Three gents called Jungle Leaders may seem unlikely propaganda agents for the tax man, but that’s what they became this week. They are a leading popular music combo from Sierra Leone who are not unknown here – last year they toured London and Manchester as well as Berlin and Eindhoven – and the subject of their expected latest hit is entitled, um, the Goods and Services Tax. Back home in Freetown, SL’s capital, the government has introduced this new tax, with the help of our own Crown Agents, but the problem was how to get the message across. There’s a high degree of illiteracy in the country struggling to recover from civil war, but also a devotion to music of the kind Messrs Leaders (Handel Metzer, Sahr Josiah and Alfred Mansaray) purvey. So what the National Revenue Authority has done is to commission a song about GST from the lads but with the lyrics in the Creole argot, and this week they pushed it out to the nightclubs, radio stations, DJs and discotheques that proliferate in the former Portuguese colony, with every expectation that it would hit the top of the charts, if SL had charts. Alfred Akibo, Sierra Leone’s assistant commissioner for the scheme, says it’s efficient, reducing admin costs for businesses but raising vital revenue for the government. “During training sessions in preparation for GST we asked members of our staff to think about phrases that would highlight the advantages of the new system over the old. They came up with almost 100 slogans, and we gave this list to the Jungle Leaders who composed a song incorporating these messages”. And the shoe-in hit has the catchy title and chorus of “Pay de tax, pay de tax”, with no hint of embarrassment.