’s history. He said: ‘It is about bringing people together in the spirit of a united Sierra Leone and it is also about engaging and empowering role models.’

DHL has launched an e-commerce app called DHL Africa eShop for global retailers to sell goods to Africa’s consumer markets.
The platform went live recently and brings more than 200 U.S. and U.K. retailers — from Neiman Marcus to Carters — online in 11 African markets: South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Mauritius, Ghana, Senegal, Rwanda, Malawi, Botswana, Sierra Leone and Uganda.
DHL Africa eShop will operate using start-up Mall for Africa.com’s white label service, Link Commerce. Payment methods will include local fintech options, such as Nigeria’s Paga and Kenya’s M-Pesa.
The announcement comes as e-commerce in Africa has seen some ups and downs — with online sales start-up Jumia announcing an IPO, while several Africa digital retail ventures have recently faltered.
DHL Africa eShop takes advantage of the shipping giant’s existing delivery structure on the continent, able to get goods to doorsteps near and far through its DHL Express shipping, tracking and courier service.
DHL’s partner for the new app, Mall for Africa, has experience collaborating with DHL and a number of big-name retailers, including Macy’s and Best Buy. Backed by Helios Investment Partners, MFA was founded in 2011 to solve challenges global consumer goods companies face when entering Africa.
Mall for Africa’s payment and delivery system serves as a digital broker and logistics manager for U.S. retailers that come online with the start-up to sell their goods to African consumers.
DHL has been a Mall for Africa logistics partner since 2015, and in 2018, the two teamed up to launch MarketPlaceAfrica.com — an e-commerce site for select African artisans to sell their goods in any of DHL’s 220 delivery countries.
For DHL Africa eShop, Mall for Africa’s Link Commerce service will facilitate local payments, procurement and delivery, Mall for Africa CEO Chris Folayan said.
“That’s what our service does. It takes care of that whole ecosystem to enable global e-commerce to exist, no matter what country you’re in,” he added.
In a statement, DHL Express CEO for Sub-Saharan Africa referred to the DHL Africa eShop app as something that “provides convenience, speed, and access to connect African consumers with exciting brands.” The DHL Africa app is also intended to fill a commercial void, according to DHL, as many U.S. and U.K. retailers do not ship to Africa.
E-commerce ventures, particularly in Nigeria, have captured the attention of VC investors looking to tap into Africa’s growing consumer markets. McKinsey & Company projects consumer spending on the continent to reach $2.1 trillion by 2025, with African e-commerce accounting for up to 10 percent of retail sales.
As mentioned, Africa’s e-commerce startup landscape has seen its own ups and downs. Pan-African e-commerce start-up Jumia’s recent IPO filing on the NYSE is a first for any start-up from Africa. Mall for Africa has also continued to expand into new countries, now operating in 17, with partners, such as DHL.
On the flip side, the distressed acquisition of Nigerian e-commerce hopeful Konga.com, backed by roughly $100 million in VC, created losses for investors. And in late 2018, Nigerian online sales platform DealDey shut down.
On a B2C level, DHL Africa eShop brings distinct advantages on a transaction cost basis (i.e. the cost of delivery) given it is connected to one of the world’s logistics masters, DHL.
Another component of DHL and Mall for Africa’s partnership is the market for offering e-commerce fulfilment services through Mall for Africa’s white label Link Commerce service.
This could put the duo on a footing to compete with (or work with) big e-commerce names entering Africa and adds another layer of competition with Jumia, which offers its own fulfilment services vertical in Africa.
As for the big global names, Alibaba has talked about Africa expansion, but for the moment has not entered in full.
Amazon offers limited e-commerce sales on the continent, but more notably, has started offering AWS services in Africa.
It could certainly serve as a new player in African e-commerce phase 2.0, now that the sector has shaken out some failures, produced an IPO and drawn the attention of big global names.

