By Kemo Cham
The Sierra Leone government is set to reject repeated advice by World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) not to go ahead with its project to build a new airport at Mammamah just outside the capital.
The second such facility after the Freetown International Airport in Lungi has been a thorny issue, with the two international lenders vehemently opposing the idea, citing its effect on the country’s ability to service the funding involved.
Last week President Ernest Bai Koroma reportedly told a visiting Chinese government delegation that his government was committed to the project: “We still want the airport to be constructed and if it is relocated to the mainland it would have great outcome for the country’s growth.
The delegation from the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China was at State House as part of on-going negotiation on the controversial project, according to a State House press report, which
added that the group was also in the country to plan for the establishment of a Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Talks about the establishment of a CDC began at the height of the Ebola outbreak. The Chinese were at the centre of the fight against the viral epidemic and they spent millions of US Dollars. To ensure a sustainable response to future outbreak, the Chinese decided to help Sierra Leone manage its own response system.
China has earmarked several other projects for Sierra Leone as part of its post-Ebola recovery programme. But it is Mamamah that appears to be gaining much of the attention. The idea was conceived as a remedy to difficulties associated with the current airport in Lungi which government says have negatively impacted on the tourism sector.
The present airport, located in the north of the country, is separated from Freetown by the Atlantic Ocean and poor ferry services make traveling between the two places very tortuous and time consuming.
China is to bankroll the project costing US$320M. But the Bretton Woods institutions say the country, recovering from the devastating Ebola epidemic, had far more pressing priorities at the moment than building a new airport.
The government first hatched the idea back in 2012 as part of efforts to enhance foreign direct investment into the country. Some 63 villages were to be resettled to make way for the new airport, reports in May last year indicated.
According to sources, the IMF is worried, among other reasons, for the fact that the project would cost Sierra Leone 11 percent of its GDP.
According to other sources, the Sierra Leone government is expected to repay the loan in a seven year period. The Chinese say this is enough time for the country to recover fully from the effect of the Ebola
epidemic.
in December last year China’s ambassador in Freetown, Zhao Yanbo, defended the project, saying it was very important for Sierra Leone to have a new airport given the difficulties associated with the current one.
Sierra Leone is the only country in the world where the airport is linked by a ferry, which makes it “not visitor friendly,” Ambassador Zhao said.
“If Sierra Leone’s economy is not good at the moment, that doesn’t mean that the country’s economy cannot be better in the next seven years,” he added, in an apparent reference to the World Bank and IMF concerns.
Those who are in the know say Western opposition to the new airport project had been on for a long time. But to the public it first came in the form of a remark by the Accra-based World Bank Country Director
in November 2015. Back then it provoked anger and defiance among some government officials who insisted on proceeding with the project.
But the IMF and World Bank, which are funding a huge percentage of Sierra Leone’s budget, have hinted at a possible penalty should the government decide to go against their advice.
The issue has come up at almost every meeting between Chinese and Sierra Leone government officials, as it did last week.
“We are still committed to the full implementation of the project which is why you are here to advance discussions on the way forward,” President Koroma told the Chinese delegation on Wednesday.
Suo Debo, Head of the Chinese delegation and Director in Charge of Assistance for West African Countries, said the Mammamah International Airport project was important to both countries.
The visiting delegation was also expected to hold separate discussions with officials at the ministries of Finance and Economic Development, Transport and Aviation, as well as Foreign Affairs and International
Cooperation.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister, Samura Kamara, a staunch supporter of the Mammamah Airport project, was due to arrive in Beijing at the beginning of this week for a four-day tour of China.
(C) Politico 14/06/16
