National Assembly Chairman Hon.

 Dr. Abass Bundu gave an enlightening lesson on Sierra Leone and Singapore to members of the National Assembly in his welcome address to the honorable members of the All People's Congress on November 7, 2023, when 52 members of the APC party were sworn into office.

 His pertinent statement on the comparison between Sierra Leone and Singapore stems from the fact that both countries achieved independence in the 1960s, but there are now significant differences in GDP and income between the two countries.per capita, education and governance system.

 Below, the Speaker, Hon.Dr. Abass Bundu Bstatement “Honorable Members, Before going into the nature of the task at hand, let me recall here a small instructive lesson from contemporary history to new our minds.

 Our country, Sierra Leone, achieved political independence from the British in 1961, four years before Singapore, a relatively small island nation in Southeast Asia, achieved statehood in 1965.

 It had and still has a much smaller population.

 population than ours, including Chinese, Malays, Indians and others.

 The situation is therefore no less homogeneous than in Sierra Leone.

 But there is this notable difference.

 Singapore had nothing, literally no natural resources at the time of independence, other than people and a deep water port, just like we had our own Deep Water Harbor.

 But we in Sierra Leone have even more assets to be proud of: of us are blessed with gold, diamonds, iron ore, bauxite, tantalite, rutile, palm oil, palm kernels, and more.

 et cetera.

 You name it, we have it.

 However, in 1961, Sierra Leone's per capita income was only $140 and its annual GDP was $328 million.

 In 1965, Singapore's per capita income was 517 USD and annual GDP was 975 million USD.

 By 2022, sixty years on, Sierra Leone's per capita income was still only $488 and an annual GDP of not more than $3,970 million compared to Singapore's per capita income of $82,808 and an annual GDP of $466,789 million.

 Today, with this galaxy of notables gathered in this Well of Parliament from both our two main political parties, I cannot resist the temptation to ask the question: where did we go wrong?

 It is certainly not for want of human capital, because we once prided ourselves with the accolade of the “Athens of Education” in West Africa although today we lament how that has plummeted to such low levels that the young at school are not ashamed to think they have a Divine right to spy to pass public examinations and our public servants are equally busy embellishing the desks of their offices with Degrees and Diplomas, not properly earned, but purchased from non-accredited “Dominion” Colleges with high sounding names.

 So while Singapore was busy obtaining laurels and moving up the development ladder rapidly from a Third World classification to a First World, Sierra Leone has remained behind wallowing in abject poverty and deprivation and fighting with other countries and hoping for the crumbs to fall from the dinner tables of rich countries.

 Honourable Members With all the brilliant minds we have produced in this country, past and present, where really have we gone wrong?

 To answer this question, I invite all of us present at this well today to borrow a page from the enviable Book of Singapore Development.

 First, they placed the highest national priority on educating and training their people to the highest standards.

 They send them to the best universities in the country and abroad and tie them up with scholarships that oblige them to return.