By Stephen V. Lansana
On Thursday, March 13, 2025, the Executive Chairman of the Produce Monitoring Board (PMB), Raymond Bob Katta, highlighted the achievements and progress made by the Board since his appointment in December last year. He made these disclosures during a press briefing held at the PMB conference hall, Lightfoot Boston Street, Delco House in Freetown.
Expressing gratitude to President Bio for the trust placed in him, Katta emphasized how the President’s key development pillars align with PMB’s mandates, particularly in areas like Feed Salone, Youth Employment, and Technology. He outlined plans to digitize PMB and make it a key driver of the President’s agenda. Katta also noted that while PMB has made significant achievements, these have not been adequately covered by the media. Since his appointment, he has engaged various sector stakeholders to address these gaps.
“What I realize since I came in is that PMB has achieved a lot, but those achievements have not been reported in the mainstream media,” Katta said. He mentioned that he has engaged different sector players and started regional familiarization engagements with staff and other sector stakeholders across the value chain, including cooperatives, smallholding farmers, and importers. These engagements helped him understand the operations and share his vision, and he tried to engage the media during these interactions.
Katta emphasized the need for PMB to shift from being media-shy to becoming a media-friendly institution, given its role as a revenue-generating entity. He stressed the importance of ensuring visibility for PMB’s activities. “I don’t think people appreciate the clinical contribution PMB is making to this nation’s economy,” he remarked.
Highlighting improvements and strengthened accountability mechanisms at PMB, Katta revealed that the Board has surpassed last year’s revenue. He worked closely with the finance department to track revenue progress, disclosing that in January 2025, PMB raised 73% more revenue compared to January 2024. Specifically, in January 2024, the revenue was NLe 3,213,391 million, while in January 2025, it increased to NLe 8,587,109 million. In February 2025, revenue generation also saw a 78% increase, rising from NLe 4,957,640 million in February 2024 to NLe 17,436,489 million in February 2025.
“Last year, if you aggregate the revenue generated for January and February, it will be about NLe 8 million, while this year, we have already generated NLe 26 million,” Katta said, noting the tremendous progress made in contributing to the consolidated revenue fund.
Despite these improvements, Katta disclosed that the lack of a fully equipped testing and certification laboratory is hindering revenue generation. He noted that the lab at the Sierra Leone Standards Bureau is 75% complete. He also mentioned ongoing financial constraints and logistics challenges, but expressed his vision for PMB to contribute more to the country’s revenues. He has visited the Liberia border crossing and engaged the National Revenue Authority (NRA) to explore further revenue generation opportunities.
The Kono team currently has three staff members not generating revenue, but efforts are underway to develop a revenue generation plan in the region to strengthen financial performance. The goal is to reform the sector, with support from the Public Sector Reforms Units for a management functional review. Operations are being improved, decentralized, and aligned with the president’s vision for “Feed Salone.”
The Executive Chairman has held meetings with stakeholders on value addition, and a strong in-house team has been formed to expedite project implementation. Katta emphasized that increasing produce value, quantity, and revenue are key objectives. Additionally, exporting raw products contributes to job creation.
Katta called for a paradigm shift in PMB’s approach to media engagement, aiming to ensure that the Board’s significant contributions to the nation’s economy are adequately recognized and reported.