A.1. The SLRA was created in 1992 as a body responsible for the construction and maintenance of all roads in Sierra Leone. Before, the SLRA used to be the Roads Division within the Ministry of Works, Housing and Technical Maintenance. Soon it was realized that because of bureaucratic reasons it was better to keep the road reconstruction and maintenance outside of the Ministry. The main argument was that within the Ministry there are too many divisions and there was not enough time and energy to deal with these important issues on a daily basis, so they decided to make it semi autonomous. Like that we can prevent often interference into the activities connected to road maintenance. When the Roads Authority was created, it was decided that it will have a Director General to be assisted by 5 Directors and supervised by the Board of Directors. All decisions have to be approved by that board and they are also in charge of creating the policy of the SLRA without interfering in its everyday work that is how we became a semi autonomous. We have a lot of freedom in the organization and design of our work without any interference from above. When we were part of the Ministry it used to be very hard to work effectively

Q.2. What are the major differences that this freedom has given you in this post conflict period to succeed fast?

A.2. Formerly, when we were still part of the Ministry there was already a lot of work to do and we always had to consult or get permission to carry out the jobs from the Permanent Secretary or the Minister. I will give you an example, if I have to close a pothole that is 1 m. x 1m. I will have to make an estimate. That estimate will have to be approved by the Permanent Secretary and the Minister, by the time they approve it, the pothole got bigger several times. While now, if I have to repair a pothole, I have the authority to give an order to carry out the work, provided the pothole is not very big. Another new thing is that now we are getting the resources from the Road Fund, before we were getting them from the Ministry of Finance. The Road Fund is put together from different taxes that are included in the price of fuel, for example and that money is going directly into the consolidated Road Fund that is at the disposal of the SLRA. Once my board approves my programme of work, I can work and carry out reconstruction and rehabilitation and there is no delay. Before I needed approval for my programme, then in each case for the funds I had to go to the Minister of Works, they had to forward it to the Ministry of Finance and so on.

Q.3. What sources do you have for construction purposes and what have been the latest results of such activities?

A.3. The Road Fund is there to make sure that we have means to carry out routine and periodic maintenance. To do rehabilitation or construction of roads, we fully rely on donor funding from the World Bank, the Kuwait Fund, the Islamic Development Bank, the African Development Fund and the EU. All these organizations are helping us greatly; they provide the funds for us to open new roads, feeder roads, trunk roads. Through the World Bank, we have been able to rehabilitate 300 to 500 km of feeder roads and to re-gravel from 400km to 500km of trunk roads. With the help of the Kuwaiti Fund we are rehabilitating the peninsular road, which is a very important bypass through the beach areas; it will be very good for tourism, because the scenery that you pass by on that road is beautiful. About 70% of the work is already done, once finished it will make accessible important tourist and fishery regions of the country.

Q.4. How are you creating the priorities, when there is so much to do?

A.4. The first priority is to link the remote areas of the country. We will first connect the villages with the towns, the main agricultural areas. We are paying special attention to the reconstruction of the feeder roads because they are vital for the transportation of goods from the farmers. If we are not able to bring their goods to the cities than the Government will not be able to derive anything from agriculture, also the people in the village will stop producing and it will have a negative, long lasting impact on the whole of the economy. Therefore it is vital to get the produce to the cities and to the export markets. Another important matter is health. The Ministry of Health is putting up a lot of health centres throughout the country; these have to be included in the road network, so that patients and medication can move freely. The Government is also endorsing education, so there are a lot of new schools being built, these schools are located in towns and we have to make sure that they are accessible from villages and other towns too. Accessibility is of key importance for the Government, without that there will be no progress in education, agriculture, health and many other areas of development.

Q.5. You have an ambitious 5 year development plan, for 2003-2007. Participation by the private sector will be crucial to the plan's success, what can you tell us so far about it?

A.5. Yes we have an infrastructure development programme that will last till 2007 from this year. Once this program is finalized the Government will have access to about 60% to 70% of the whole country. The estimated cost of this project is around 300 million USD. The participation of private capital is vital, so far we have commitment from our donors for up to 100 million USD and we are now seeking financing for the rest. From the 100 million provided by donors we will fund roads that will connect Machiaka with Makeni, we also want to reconstruct the road to the Guinea (Conakry) border. We have carried out several studies for the reconstruction of these roads and we have come up with very good results. By connecting Guinea to Sierra Leone, it will bring a lot of benefits to us, such as the movement of goods and people between the two countries. We also plan to connect Machiaka with Bo, which is the second largest city, the EU have already provided for the funding of that road.
As you may know, the traffic in and around Freetown is highly congested, we have planned a new road called the inside road, it will run on the perimeter of Freetown, so you don't have to go all the way through the city centre to get to the other end of the city, it will be a bypass. An estimate has been made and OPEC and the Kuwait Fund expressed interest in funding that road.

Q.6. Some countries are looking at Build, Operate and Transfer schemes to get financing, will that be of interest to you?

A.6. Yes, certainly. I have seen such projects in other countries and I think it may bring good results to us too. However, nobody has offered such a scheme to us yet. If somebody would express their interest in such a project we would first have to evaluate it and if considered viable, we would probably approve it. For instance, we have several bridges that could be interesting for such projects.

Q.7. There are several foreign companies present here, how are you encouraging them and to what extent are you satisfied with their work?

A.7. They are quite satisfied with the investment climate that we have here. Every time when there is a project, we make sure that the estimate we make includes a certain percentage of profit for them. We have to calculate it like that, because if not, then these companies will not come for the second time. The fact that we have several foreign companies operating here proves that the investment climate is good. We always advertise our projects and invite interested parties to bid, we encourage them to come. We want to accommodate both big international companies and smaller regional or local companies. We used to have some big names here, but they left because of the war so now most of our contractors are smaller, regional companies. At the same time we are also developing the capacity of our local contractors. For example, all the work on the feeder roads is being done by local contractors which we have trained over the years. When we were part of the Ministry of Works, the road construction used to employ 7000 people, but when the SLRA was formed, only 500 of them were employed here. These people were engineers and supervisors and people with various professional backgrounds. Some of these people became consultants, some of them became contractors and we are encouraging them to come together and form their own companies to work with us. Some of these companies will become big and prosperous in the coming years. We will make sure that the good ones get jobs and we can give the bigger contracts to bigger companies. Like that it is good for the country and good for the companies too. If we would have to use foreign companies to do all the works that we have it would be too expensive.

Q.8. The upcoming privatization will also affect your organization, what are your plans regarding that?

A.8. The SLRA is on the list of companies intended for privatization. The SLRA has a component that is called the Mechanical Services Unit (MSU), that unit has a lot of equipment that we used to hire to our local contractors. I think that its privatization will bring enormous benefits to both the Unit, to the SLRA and to our contractors that use their services. I don't think that the Roads Authority will be privatized, since we are not a profit making organization, we are just providing assistance services to the country. As for the MSU, I believe that it will be easy to find a partner. They provide us with indispensable machinery necessary to carry out the work, whenever we have work to carry out, we hire their machines and we pay them. In fact I always encourage the constructors to hire the machines from the MSU. When it will be privatized, the SLRA will probably remain a minority shareholder of the MSU.

Q.9. As you know, our readers are businessmen what would you like to tell to the ones reading the report on Sierra Leone?

A.9. I would like them to know first of all that Sierra Leone is at peace. There are a lot of areas offering interesting business opportunities and it will be beneficial for them, they will not regret it, I am confident. I would like to invite them to come and see for themselves.