Minister of Transport and Aviation (Ministry of Transport and Aviation of the Republic of Sierra Leone)

Sierra Leone has a wonderful heritage and history of many firsts in Africa. The country has experienced outstanding growth over the past decade making it one of the fastest growing economies in the world. In your own words, what are the main competitive and comparative advantages of Sierra Leone in Western Africa?

There are several. First of all, Sierra Leone is endowed with huge potentials in terms of mineral resources. The country has almost every key mineral resources in the world you can fine it in Sierra Leone, be it iron ore, rutile, bauxite, diamonds, gold, etc. In addition to our resources, Sierra Leone also has huge fisheries resources in terms of 200miles DMV. We have very admirable deposit of fish and fish products. Furthermore, Sierra Leone has huge agricultural potential in terms of arable land, in terms of rainfall and at the moment; over 90% of our arable land is untapped. So that is a huge potential in terms of our agricultural potential. Again, the country has the second best natural harbour in the world and in terms of our location and proximity.  Sierra Leone could serve as a tranship hub for landlocked West African countries and for the South American countries. As for you own knowledge; Brazil is four hours away from Sierra Leone. So in terms of our location, in terms of our agricultural potentials, mineral deposit, touristic potential, you will want to see some of the beaches that we have in Sierra Leone, I do not believe that they even have those kinds of beaches and sand in Jamaica. But we have lot to do in terms of harnessing and developing all of those potentials. Once we are able to put that together, we will be the jewel of Africa.

The Ebola outbreak has had a big impact on the country – Sierra Leone was doing so well with a 20% growth then the Ebola outbreak comes up and has an impact on the human, social and economic aspects of the country. Do you think Sierra Leone is recovering well from this tragedy?

Let take Sierra Leone from pre-Ebola days. Before the Ebola, Sierra Leone was the second fastest growing economy in the world. In terms of our numbers of growth, in terms of development initiatives put forward by our visionary president His Excellency Dr Ernest Bai Koroma. The export of our main mineral product at the time, which was iron ore to China, brought in huge reserves. The investment climate in the country was made more business friendly in response to the huge number of investment proposals that we were having from all over the world, and then all of a sudden Ebola struck. It devastated our people, our human resources, our economy and our potential, but it did not destroy our resolved as a nation to move forward. So with the exemplary leadership and committed leadership by His Excellency the president, and with the assistant of our foreign partners particularly the Chinese because they were the first to render aid. It was the Chinese support that galvanised international support and with the leadership of His Excellency we were able to defeat Ebola. Even though in its wake it left a lot of destruction, we are getting back on track. There is the president recovery initiative, recovery priorities which are taking root. Fortunately, the prize of iron ore which plummeted as a result of world market prizes and demands a reaction there of is looking upwards a little bit. It was down to about 40$ now I believe it is in the region of 80$ per ton going up and if that is maintained the development of the country is definitely going to improve and we are restoring development project that have been put on hold because of lack of financing - The road projects, the free health care projects, the educational projects, and agricultural projects, all of the projects that were under the president’s agenda for prosperity. The priority areas under that programme are being restored, and we are optimistic of the future.

The president outlined strategy focused on key sectors; you have already mentioned energy, agriculture, fisheries, natural resources and infrastructure as well. Considering the importance of foreign direct investment for Sierra Leone – What will improve the business climate in order to attract more investors?

Well, we have to create the enabling environment as a business. Sierra Leone has been ranked as the third easy to do business country in West Africa if not in Africa. So I think that is a very good position we are in and it shows that the effort that the government is making towards making investments easier is bearing fruit. We will continue to improve on that as a government because going forward, what the government is concentrating on is attracting private investment in the transport sector, in the agricultural sector, in all the disciplines. In infrastructural development as you can see, there is a four lane road being constructed from Wellington to Masiaka by a private sector investment; it is a toll road that is going to pay for itself. The same goes for the port extension Bollore, $120,000,000 investments of entirely Bollore’s money. The government does not have the money in some of these projects; much needed project in terms of our development at this particular time especially after the effects of Ebola in the economy. So we are encouraging more private sector investment and we are creating the environment and the incentives and concessions that are necessary to make this fruitful, so that will be the way for the government going forward in terms of development.

Transport and Aviation sector are of main importance for the country in order to create sustainable economic development for the country – what are the remaining challenges in your sector and what are the specific opportunities?

I have always said that no country in the world has developed without a robust transport system, be it by land, sea and air. If you look at the United States, Germany, the rest of Europe, Asia, countries like Singapore success stories, Indonesia, Dubai, they have all developed from a transport sector base either from seaport, or airport or roads. The Chinese proverb says, “if you want to develop ‘’build the roads’’, the transport sector is the life blood, the heartbeat of any economy. Transportation by land moves the economy, moves agricultural products, medical supplies, domestic supplies, it moves the people, and it moves everything. In any country in the world, everybody goes out in the morning even babies, children have to go to school, adults have to go to work, and the business community has to move and all of these moves by transportation. Sea transportation, 95% of the world’s trade presently is being moved by sea transportation, maritime transportation as well as aviation. Aviation is exploding, almost every country in the world are building or contemplating building new airports because the airports are getting smaller, the planes in the air are getting lesser, and passages are everywhere. So the future of Sierra Leone and not only Sierra Leone but I believe in every country is transportation, and you do not have to wait until you have the facilities. That is why we are doing extension of the container terminal, once this development is under taken by Bollore you will see change and development; we will have bigger ships because our enviable draft of 13meters will be improved. So we can accommodate bigger vessels that will come and bring in containers for landlocked countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, and other countries in the sub-Region that has congested ports and even the possibility of transhipment to Brazil, to South America. The prospect of building our new airport on the mainland for the first time at Mamama and making Freetown a Regional hub, building a national railway network for cargo and passages that will not only serve Sierra Leone but can even serve the neighbouring countries like Guinea and Liberia. Transportation and the movement of people and goods is the future of any economy I would say in the world including Sierra Leone, so we are focusing on that. That is why we are focusing on the port extension project, not only Bollore which is the concessional for the container terminal but also expanding other parts of the port, building more berths that will accommodate more vessels that will bring in more business, building a new airport that will bring in more airlines, more connections to the world and open up the country for business. Building a new airport city, an aviation city that will have an economic zone that will bring in more tourists, etc, the prospects are endless. The government does not have the money and we cannot continue to provide guarantees for investment because we have debt sustainability issues, we have issues of debts ceiling, which we cannot expand. That is why the future is to encourage the private sector to invest in all of these areas and once they are convinced that it is viable, they conduct their economic viability studies, and they will invest like they are doing for the toll road, like they are doing for the port extension.

