Background
Solomon Pratt was born on December 25, 1922, in Bathurst, Gambia.
Solomon Pratt was born on December 25, 1922, in Bathurst, Gambia.
Educated at Sierra Leone Grammar School, Fourah Bay College and at Durham where he graduated in economic science and law before going to St Catherine’s College, Oxford, to do a postgraduate diploma in Agricultural Economics, to London University to get a BSc Economics, followed by an LLB at the Inner Temple.
He returned to Sierra Leone in 1949 to work as a government economist before going to Geneva to join the International Labour Office from 1952 to 1958.
After his return from Geneva in 1958 he became Freetown city solicitor and chairman of the Riot Damages Commission 1958-61. From 1964 to 1966 he was economic adviser to the government of Sir Albert Margai and became general manager of Sierra Leone Railways.
One of the leaders of the All Peoples’ Congress and MP for Mountain Royal district, he was arrested and detained together with Premier Siaka Stevens in the military coup which followed the elections of March 1967.
On return to civilian rule he was appointed the first Minister of Economic Development and Planning, but lost his portfolio during the cabinet reshuffle of 1969 though he continued to act as envoy of the Premier to various countries and conferences, notably to Zambia where he made a study of the 51% state take-over of mines and industries, so that similar policies could be applied in Sierra Leone. In India he studied the administration of oil refineries as the Sierra Leone refinery had been a notorious loss maker.
On April 19, 1971, when Sierra Leone became a republic, he was made Minister of External Affairs after a brief spell acting as Minister of State and Attorney-General.
As Foreign Minister he did not change Sierra Leone’s policy of total non-alignment but Sierra Leone recognised Peking in preference to Taiwan. Sierra Leone opened an embassy in Israel but later Solomon Pratt visited Lebanon and said he understood the Arab viewpoint.
A Creole lawyer and economist with a strong local following in the Western Area, which includes Fourah Bay College. He is a keen churchgoer and choirmaster in Regent Church, the oldest in West Africa. He has been a civil servant and politician since 1949 and was first an adviser to Sir Albert Margai before switching to the All Peoples’ Congress just as it was about to win the 1967 elections. An eloquent Foreign Minister, he organised the recognition of Peoples’ China in place of Taiwan, but is even more suited, as an economist, to his new appointment at Development and Economic Planning.