T

his year, the Sierra Leone Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, annual International/National Trade Fair and Exhibition took place at the outer perimeter of the National Stadium from Friday 28thMarch to Saturday 26th April 2014. The theme for this year’s trade Fair was “SME development: the way forward for wealth creation and national prosperity.

Participation

This year saw participation of an unprecedented number of exhibitors and was an increase of almost 50% over last year. Total number of participants was three hundred and two (302). Although most of the participants were local, this year saw a larger number of international participants than previous years. The international participants came from Ghana, Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Senegal, Benin, Burkina Faso, Indonesia and Kenya. Premier Media Group Limited managed the trade fair and exhibition.

Advertising

Premier Media Group Limited produced two sets of jingles. The first one was for participants to register for the trade fair and the second to inform the public about the trade fair. These jingles were broadcast on the following radio stations: Radio Democracy, Tumac Radio and Skyy Radio. Newspaper adverts were also designed and published in the following newspapers: Awoko, Standard Times, Premier News and Awareness Times.

The newspaper advert was published during the first week of March and the first radio jingle broadcast from end February to March 25 which was the official closing date for submission of applications by intending participants.

This year a large prominent lightbox belonging to Sign Africa, located at the St. John roundabout, was used to mount an advert for the trade fair and we believe it attracted a lot of attention and contributed to the turnout of visitors to the trade fair.

Allocation of Space

Premier Media designed application forms in consultation with the Chamber and these forms were sent either by email or collected by participants from the offices of the Chamber and Premier Media. The details on the form included: Name of Company, contact details, type of goods or services to be exhibited, type of space required and electricity supply. The completed forms and payment were submitted to the Chamber of Commerce office. A list of participants was sent to Premier Media and this was used to allocate space to the Exhibitors. Premier Media only allocated space to exhibitors whose names were sent to it by the Chamber.

As usual, many exhibitors did not submit applications prior to the official closing date for applications.Consequently, by the time allocation of space commenced, less than half the number of exhibitors that eventually participated had completed the registration process. Many exhibitors turned up at the venue either while allocation of space was going on or after the trade Fair had commenced, requesting space. These potential exhibitors were referred to the Chamber of Commerce office for registration and payment.

As in previous years, the Exhibition space was divided into sectors, namely: entertainment, clothing/textiles, telecommunications, financial institutions, pharmaceuticals, insurance etc.However, because some exhibitors registered late, the sector demarcations were not totally exclusive. The number of exhibitors in the entertainment sector this year grew significantly and a lot more space had to be allocated to this sector. In fact the pressure for space in this sector was so great that for the first time, exhibitors were placed on both sides of the driveway from the Syke Street gate.

Access to the Venue

All exhibitors were allocated 5 passes for staff and two vehicle passes. This enabled exhibitors to access the venue as and when required. As a result of the recycling of exhibitor passes noticed in previous years, this year, exhibitors were required to submit passport pictures for all their staff, which were affixed to the passes. This resulted in a significant reduction in the recycling of passes, although it did not completely eliminate it. About 30 passes that were spotted at the gate being used by people other than the owners were confiscated.

This year as in previous years, parking space was provided for vehicles and so exhibitors and visitors could park their vehicles within the trade fair grounds.As a result of the experience of previous years when a good number of Exhibitorsrefused to use the parking spaces provided, preferring instead to park in front of their booths andsome visitors also refused to use the car park and, at times, parked in front of booths, causing annoyance to the affected exhibitor and a number of times created conflict situations, the services of traffic wardens were utilized this year.

Check points were mounted at both ends of the car park and movement of cars outside the car park was prohibited after 7pm each day. The main check point was manned by traffic wardens who were authorized to clamp vehicles of motorists who refused to obey instructions. A few cars were clamped during the trade fair, but generally, the presence of the traffic wardens and police officers resulted in a much higher level of compliance than in previous years.

