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Comments on 'The coinage of modern Sierra Leone'

Started by <k>, April 28, 2018, 07:17:56 PM

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coinote

I saw many videos about Sierra Leone after the redenomination, I saw no coins were being used, things are not cheap there

eurocoin

In an article that was written by then mintmaster Van Draanen of Royal Dutch Mint, he wrote that the British government provided subsidies to Sierra Leone for the 1996 coin series. His surprise at the fact that the government of Sierra Leone then turned to the Royal Dutch Mint to mint the coins seemed to be clearly noticeable in the article. I wonder whether the provision of subsidies by the British government is somehow also related to the involvement of a British artist (Avril Vaughan) for the designs of the coins. I have always found it odd that she was involved here.

Figleaf

Quote from: eurocoin on June 03, 2024, 09:19:38 PMI wonder whether the provision of subsidies by the British government is somehow also related to the involvement of a British artist (Avril Vaughan) for the designs of the coins. I have always found it odd that she was involved here.

I think you're on to something. I was involved in a case where an African country preferred US locomotives financed with non-concessional state credit, rather than accept a Canadian development aid credit. The most common strings attached to concessional finance is a condition that the aid be spent in the donor country. One step further is a concessional credit or grant attached to "commercial" credit (known as a mixed credit). In 1996, I worked in Paris at the OECD, facilitating rules that said i.a. that if any part of a credit is tied, the whole credit is tied. Since the rules for tied aid were made much more stringent, this made development aid more effective, while saving the OECD tax payers huge amounts of sneaky money in undercover state support of slowly dying national champions (BTW, this work is now slowly being undermined in the name of fighting climate change).

What you describe sounds like a mixed credit, hastily unmixed so that it would not be hit by these new rules, with the aid part being used to pay Vaughn only and the rest being re-sourced and probably re-financed by NCM - now Atradius in the Netherlands.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.