By Kemo Cham
The World Bank’s regional director for Sierra Leone, Ghana and Liberia, Henry Godfrey Kerali, is leaving after a four year tour, of duty with lots of praises for the Bio administration.
Mr Kerali who has been based in Ghana from where he oversees the Bank’s operations in the three countries, on Monday met with President Julius Maada Bio to bid farewell. At the meeting at State House, he praised the administration for its handling of the economy, particularly with regards domestic revenue mobilization.
The outgoing World Bank official spoke about the “significant support” the government received from the Bank under his tenue and promised more such support. He specifically praised the administration for its Medium and Long Term Development Plan, saying that it was a well prepared and structured document which other African countries should take as example, according to a statement from the presidency.
”One of the biggest achievements of this administration in the first year has been the significant increase in domestic revenue. Many African countries are struggling to get increase in domestic revenue but Sierra Leone has seen an increase, which is quite a major achievement. We will be calling you to share your experience with other countries,” he was quoted saying.
Mr Kerali, a Ugandan, assumed the office when Sierra Leone and the West African region was battling the largest outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease. His top priorities was to work closely with the three partner countries to provide innovative products and services that responded to their diverse development challenges and contribute to achieving sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction, with a specific emphasis on post-Ebola recovery. He was also expected to contribute to regional and corporate initiatives.
In Sierra Leone all this was quite evident in the Bank’s relationship with the government, especially so in the last one year with the Bio-administration.
After a slight souring of the relations towards the March 2018 general elections, they rapidly picked up with the election of President Bio.
One compelling sign of this cordiality is that almost all the projects agreed with the Ernest Bai Koroma-administration were successfully renegotiated under the Bio-administration. And one of the biggest news out of this was the doubling of budget support to the country, from US$20million in what was supposed to be a credit agreed with the previous regime, to US$40million of what is now a grant.
But Mr Kerali maybe leaving with one regret: the failure of Sierra Leone to utilize what observers say would have been the largest funding for a single project in the country in the last 10 years - the Western Area Power Project. The US$149 million project comprised the development, financing, construction and operation by the Sierra Leone Independent Power Project (CECA SL) Generation Limited of a 57MW green-field thermal power plant running on heavy fuel oil (HFO) on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis.
The signing of the agreement on January 23, 2017, was the culmination of years of negotiations.
CECA SL, the project company, was established in Sierra Leone by private sponsors comprising CEC Africa Investments Ltd. and Tempus Constant Qualitas (TCQ) Power Ltd. through CEC Africa (Sierra Leone) Limited.
The Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC), through Globeleq, was also set to take a controlling stake in the project that also had a UK funding element to it.
The CECA SL generation project was supposed to be a key component of the Government of Sierra Leone’s recovery plan to help support economic growth in post-Ebola, and create jobs by providing reliable electricity services to the Western Area,” a statement issued by the Bank following a landmark signing stated.
The project was also said to be the first IPP of its kind in a fragile country like Sierra Leone, signaling an important step on the road to Sierra Leone’s recovery.
But the Bank unceremoniously cancelled the agreement shortly before the elections due to failure of the Koroma administration to meet certain criteria, including failure to get parliamentary approval and its inability to meet some technical requirements.
Observers say even though it was meant for the Western Area alone, that energy project had the potential to resolve 60% of Sierra Leone’s energy problems.
At the State House farewell meeting for Kerali with President Bio, Minister of Finance Jacob Jusu Saffa hailed the “very good” working relationship with the Bank in the last one year and said the administration would miss Kerali’s “clever decisions.”
President Bio said his government enjoyed working with Mr Kerali whom he noted had shown commitment and dedication to working with the team in Sierra Leone. Bio added that the improvement of the country’s portfolio also indicated that the World Bank Director had been doing his work.
“We are interested in looking at genuine partners who are ready to work with us. We will continue to work with the new Regional Director and the rest of the team here to accomplish the remainder of the task ahead of us. We want you to know [that] we have enjoyed working with you and we will miss you,” he stated.
The World Bank said Mr Kerali has been reassigned to South Asia.
© 2019 Politico Online
