Minister Alimamy P. Koroma

Key Ministry Ensuring Significant Infrastructure Upgrades

The Ministry of Works, Housing and Infrastructural Development is ensuring a better quality of life for the people of Sierra Leone. Alimamy P. Koroma, Minister, explains, “Infrastructure plays a crucial role in delivering health and education services, harnessing our potential in agriculture, moving imports and exports – in all our country’s development plans.”

Alimamy P. Koroma, Minister of Works, Housing and Infrastructured Development

Poor infrastructure is one reason many of Sierra Leone’s agricultural products are smuggled out of the country to Guinea and Liberia, but improving roads has already begun to change the picture. “We are launching a new market to help give farmers a place to sell their products in Sierra Leone,” Minister Koroma explains.

The ministry has decided on a number of projects, both local and international, to upgrade Sierra Leone’s infrastructure. These include the planned Trans-West Africa motorway, a motorway connecting Freetown and Conakry which should be finished in 2011, and a proposed motorway between Freetown and Monrovia, Liberia. Local projects include a new access road for Lungi airport, installing new ducts and pipes for water systems and power lines, and eventually building a new airport.

Proactive government policies

International funding organisations are helping to finance Sierra Leone’s infrastructure development but Alimamy P. Koroma favours having the government play a role in financing as well since this will keep projects moving along more rapidly. “Whatever we can do for ourselves as a government, we should do, using government resources and our tax payers’ funds as well as we can,” he says.

The Ministry of Works, Housing and Infrastructural Development welcomes the chance to partner with foreign investors, particularly European ones, and has devised a number of attractive investment incentives. “Now an investor can register a company in just one week, compared to six months in some other African countries, and we allow repatriation of profits and have implemented strict anti corruption laws. The government is also very open to public private partnerships, including in the housing sector, where investors can never go wrong,” the minister points out.

Alimamy P. Koroma urges international investors to target Sierra Leone. He says, “As minister, I have a duty to transform our works, housing and infrastructural development from their current state to a better one. To accomplish this, I am relying on government and international funding, but why not on partnerships as well? We want to create jobs and promote technology transfer, and Sierra Leone is now a safe, friendly nation open for business.”