It will be recalled that in our last edition dated 15th April 2019 we published a story captioned “Government Urged to Probe Qnet” in which it was insinuated that the company is operating a scheme that is cunningly duping unsuspecting Sierra Leoneans of their hard earned money by giving them the impression that it will multiple them but such never transpires. Furthermore, it was alleged that individuals are fooled to register with the company by paying Le 6,500.000 and bring onboard more members with the view that compliance will put a new member at a vantage position to reap fruitful rewards. After a thorough investigation was mounted it was discovered the aforementioned claims are totally erroneous and misleading.
It was understood from that in-depth investigation that QNET pledges to give the direct selling industry the best and most professional representatives in each region in which it does business. “We are the pioneers and the voice for the direct selling industry in many emerging economies and we take that responsibility serious. Our mission is to educate, inform and train our Independent Representatives to uphold the highest standards in conducting business. As aspiring entrepreneurs, they are not just building a business that helps them become financially independent; they are leading a wave of change,” an official pf the company disclosed to this medium.
Under #QNETPRO they conduct training programs and online seminars, create awareness through social media campaigns and videos, provide educational materials through online and offline channels, and help instill in their distributors a sense of pride for being at the forefront of a thriving industry.
Focused on training new and existing Independent Representatives (IRs), the company’s dedicated group of professional network marketing trainers travel the world to conduct on-ground trainings to advocate the principles of building a powerful and sustainable direct selling business in a responsible manner. These trainings support their pledge to give the direct selling industry the smartest, exceptionally professional, and most successful distributors the industry will be proud to call their own.
QNET believes in walking the talk. At this time, when the direct selling industry is becoming a profession of choice in many emerging economies, it is important to set high standards. In the last 3 years, QNET has terminated numerous IRs in more than 30 countries for non-compliance, policy violations, or unethical practices.
Direct selling is a growing and exciting industry that provides companies an alternative channel for the distribution and sale of products and/or services directly to customers, away from a traditional retail location. The industry uses a variety of distribution methods; multilevel marketing and network marketing being two of it.
The rise of the emerging middle class market, technological innovations and a relaxing of restrictions on capitalism has triggered a major growth in this industry. As more people begin to discover the benefits of a market-based economy, entrepreneurism has flourished.
QNET offers a well-researched and carefully developed array of exclusive products that are purchased by our customers all over the world through our secure, robust and reliable online store.
The company has three main categories of customers:
Retail Customers – The ones that regularly purchase our products but do not join the business aspect of direct selling.
Potential IRs – The ones who purchase our products and enroll themselves in the business opportunity.
Existing IRs – The ones who regularly purchase our products while building a thriving network marketing business.
It was further learnt that the company’ mission is to contribute to the global community through the daily application of RYTHM – Raise Yourself To Help Mankind. They do that by helping individuals achieve their goals and lead better lives through a combination of an entrepreneurial business opportunity with life-enhancing products.

QNET’s products and services have the overarching goal of making complete wellbeing accessible to all. By wholeheartedly joining QNET, individuals help achieve a balanced life with a healthier body, mind, and spirit.

Ever since Sierra Leone turned to the IMF in the late 1970s for deficit financing assistance, due to financial mismanagement of what the country has, coupled with the fact that Government woefully failed to build a very robust, dynamic export sector, the country has ever since been doomed to adverse balance of trade, and its inherent currency devaluation and inflation that goes with it.
How the New Direction Government which has promised to provide efficient political and economic management of the State and its resources would eventually make the difference between whether the value of the Leone keeps falling and whether inflation will continue to defy control.
To the point this commentary intends to make…How will the Government work in the immediate coming years to dramatically improve on the country’s balance of trade?
A country’s balance of trade is defined by its net exports (exports minus imports) and is thus influenced by all the factors that affect international trade. These include factor endowments and productivity, trade policy, exchange rates, foreign currency reserves, inflation and demand.
A crucial point to note is both goods and services are counted for exports and imports, as a result of which a nation has a balance of trade for goods (also known as the merchandise trade balance) and a balance of trade for services. A nation has a trade surplus if its exports are greater than its imports; if imports are greater than exports, the nation has a trade deficit.
Factor Endowments
Factor endowments include labor, land and capital. Labor describes the characteristics of the workforce. Land describes the natural resources available, such as iron ore, diamond, gold, bauxite, coffee, cocoa, timber or oil. Capital resources include infrastructure and production capacity. The Heckscher-Ohlin model of international trade emphasizes differences in these areas to explain trade patterns. For example, a country with an abundance of unskilled labor produces goods requiring relatively low-cost labor, while a country with abundant natural resources is likely to export them.
The productivity of those factors is also important. For example, suppose two countries have the same amount of labor and land endowments. However, one country has a skilled labor force and highly productive land resources, while the other has an unskilled labor force and relatively low-productivity resources. The skilled labor force can produce relatively more per person than the unskilled force, which in turn influences the types of work in which each can find a comparative advantage.
This explains the difference between Singapore and Sierra Leone; with Sierra Leone having all the natural resources that Singapore has not got but Singapore has a per capita income that is now approaching US$60, 000! – Whilst that of Sierra Leone is about US$500.
Trade Policies
Generally, barriers to trade also affect the balance of exports and imports for a given country. Nations that are insular and have restrictive trade policies such as high import tariffs and duties may have larger trade deficits than countries with open trade policies, since they may be shut out of export markets because of these impediments to free trade.
There are also non-tariff barriers to trade. A lack of infrastructure is a notable one, as it can increase the relative cost of getting goods to market. This increases the price for those products and reduces a nation’s competitiveness on the global market, which in turn reduces exports. Investment can work to reduce these barriers. For example, investments in infrastructure can increase a nation’s capital base and reduce the price of getting goods to market.
Foreign currency reserves:
To compete effectively in extremely competitive international markets, a nation has to have access to imported machinery that enhances productivity, which may be difficult if forex reserves are inadequate.
Inflation:
If inflation is running rampant in a country, the price to produce a unit of a product may be higher than the price in a lower-inflation country. This would affect exports, affecting the trade balance.
Generally, the balance of trade is a key indicator of a nation’s health. In general, investors and market professionals appear more concerned with trade deficits than trade surpluses, since chronic deficits may be a precursor to currency devaluation.

