The Ministry of Finance has on Friday 5th February signed an agreement for a US$ 15 million Indian loan for the expansion and rehabilitation of existing potable water facilities in Mongo in the North, Njala-Mokonde and Mattru Jong in the South and Daru in the East.
Speaking at the ceremony which took place at the Ministry’s conference room in Freetown, the Minister of Finaance Jocob Jusu Saffa recalled that the 11-year civil war left all the water facilities in the four communities in bad shape. He said despite government interventions in the past ten years, those communities remained challenged by lack of access to adequate and sustainable potable water supply.
He said the construction and or rehabilitation of existing water treatment facilities in these communities will reduce the burden of fetching water from unprotected sources by mainly women and children and increase the National Coverage by approximately 0.6%.
Saffa added that there is currently a significant imbalance between the demand and supply of water in those communities and that the imbalance will continue to rise unless some more investment is made to optimize these facilities as is envisaged in this project.
“This project is in line with the Sierra Leone National Development Plan 2023 to expand the percentage of the population with access to safely- managed water from 2% to 25% by 2023; increase the percentage of the population with access to improved water sources within a total collection time of 30 minutes from 69% to 85% by 2023, and reduce the number of people with unreliable or limited water service from 10 to 5% by 2023,” he said.
In his statement, according to a report by the Ministry’s communication unit, the India High Commissioner to Sierra Leone Rakesh K. Arora said the project was announced during the visit of India’s Vice President to Freetown in October 2019, noting that the implementation of this agreement will provide access to safe drinking water to these four communities shortly.
“India has been supporting infrastructure development projects in Sierra Leone through direct LOCs and ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development. India’s developmental assistance to Sierra Leone aggregates to about US$ 250 million covering a range of sectors – agriculture, irrigation, water management, energy and power, communication, education, etc.,” he said.
He said despite COVID-19, they continue to extend their assistance in capacity building for the youth of Sierra Leone, adding that India is committed to being a reliable partner of Sierra Leone in its development journey and will continue to cooperate in the capacity building of Sierra Leone youth under the India Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Programme.
The Minister of Water Resources Philip K. Lansana commended India Exim Bank for the loan, saying the project will benefit over 100,000 Sierra Leoneans in the four communities.
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