Sierra Leone taps into Ghana’s energy expertise

In a bid to improve electricity access in Sierra Leone, government has sent a delegation led by Vice President, Dr. Mohammed Juldeh Jalloh to Ghana to meet institutions in energy in the country.  

Sierra Leone with 31% electricity access is an improvement in the last three years over initial 16% when the current administration took up the reins in 2018.

The West African country is therefore ready to learn from Ghana in the areas of generation, transmission and distribution and governance.

Dr. Mohammed Juldeh Jalloh disclosed this when the delegation visited Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) in Tema.

This is the second time a high-level delegation is visiting the company following an earlier one led by the Sierra Leonean President, Julius Maada Bio.

“Government is committed to transforming the energy sector to help open up the country, attract foreign investors, boost production, among other benefits”

“It is very important we focus on investment in energy. We have been doing that progressively under our Energy minister, Alhaji Kanja Sesay. Despite the significant improvement, we know we still need to do more” he said.

According to him, the country passed the scorecard for Millennium Challenge and was eligible for the compact in 2020 which was power-related as the visit would help unearth challenges GRIDCo faces and how it overcomes them.

Prior to meeting GRIDCo, the delegation engaged Energy ministry, Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) as well as Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) in which discussions were deemed fruitful.

For Dr. Jalloh, such engagement would improve the collaboration between the two countries.

He was happy the visit was on the back of a recently signed power agreement among Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea to undertake the CLSG Transco project which spans over 1300 kms to help export power from Cote d’Ivoire.

The Veep expressed gratitude to management and staff of GRIDCo, government and other state agencies assisting his country with the purpose of improving their energy sector and subregion at large.

For Chief Executive Officer of GRIDCo, Ebenezer Essienyi, the collaboration provides an avenue to share their experience and information with the Sierra Leonean counterpart.

“We will help you avoid the very mistakes we made. We will guide you in the aspect of our work including traps we fell in, lessons learnt and what must be done going forward.

“You also need knowledge of the industry based on the Transco CLSG project. You need to acquire the knowledge in terms of planning, maintenance, etc, we’re ready to help anytime,” he said.

The CEO touched on the Millennium Challenge component bit where the company is more than willing to lend a hand in how it went around it.

The delegation was given firsthand information of the company’s control room  and how GRIDCo system is managed in real time.

Vice president Dr. Mohammed Jalloh was accompanied by Sierra Leonean High Commissioner to Ghana, Mrs. Frances Anderson, Financial Secretary of the Finance ministry, Sahr Lahai Jusu but just to mention a few.

GRIDCo on the other hand had Director for Systems Operations, Ing. Mark Baah, some board members, departmental heads among others apart from the CEO.

Former GRIDCo CEO, William Amuna who is currently with MiDA was present. Joy Business