SHALIMAR BLEEDS SIERRA LEONE
…BILLIONS IN TAXES, NASSIT LOOTED
By Ibrahim Alusine Kamara (Kamalo)
In Sierra Leone, the poor are mercilessly hounded by revenue officers for the tiniest arrears. Petty traders, bike riders, and market women are dragged through humiliation if they fail to pay their dues. Yet, in the same country, Shalimar operates above the law — looting billions while hiding behind political protection.
Investigations have unearthed a staggering truth: billions of old leones in unpaid taxes remain outstanding, and Shalimar has evaded NASSIT contributions for more than 100 foreign workers on its payroll. This is not a mistake, not an oversight — it is a deliberate, calculated plunder of both the state and the very workers who generate their obscene profits.
The scale of the betrayal is sickening.
Workers have been stripped of their right to social security — denied the protection they deserve in times of sickness, injury, or old age.
Citizens endure skyrocketing prices, poverty, and hunger while Shalimar hoards billions that should strengthen the national economy.
Local businesses suffocate under unfair competition, forced to follow the law while Shalimar tramples on it with impunity.
Every leone stolen is a wound on Sierra Leone’s already fragile economy. It is money that should have funded hospitals but never did. Money that should have repaired crumbling schools, but instead was hidden in foreign accounts. Money that should have built roads, but was siphoned off to feed a foreign cartel’s empire.
Shalimar’s tax and NASSIT evasion is nothing short of daylight robbery, a criminal enterprise masquerading as “investment.” And the silence of our leaders is deafening. Those who swore to protect Sierra Leone have instead become silent accomplices in its destruction. Their silence is not ignorance. Their silence is complicity. Their silence is betrayal.
When the poor suffer while the powerful loot, it is not an economy — it is economic apartheid. When foreign cartels can bleed Sierra Leone dry without consequence, it is not governance — it is state capture.
Shalimar is not here to build Sierra Leone. It is here to strip it bare. And unless this mafia empire is confronted, our nation will remain a playground for criminals in suits while our people sink deeper into misery.
This is not foreign investment. This is economic crime in its rawest form.