Njala University, Mokonde, Saturday 13 April 2019 – His Excellency President Julius Maada Bio, who is Chancellor of Njala University, has challenged graduands at this year’s convocation ceremony in Makonde, south of Sierra Leone, to be bold, innovative and enterprising.

“I want to use my swan song as Chancellor…to make Njala University and its graduates relevant, if not indispensable, to the national development of Sierra Leone. Great expectations await you, our graduates. Soon, you will be breadwinners and financiers for every family or community-related problem.

“Do not despair. You are off to a good start. You have achieved what fewer than 10% of your compatriots have ever achieved. You have achieved what fewer than 10% of those with whom you entered primary school have ever achieved. You are a winner. You are victorious. You are the few of the many. Let us give each one of you a rousing round of applause on your success,” he said.

President Bio said his government had put in place a favourable ecosystem for the private sector to grow and made the registration of businesses easier, adding that they would continue to expand on access to start-up financing and invest in capacity building and skills training.

He also disclosed that they were looking at developing a one-stop body in the investment board that he and Vice President Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh co-chair, assuring the gathering that the government considered those as valuable prospects for value chain addition and services in various sectors.

“There are strong opportunities in innovation and technology, especially in scaling and applying technology for private sector growth. So, to the graduates, the future is bright if you make those bold choices about what next and where you want to be.

“But we also must address the big questions about the future of Njala University as an institution. For me, Njala University is an incubator of excellence. The question, therefore, would be, ‘How do we make Njala University even more relevant to the development of Sierra Leone? What practical steps should we take?’” he said.

Vice Chancellor and Principal of the Njala University, Professor Abdullah Mansaray, said this year’s congregation, themed: ‘Investing in Human Capital for Innovative Transformation’ was informed by a deep realisation that the old ways of doing things could no longer suffice in addressing the contemporary challenges of development.

He said they were fully convinced that the entire country’s education system must be reconfigured, and quickly too, to foster innovative transformation.

He said since he assumed office last year the priority had been to quickly innovate around management structures and make them more capable of generating and sustaining a conducive environment for learning and career development, generating and disseminating knowledge for development. He added that they were also effectively engaging communities as part of their efforts at restructuring that would lead to the establishment and operationalisation of the Directorate of Academic Planning and Quality Assurance, the Directorate of Research and Development and the Njala University Enterprises.

“My administration feels very fortunate to be at the helm of affairs of this great University at a time when we have a Government whose development strategy is centred on human capital development. Our hopes are being sustained by the recent restructuring of the education sector, leading to the establishment of a Ministry of Technical and Higher Education and the Directorate of Science, Technology and Innovation.