Construction of Booths

The Trade Fair was originally scheduled to commence on March 26 and construction of booths was scheduled to start on March 17. However, due to the funeral of the Late President Kabbah that took place in the National Stadium on March 23, Construction of booths could not begin until March 24. As a result of this, the opening of the trade fair had to be postponed to March 28. Even with the postponement of the opening of the Trade Fair, many exhibitors could not complete construction of their booths in time. Consequently, on opening day, only about two thirds of the booths had been completed.

Opening Ceremony

The Trade Fair and Exhibition was officially opened in the evening ofFriday March 28 by His Worship the Mayor of Freetown, Bode Gibson. Statements were made by the President of the Sierra Leone Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture and theDeputy Minister of Trade and Industry.The opening ceremony took place at the outer perimeter opposite the Syke Street entrance to the stadium. Adequate decoration of the venue was done and refreshments were provided at the end of the event.

The dignitaries were taken on a conducted tour of the Trade Fair after the official opening.

Ticket Sales Manning of Gate

The entrance fee for the Trade Fair and Exhibition this year, like previous years, was Le3,000, valid for single entry only. As with previous years, the Syke Street and the Swimming Pool gates were used as entrance and exits for pedestrians whilst the Cemetery gate was used as entrance and exit for vehicles and pedestrians. Ticket sales started at approximately 11am and continued till the early hours of the following morning. Approximately130,000 pedestrian and 3,400 vehicle tickets were sold during the entire trade fair.The largest turnout was on the final day which grossed approximately fifty five million Leones.

As with previous years, the single entry ticket resulted in numerous conflict situations and almost constantly created tension at the gates. Many visitors to the Trade Fair, particularly at night, insisted on entering the venue more than once on the value of a single ticket, and they had to be physically prevented from doing so.

This year, Premier Media employed the services of undercover agents to monitor activity at the gates because there was a suspicion that staff manning the gates were engaged in fraudulent activities. As a result a number of individuals were caught recycling tickets and were dismissed. We also discovered counterfeit tickets. In addition we had challenges with the police officers who were supposed to provide security at the gates. Many of them engaged in fraudulent activities and were collecting money from people and finding ways of getting them into the venue under the pretext of these people being police officers or their relatives.

Cleaning of the Venue and Toilet Facilities

This year, we secured the services of MASADA, the company providing waste disposal services for Freetown, to do the cleaning of the venue. They did an initial cleaning of the entire venue prior to the commencement of the trade fair, after which they positioned waste bins at strategic locations around the venue and established a collection point from which MASADA trucks collected the waste on a daily basis.

MASADA staff could be seen cleaning the venue at all hours of the day and night, and so the entire trade fair grounds were kept relatively clean at all times. MASADA was also contracted to do final clean-up after most of the booths had been demolished a few days after the closing of the Trade Fair.

An effort was made to improve on the toilet facilities, this year and so 8 portable toilets were initially secured and positioned at 4 strategic locations. An additional two toilets had to be hired and placed at the Syke Street gate end of the stadium when it became clear that the stadium practicing field was being used as a toilet.

Unlike last year when people had to pay to use the toilets, access was free this year. Despite this free access to the portable toilets, there was a lot or urinating and defecating in the gutters around the stadium. We believe this was due to the large numbers of visitors to the Trade Fair and the distance between the locations of the toilets. The number of toilets may therefore need to be increased for subsequent trade fairs.

Security

Vigil Security Group and Angel Group Limited were the two security companies contracted to provide security for the venue. A total of ninety guards were provided by the two companies working two shifts. As was done last year, the venue was divided into two sections and the two companies were each responsible for one section. The Vigil Security Group had the responsibility to secure from the Brookfields Bus Stop entrance, going through the Syke Street entrance onto the cemetery gate whilst the Angel group Limited had the responsibility for the Cemetery gate, the swimming pool gate up to the Brookfields Bus Halt gate.

In addition to the security companies, the Sierra Leone Police also provided personnel (armed and unarmed) on a daily basis working two shifts. A total of approximately 40 police personnel were provided each day. This number was increased on weekends and in some cases, we had more than 100 police officers present.As a result of the heavy security presence, there were only a few reports of thefts or attempted theft for the duration of the trade fair.

