Street Hawkers Licence anyone?

I don't think the government of Sierra Leone, particularly the City Councils, should continue to allow street hawkers to sell pirated goods along the streets of Sierra Leone. I'm picking on the City Councils in particular because they can make this problem go away overnight.

Right now, many in the music industry suffer from piracy. Due to action taken by locals in-country, myself included, piracy of local music is on a downward trend. Piracy of foreign music goes on just as much, if not more. Today I was offered some foreign music, and the pirates have now stopped using the low quality CDs. They are importing improved quality CDs and even printing images on to their products. This is definitely a new and disturbing development.

I've been saying for a long time now that the Pirates, having been left unchecked for so long, are now financially ready, willing and able to compete. They can afford to hire the best lawyers, they have the network of distributors and they the support of the City Councils.

Why do I say so? Well, it is clear that the City Councils can bring their municipalities to a standstill, if they choose to. In Freetown, for example, the City Council effectively checked citizens for their Local Council Tax certificates a few months back, during a week or so of intense scrutiny. With the same will, they can check the boys selling pirated CDs on our streets, ensuring they have their street traders licences.

This will help fight piracy in several ways. Key to this strategy is firstly, the approach would mean that potential hawkers have to register their personal details with the City Councils in order to get their street hawkers licences. The City Councils can place criteria that binds the licence holders to a particular code of conduct, including, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SELL PIRATED GOODS. This will protect both local and international rights holders, raising billions in revenue for the Councils, the government, through the appropriate taxes and for rights holders, in the form of royalties payable.

As the debate about the demise of the Sierra Leone music industry rages on, it is clear that music has been responsible for employing thousands of youths and without an alternate system of employment, increased unemployment will be the result.

So, the more I think about it, the more it is clear to me that the government should not allow these youth-man dem, to continue doing what they are doing right now. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the government should get them off the streets. I am saying that the government should adopt a policy that legitimises the existence of the street traders, to give us all peace of mind that we are buying real products from good people so that, if a consumer ever needs to return a faulty CD, they can do so easily. It will give us, as consumers, a lot more confidence to spend our hard earned Leones, or Dollars as the case may be, which does what for inflation?

You said it! The longer we keep these guys on the streets, the less control we have over our economy and a lot of the good things that the government is trying to do will not succeed due to the environment.

As for me, I will launch a system of distributing products in Sierra Leone, that should go a long way towards fighting piracy not just in Sierra Leone, but in West Africa too. Just ask Oluni, he has a copy of my plan in his email inbox! Hmmmm!