Sierra Leone’s Vice President, Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh has said only 9% (one thousand and thirty-one kilometres) of the road networks in Sierra Leone are paved roads.
VP Juldeh Jalloh made this statement on Monday 7th October 2019 while delivering a keynote address at the 17th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governor of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID), Radisson Blu Hotel in Freetown.
He furthered that the aforementioned amount of roads are considerably low compared to other regional member states, and that the country is hoping to improve on this by expanding road networks to targeted areas within the country.
“Make no mistake, today travelling from Freetown to Conakry is more expensive than travelling from Freetown to Casablanca,” he pointed out.
He informed the delegation present that on several occasion while working at the United Nations (UN) he had called on the UN and EBID to move to the level of shared infrastructure, adding that it is high time the West African Region built roads that are linking countries within the region, regional universities and shipping lines- “this I believe are going to help small countries like Sierra Leone and particularly Liberia in the Mano River Union to support their economy to grow.”
“If we make the effort to invest in this areas be rest assured we are going to unleash the economic potentials of this region,” he maintained.
He said Sierra Leone is also hoping to expand Lungi airport by building a new airport terminal, connect water supply to Bo and Kenema, and construct the Lumley –Juba Regent road interchange among others.
He called on the Bank to help unleash the growth potential of Sierra Leone, and that the country is seeking collaboration and investment opportunities in renewable energy sources as well as in modernizing energy generation systems as the nation embark on positioning Sierra Leone as the renewable energy hub of the ECOWAS regional block.