This year, we had major challenges with the police personnel assigned to cover the Trade Fair and the method used to assign them. We eventually had to use personal contacts within the police force to get a few armed OSD officers because the majority of OSD officers were undergoing some re-training exercise.Due to the pressure we put on the Regional Commander West, some of the OSD officers had to be brought in from the training camp in Jui to police the Trade Fair after the first few days during which we only had a few police officers assigned.

Electricity

This year, electricity proved to be our major challenge. In the first place, because the National Stadium has backlog electricity payments, we could not simply use the existing meter on the premises. Consequently, a separate pre-paid meter had to be installed which was connected only to the areas we were going to use.

As was the case last year, Integrated Power Control Solutions provided a 250kva generator gratis to be used as back-up power whenever NPA failed. After the first two days of the trade fair, it became obvious that the generator could not handle the load. We then resorted to using the stadium generator which is a 300kva generator. After a day, it too could not handle the load and we ended up having to use both generators at the same time by splitting the load.

We also realized after a few days that the NPA tariff was rather high and five million Leones was not lasting up to two complete days. We then appealed to NPA and the tariff was reduced and for the rest of the trade fair we were spending approximately one and a half million Leones a day on NPA.

We also had to provide diesel for the generators, with each consuming about 45 litres of diesel per hour.

The power demand of the trade fair this year was so high that NPA had to shut off power to many areas in the city to be able to supply power to the stadium. Fortunately, we were able to establish a rapport with the NPA officials in the sub-station that saw them providing electricity to the trade fair for most of the night.

As a result of the cost of providing power we had to engage in some power conservation, and did not turn on power till around midday each day.

We believe the unprecedented power requirement this year was due to two factors. In the first place, we had many more participants this year than we have ever had. Secondly, the entertainment, particularly the food and beverage sector, grew significantly this year and even though many of them indicated and paid for lights only, most of them had deep freezers, microwave ovens, some had ice-cream machines and pop corn machines and many of them had large wattage amplifiers.

We also faced major challenges with the status of the electrical wiring around the perimeter of the stadium. A lot of the wires were old and worn out, while others had low capacity. Consequently, there were many instances of cables being burnt and a number of potentially devastating fire incidents were thankfully averted.

Our team of electricians had to work around the clock to ensure all booths had electricity supply, but despite our best efforts, as will be seen in participants’ responses to the questionnaire we distributed, electricity supply was considered to have been rather poor.

We believe a way needs to be found to control the use of electricity by exhibitors in future and this could either be through ensuring that all exhibitors pay for the type of power they consume or having a flat rate for electricity consumption, which may not be fair on those who do not require much power.

Rules and Regulations

The Trade Fair rules and regulations were updatedby Premier Mediaand were attached to the application form for applicants to sign and return. A copy of these rules and regulations is attached.

In order to combat some of the challenges faced last year, the rules and regulations were modified accordingly. A number of new regulations were introduced, including fines for parking outside the car park area, electricity disconnection for noise making and paying a fine before reconnection.

These new regulations had an impact, although some exhibitors still flouted the noise rule.

Closing Ceremony

The official closing ceremony took place on Saturday 26th April 2014 at 4.30pm. Officials from the Ghanaian and Nigerian embassies were guests of honour. The ceremony was enlivened by a live band performance by the Sierra Leone Police Dance Band.

This year, the winners of the Best Booth awards were announced and trophies handed over to them at the closing ceremony. First prize went to Knightsbridge, second prize to the Ghanaians as a group and third price to Africel. For the first time, the criteria that used to determine the winnerswas explained to the audience.

Participants’ Survey

A questionnaire was distributed to all participants to seek their views on a number of elements of the trade fair. Of the approximately 305 questionnaires distributed, 42.9% or 131 were returned. The analysis of responses is presented below.

The questionnaire first sought to determine how long the exhibitor had been participating inthe Trade Fair. The results indicated that 36.6% of respondents were participating for the first time, and of the 60.3% who were not first time participants, about half (51.9%) had been participating for between 2 and five years, while 40.5% had been participating for more than five years.

In relation to the general organization of the trade fair, almost 80% (79.82%) considered it to have either been excellent, very good or good.