By Politico staff writer
Sierra Leone’s Chief Minister, Jacob Jusu Saffa has commended the oil marketing company, All Petroleum Product (APP) for investing “huge” capital in the country’s Oil and Gas industry.
He made this commendation during a conducted tour of the Kissy Oil Refinery in Freetown together with the Petroleum Regulatory Agency (PRA) Executive Chairman, Dr. Brima Baluwa Koroma, and other government ministers on the 19th January 2022.
“To see such a company investing over twenty-five million United States Dollars in this sector shows that some of the policies we have been making are indeed successful. Such could not have happened had they not believed and trusted our good governance policies, a proactive regulatory framework which is all part of our manifesto,” he said.
He added “We now have new players that are coming and the more we have players, the more government gets revenue, more jobs created through a healthy competition.’’
He also commended APP’s business rival, the National Petroleum (NP) for the ongoing rehabilitation of their facilities, adding that they have also spent a huge amount to improve their facilities and assess developments at the Kissy Oil Installation.
Minister Saffa said the tour of the Kissy Oil refinery was meant to have first-hand information on the downstream sector, adding that it would put them in a better position to make certain decisions that will lead to job creation, boost the economy and accommodate more players.
He said that they have been making policies and taking decisions based on reliable information, saying that part of his visit to the refinery was to assess how some of those policies made have been beneficial to the country and the economy.
In his statement, the PRA boss, Dr. Baluwa Koroma, said that with the ‘massive works that are ongoing’, storage problems will soon be a thing of the past when the All Petroleum Products would have completed their installations and storage tanks.
‘’This is a manifesto promise that the New Direction government made in terms of fairness, opening of the sector to accommodate new players, and transparency. What has been seen here today did not happen overnight or through magic, but a collaborative effort of every stakeholder and the political will from President Julius Maada Bio,” he said.
He said the APP will start operations by the first quarter of 2022 “and that will boost our storage capacity as our focus is to have stocks that will last for six months,’’ he said.
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