Are you considering the reestablishment of National Airline for Sierra Leone?

The history of National Airline in Africa is not a good one. For instance, Nigeria Airways the biggest country in black Africa failed, Ghana Airways failed. Sierra Leone will not rush into such an initiative on a national level. What we are contemplating on right now is the Mano River Union Airline called Air Mano that will bring together the three (3) countries, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia to establish a tri-national carrier for these countries, and we believe that with the passenger traffic from the three (3) countries put together, the population and the business potential of those three (3) countries expanding further into the Sub-Region then we think there are prospects in this kind of business venture not possibly on only on a solely nationalistic basis,  I don’t want to own a Sierra Leone Airline when you have a population of about six (6) million people, how many people are travelling –you have to be economically realistic.

When is the port meant to be finished?

It will be finished by the last part of September/October 2018.

The implementation of new international airport for Freetown has been pauses – Can elaborate about this project?

It was discussed recently. I was part of the president’s delegation to China for the state visit recently and two of the major issues that were discussed were the airport and the port extension. So, we are going to hopefully start the airport project pretty soon after signing the agreement and clear the issues with the IMF and the world bank because we want to maintain our relationship with the IMF, with the world bank and at the same time with the Chinese who are very reliable partners.

You are one of the most experienced politicians in Sierra Leone, serving as Minister of State at the vice president’s office and you are one of the president’s reliable ministers in the government – In your entire career, what are you most proud of?

I am a loyal member of the APC party. I have been in the party for over 40 years and I have never moved from one party to the other during the good times and the bad times, have stayed with the party. I have worked for all three (3) presidents of the APC party. I worked for president Siaka Stevens; I was press secretary in his administration in 1977 as soon as I graduated from college, which was in 1976. I worked for the president as press secretary for two (2) years, and then I served in the provincial administration as District Officer, Senior District Officer. I served in the East, North and South of the country. I also served in several ministries in the Western Area rising to the rank of Permanent Secretary. For president Momoh, I was secretary to the Chief Electoral Commissioner in 1992 when the Coup d’état took place and I had to run for my life. I left the country and lived in the United States for eleven (11) years and worked for America Airlines, and also at the Washington Metropolitan National Airport. In 2006, His Excellency convinced me to come back home and campaigned with him in the elections. I came back and we won the elections. I was appointed Minister of States in the office of the vice president. I was relieved of my duties after two (2) years, and after few months, I was appointed coordinator of the 50th Independence Anniversary celebrations; only eight (8) weeks to the celebrations but I delivered and we had a very successful celebrations. Thereafter, I was appointed National Elections Coordinator for the president’s campaign and the party’s campaign in 2012 and I also delivered, and subsequently, I was appointed Minister of Transport and Aviation. Yes, I have been in public service all my life and I will agree with you that I have a good record. What I am proud of the most is the fact that I come from a very humble background. My mother was a petty trader (business woman) and my father was also a businessman. My mother is Creole from the Western Area and my father is from Kono, the diamond-mining district. I am a workaholic; I come to the office at 7am until 7pm, I do a minimum of 12 hours a day. I am result oriented and I am very particular about details and I like success. So I am impressed, it is possible for anybody to be what I am or to have the kind of CV or background, or experience that I have but it takes handwork, commitment and dedication.

Why should investors come to Sierra Leone?

They should come to Sierra Leone because in terms of resources, we are the jewel of Africa. A small country like this with 6 million populations, we have one of the largest deposits of iron ore in the whole of Africa if not the world; billions and billions of tons of iron ore. It is as if God during the creation just took almost half of the worlds iron ore and deposited it in Sierra Leone. Again diamonds, rutile, I was listening to the News the other day and I heard that the Sierra Rutile Plant in Moyamba district is going to be the largest producer of rutile in the world after of some $40,000,000 investment that has been made and the same goes for bauxite and lot of other mineral resources which have not being fully exploited and prospected. Also, in terms of agricultural land, rainfall, this year we have one of the highest rainfalls ever. So with effective irrigation methods and preservation, we have no problem with water and we have no problem with anything. The problem now is harnessing all our resources and our potential and maximising it. This is what is being done by His Excellency the president because when the president took over in 2007, everything was broken down; the health sector, agricultural sector, infrastructure, energy, tourism. This was why the president indentified five (5) key areas, first in the agenda for change; change that was absolutely needed, thereafter to the agenda for prosperity which have been slow down a little bit by the effect of the Ebola but I believe we will get there.