The richest West African, Nigerian born Alhaji Aliko Dangote the Chief Executive Officer of Dangote group has disclosed their intention to invest in three areas in Sierra Leone.
At a press briefing held at the State house yesterday, Alhaji Dangote said that his visit to the country was to see what they can do to assist Sierra Leone in terms of investment.
He disclosed “We have agreed on three areas; one to invest in power generation to improve the infrastructures of power, which is generation, transmission and distribution, availability of meters and to also provide at least 100 to 150 mega watts of electricity”.
Dangote revealed that their second target is to look at helping the country rebuild its transport sector by getting in more Ferries, good terminals and also get a better helicopter service and thirdly look at the port infrastructures.
These he said where the key areas of discussion with President Koroma
He noted that there are quite of lot of things they can do here especially because the President has the political will and the determination to muzzle the various challenges “we will assist him”.
The President and Chief Executive Officer of Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) Mr. Austine O. Ometoruwa said that one of their missions is to really deliver results.
Asked that over the years investors are coming in and along the line leave the country, he replied that, “we are different that is why we have already set up a bank which is called the AFC which is to really deliver results within a very short period of time.
On the issue of prepaid meters, Mr Ometoruwa revealed that prepaid meters are very important, adding that if people are getting the power and not getting paid and there is no money eventually the system will collapse.
He emphasized that the prepaid meter is important because people pay for what they consume.
The President maintained that, the visit was part of the initiatives of Africans to support Sierra Leone in the private sector to develop the private sector in the country.
Alhaji Dangote is part of the AFC and the mission that they discussed with the government of Sierra Leone is to focus on critical areas they can support them and the priority would now be power, transport and infrastructures.
He noted that the needs are critical and urgent so they are focusing critically in providing power generation in terms of having 100 mega watts of power supply.
Also focusing on providing additional ferries he added so the initiative has to be very urgent and within a range of short and medium term because of the urgency of the crisis in power and ferry services said the President.
Asked how much the investment will cost, he pointed out that, they are sending a technical team to come in next week and the team will do the scooping and costing of the project.
Disclosing that the critical thing is once the team has started work we will be able to give dimension to what the financial values are and the AFC will now support the funding of this project.
In his closing remarks the deputy minister of Information and communications Mohamed Koroma said that, Sierra Leoneans are in dire needs of all what have said.
He hoped that AFC will come and stay and help the people of this country.
The Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) was established in 2007, as a private sector-led investment bank and development finance institution created to help mobilize and channel required capital towards driving Africa’s economic development. AFC has an estimated US$1.2 billion capital.
Alhaji Dangote was listed as the richest black person in the world with $3.3 billion in March.
By Abibatu Kamara