“Our University has quickly embraced new strategies for academic quality assurance to address outstanding compliance issues and put the University on a trajectory of continuous improvement. We are committed to setting our standards above the national average to ensure that our University maintains its national prestige while progressively improving on its global ranking,” he said.

We have been so touched by all the support that we’ve received over the past few weeks on Housemates Salone, and now its our turn to say thank you to all.
Housemates Salone started on a very challenging note, yet we never lost hope, rather we continued in our efforts to the deliver a great show.
We have without any doubt delivered the biggest reality TV show yet, with the most incredible atmosphere, making the Housemates feel like the superstars they are. Housemates is not about money, fame or winning and losing. It never has been.
It is about bringing people together in the spirit of a United Sierra Leone. YES!! A United Sierra Leone! Its about engaging and empowering role models.

Its about the journey that our housemates and their families and supporters have made to, through and from the house. Now, going home, it might be tough, as the show comes to a close, but we should be on the lookout for more to come. This is not the end of the journey.

You have voted all through the show to keep your housemates going and we are pleased to let the world know that the show has been a 100% voting process and its only votes that have kept your housemates in the house all this period.
Whether you’re a fan of housemates or don’t like the show at all, your comments and engagements from across the world while watching Housemates in your living rooms and in schools; at offices and on the streets; at restaurants or on entertainment spots, kept the show going, and kept us all inspired, challenged and entertained.
We gleaned from your feed backs on every available media platforms to housemates a better show, and through it all, you demonstrated to us, that indeed AYV, na in salone sabi.
We learned that good things only happen when ordinary people get involved, get engaged and come together to deliver change.
We come to the end of the Housemates, even more optimistic about our AYV media empire than when we started. Because we know Housemates has not only engaged so many people but has inspired so many others, especially young people who have learnt that one need not be a superstar to do something great.
It is not good enough just to rely on the old ideas or foreign reality shows. We’ve also got to create our own new shows and that’s what we are doing here.
Housemates Salone is our own show. The housemates weren’t perfect and nothing is ever perfect in this world. The Housemates made mistakes. At times they had fierce arguments in the house. Thanks to our supporters and the efforts of everyone to keep the show going.

For the first time since the establishment of AYV, Housemates generated the highest number of viewers and massive votes with millions of viewers from across the world.
In two months we will bring to the people of this country Our next Reality Show “The Biggest Looser”.
And in four months, during the summer holidays we will bring you the Celebrity Housemates Salone Show, bringing both national and international celebrities who have huge spotlights on their trail everywhere they go. But the celebrities will not use that spotlight for their own glory or just to further their own fame.
No, they will spend their time in the house to do great things and inspire a generation. So be part of another history.
And to all of you out there every supporter who campaigned for their housemates, every fan who voted, every institution that contributed to the show, every staff at AYV who helped produced the show, every housemate who took part in the show, every fan who filled the venue at Paradise City during the weekly eviction you are true friends of AYV and the best supporters anybody could ever hope for, and we will forever be grateful because you helped make Housemates a reality.
Our brother Jimmy B and the production crew have been fantastic and very importantly, AYV and Housemates would have been nothing without Africell, a truly reliable partner.
Thank you all.

