Visible Ghost Bankers to the Poor: A Profile of the Sierra Leone Informal Economy (VI)

Dr. Umaru Bah, CEO

DataWise (SL) Ltd.

@DataWiseSL

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Meet Manny Cash. He handles well over twenty thousand dollars on  any given day. And takes home twenty dollars. You are guessing right now that Manny is an entry-level bank teller assigned to the forex counter. Like that of your friend, Mary Banks. You guessed right. But only thirty percent right. That’s because Manny wakes up way earlier than Mary and goes home way later. He works neither in a uniform, nor at the counter, nor in an air-conditioned room. Unlike Mary, Manny does not have the luxury of being bored or stressed to death, based on the level of traffic or temperament of the customer. But Manny makes more money than Mary in a month. Because Mary averages Le 5,000,000 a month ($556), a little more than half of what Manny makes. In a bad month, that is. And without any windfall. Mary is a college graduate. Manny is a Junior Secondary School drop-out. 
Manny calls himself a Currency Exchange Facilitator. Call him Chef for short. Just because CEF does not sound right and is harder to recall. People usually call him Dollar Boy or Forex Man. But Manny does not answer to those terms. Because, he claims, they imply that he is in the official business of forex exchange which, he claims, he is not.  Because he is not licensed. He wants that clarification on the record and for the record. All he merely does is facilitate transactions between those who want to sell forex and The Man, who buys them. That’s the name of the buyer. The Man. And in return, Manny gets small tin (i.e. little sumpin’-sumpin’) from The Man as an expression of His appreciation. Manny is reluctant to call the small tin  a commission since, again, that would imply that he is in the official business of forex exchange which, he claims, he is not.  Because, again, he is not licensed. He wants that clarification on the record and for the record. He does not want to speculate why neither you nor The Man goes to the bank for your forex transaction. Except to guess that perhaps the bank does not have forex to sell to The Man, and that it offers to buy them too cheap from you. “It’s simple business”. Says Manny Cash. “Everybody wants what’s best and easy for them.”

Manny is one of many Chefs you go to at Sweizzy downtown or at the Regent Road-Lumley roundabout when you want to sell your dollar or your pound or your euro in Freetown, the Capital City of Sierra Leone. You are bound to see him with a bunch of local and foreign currencies in one hand, signalling with the other that he is available to ‘facilitate’. No, you don’t go to them to buy. Sell only. He usually has close to three hundred dollars' worth of leones in hand at any given time to facilitate the transaction for you. You are guaranteed the best rate at all times, (Le 900,000/$100) he said, though you stand to gain a little more (Le 905,000/$100) if you are persistent . Your bargaining power (call it sales potential) is positively correlated with the amount of forex you want to sell: The more forex you have to exchange at one go, the higher your return. To prove his point, he can give you upwards of Le 950,000/$100 if you have $10,000 to sell right now. That’s because of the sales volume. He could make a day’s worth on that transaction alone! 

Anything between $500 and $1,000 worth, he gets the money from his fellow Chefs. In return, he splits the commission small tin fifty-fifty. For anything above $1,000, Manny goes to The Man. He can’t say who He is. But he can tell you that He is not from any of the banks. You sure you don’t have $10,000 to change right now? He can negotiate to buy it from you for Le 9,500,000 per $1,000. Then he negotiates to facilitate it for Le 9,525,000/$1,000 to The Man. Who is always within earshot but out of sight. Manny then takes Le 952,500,000 from Him. Pockets the Le 2,500,000 (a whopping $278!) for his own commission small tin, gives you the balance and gives The Man his $10,000. 

Everyone is happy. Except the State, which does not even have the privilege of having any reaction to the entire transaction. That’s because Manny is like Abdul the WaterBoy in Ball Bearings or Shawski the Bountiful Bootlegger. They make enough money to feed their family and send their kids to college. Yet, they are totally invisible and unknown to the government.

Manny does not know how much The Man sells the dollar for. That is, if He sells it at all. He does not think The Man is in the forex business. That’s small fry for Him. If you can’t guess what kind of business The Man is into by now, suffice it to state that you can’t spend a day without coming into contact with at least one item that traces back to The Man. Got it? That’s How powerful the Man is. Indeed, forex is small fry for The Man. Even you are small fry to The Man. That’s why you don’t get to meet with Him unless you have upwards of $100,000 to exchange. At which point, it’s too hot to handle by Manny. He thinks The Man converts His money to forex because it’s the smart thing to do.  It’s far easier and safer to keep. And makes more business sense. Got it? That’s all Manny can share.

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Meet Mark Rand. He too is a currency exchange facilitator. But that’s where the similarity ends. Unlike Manny who never interacts with any official person or institution at any point in his business “facilitation”, Mark does. At the beginning. When he goes to the bank to get crisp one thousand-leone and two thousand-leone notes. Mark does not deal in forex. His clients are the drivers of taxis, kekes and okadas. They rely on his crisp banknotes to make change for their passengers. You see Mark and his associates wherever the drivers/riders congregate for pickup/drop-off. They are the ones waving those crisp, fresh-smelling, newly minted bundles of notes at you when you disembark that keke. Or taxi. Or okada. Mark exchanges nine 1,000-leone notes for Le 10,000. Or nine 2,000-leone notes for Le 20,000. He makes a 10% profit per transaction.

Like Manny, Mark does not want to speculate why the drivers/riders do not go directly to the bank themselves to get change, cut out Mark, and keep all their hard-earned meager earnings. They can ill-afford his service, no? All Mark can say is that it saves them a whole lot of time and money doing business with him. Because most, like him, do not have bank accounts. Therefore, they need him to do what he has to do to secure those notes. You would not understand. You have a bank account. But you are in the minority. That’s all Mark can share.

Like Manny the Chef, Mark depends on sales volume to make a reasonable daily profit. But unlike Manny, he can never expect a windfall. Or rather, his windfall is comparably modest: Le 60,000 on that day or 60 separate transactions with a profit of Le 1,000 per transaction. Otherwise, he settles for his average daily 40 transactions to take home Le 40, 000 (or $4.44)  in profit. To you, that’s peanuts! But to Mark and Aminata the Peanut Seller, it’s enough peanuts to put food on the table. And thus enough energy to start all over again the next day for the next meal.

Totally invisible and unknown to the government.