Sierra Leone’s President plans infrastructure revamp

“Our priority in terms of development is energy” – President Koroma

Sierra Leone plans major development of its infrastructure and will pursue reconciliation and deepen the peace process in an effort to meet Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), President Ernest Bai Koroma said.

President Koroma told the Eastern Africa Journalism Programme in Uganda on 22 November 2007 that his government had put a generation of energy on top of its agenda to relaunch the economy and lift the lives of its people.

“We have just come out of a war situation which has been described as the most brutally fought war in Africa and we have gone through our humanitarian stabilisation period and elections,” he said at the end of a special seminar on how to better cover MDGs.

“We are faced with a situation which is that infrastructure in our country is down, the economy is yet to be relaunched and social services are terrible.

“Our priority in terms of development is energy. We believe it is only when you have energy that you will be able to unlock the other economic activities.”

Beyond energy, the government would direct most of its resources to infrastructure development of the country and the social services, with education as a priority then followed by health.

“We want to move the country in a different direction and we have to relaunch the economy, deepen the democratic process and consolidate the peace and reconciliation. It is important because what we want is a country that is united,” President Koroma said.

The seminar was organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Governance and Institutional Development and Communications and Public Affairs Divisions and the Eastern Africa Journalism Programme. It was part-funded by the Commonwealth Media Development Fund.