Director of Institute of Governance Reform (IGR) Andrew Lavalie, has intimated that the Bio-Meter Report is satisfactory and urged the president and the government to maintain the tempo. He was speaking at the report’s launch last Friday 12th April, 2019 at Institute for Government Reform, (IGR), Wilkinson Road in Freetown, is commonly referred to as the Bio-Meter, and it is a citizen’s scorecard on the state of implementation of the various campaign promises made by President Bio during the run-up to the March 2018 elections.
The report provides a detailed account on progress or lack thereof on the 556 official proclamations stated in the governing Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) manifesto – the New Direction; the speech delivered by HE the President in his first state opening of parliament; and executive orders issued by State House in the last one year. It is an appraisal of President Bio’s first year in office.
The Bio-Meter is funded by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) as part of a wider effort in West Africa to create platforms for constructive state-citizen dialogue that will enhance the responsiveness of government to meet the needs of people they vow to serve.
This iteration of the Bio-Meter builds on a previous assessment of the administration’s first 100 days in July 2018. It employs a more rigorous methodology to gauge progress made after a year in office.
Mindful of the nature of politics and the polarisation in the country, four layers of scrutiny were applied to ensure objectivity and validity of the results and wider national ownership of the Bio-Meter initiative. The report presents triangulated data incorporating these four trusted sources.
First, a sample of 1,920 ordinary citizens (50% male and 50% female) was randomly selected nationwide and asked 19 questions that covered their experiences and perceptions of the last one year. To ensure a representative sample, respondents were selected from across all parliamentary constituencies in each of the five regions in the country.
Second, we selected 85 experts with deep knowledge of the 28 sectors represented in the promises, with three to five experts assigned to each sector. To ensure that experts applied objective standards in their assessment, a uniform criterion was used to guide their decisions, and every expert was asked to provide justification and means of verification for their rating of every promise. Among the means of verification include official publications that detail progress or lack thereof, media announcements and the experts’ own authority/experience in the sector. These means of verification were vetted by the Bio-Meter Committee.
Third, officials in government ministries, departments and agencies completed self- assessment questionnaires which served as a shadow score for each sector. Spearheaded by the Ministry of Political and Public Affairs, over 70 percent of MDAs conducted the self-assessment. The self-assessment data was not included in the scoring, but was useful as it provided official validation of some of the justifications and means of verification presented by the experts. The committee noted a number of variances between the expert score and MDA self-ratings.
Fourth, a committee of 13 persons was convened to serve as a watchdog body over the process. Members of this Bio-Meter Committee were drawn from civil society, women and youth organisations, media, academia, parliament and a religious body. The primary role of the committee was to ensure integrity of the process and to solve problems as they arose. Tasks included helping to agree on the list of eminent experts as well as reviewing scores and means of verification provided for each sector. Weekly meetings were held by the committee from the initial-design stage of the Bio-Meter, to data collection and compilation, to the publication of final results.
President Bio came to office with a slim margin (3.6%) of victory, giving his administration a small reserve of political capital and legitimacy to effectively control the state. The fact that the opposition has the parliamentary majority, and that Bio inherited a historically divided society with an economy in austerity, suggests that a main preoccupation of the administration over this past one year has been to establish its authority, and expand its political legitimacy beyond this narrow election margin. Coming to power after 10 years in opposition, officials of the new government believed that the public service, justice and security sectors were dominated by appointees perceived to be loyal to the past administration, which is now in opposition. To increase support for its agenda, it would appear that the administration is pursuing two principal strategies of legitimation: a) building a more administratively-oriented state that focuses on delivery and outputs; and b) repeating the co-optation and compulsion strategies of their predecessors: for example, the petitioning of over a dozen opposition party MPs, the controversial election of a speaker of parliament without a clear majority and the concomitant effects on parliamentary votes and proceedings. The latter strategy generated tension among political parties in some cases making governance still appear to be a zero-sum game, even a year after election.
The Bio-Meter shows that the government has made significant progress on a number of fronts over the past one year, but challenges remain. The Bio-Meter Committee fully understands the difficulty the administration is going through to restore the economy, create jobs and improve livelihoods. However, it would be unrealistic to raise expectations to the degree that citizens believe that Sierra Leone’s development challenges can be solved in the life of one administration. This belief has put successive administrations under extreme pressure to employ domination and cooperation to consolidate power as opposed to gaining legitimacy through the delivery of results and consensus building. The citizens consulted on this report across Sierra Leone want to see a real shift in the character of the state in seeking solutions to our age-old problems; starting with having genuine conversations about what can be achieved now, what can be done later and how these timescales are framed and communicated. We draw from this Bio-Meter data to offer some advice on how we think improvements can be made, specifically focusing on national cohesion, fighting corruption, and revamping the economy. Government should take deliberate steps to address national cohesion. This starts with the administration building a performance-driven nation grounded in open and fair recruitment processes, and publicised performance contracts for public servants with expected and verifiable outputs/results known to all. Recruitment and dismissals of public servants should be based on objective criteria of competence and performance. Relatedly, government should work towards ending impunity and ensuring that justice is fairly administered to all. The phenomenon of “this is our turn” should come to an end. Government should take steps to help the public understand that electing a party to power should not mean that benefits only flow to supporters of that party, but rather that public goods should be provided to all citizens, including opposition supporters.
It added that the progress in anti-corruption and public financial management reforms seen over the last seven months should be sustained right through the tenure of the administration.