January 21, 2022
The Honorable Chief Minister of the Republic of Sierra Leone, Hon Jacob Jusu Saffa, together with the Petroleum Regulatory Agency,(PRA) Executive Chairman, Brima Baluwa Koroma, and Ministers from Ministry of Trade and Industry, Lands Housing and Country Planning, Internal Affairs, and the Environment, today conducted a successful inspection tour at the Old Kissy Oil Refinery, Freetown.
The tour of the Kissy Petroleum facilities according to the Chief Minister was meant to have first-hand information on the downstream sector, adding that it would inform Government judiciously when taking certain decisions that will lead to job creation, boost the economy, and accommodate more players.
The Chief Minister said that, as former Minister of Finance, he was in the middle of all fiscal issues including the Petroleum sector. He said though government have been making policies and taking decisions based on reliable information, his visit to the various installations, was to assess how some of those policies government they have been making are producing results and beneficial to the country and the economy.
From Conex, formerly known as Total SL, to the All Petroleum Products, to the National Petroleum, Chief Minister and entourage toured the various facilities, and commended oil marketing companies for investing huge amount of resources in the sector. “The job the All Petroleum Product is doing here is massive. 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. We now have new players that are coming and the more we have players, the more government gets revenue, more jobs creation through a healthy competition,” he said.
The Chief Minister also commended, the National Petroleum for their ongoing rehabilitation of their facilities including the new gantry, adding that they have also spent huge amount to improve their facilities and services in excess of Twenty Five million US dollars.
The Executive Chairman of PRA, Baluwa Koroma, thanked the Chief Minister for touring the facilities and assessing developments at the Kissy Oil Installations.
With massive works ongoing, Chairman Baluwa Koroma said the petroleum sector is the single largest industry in the economy and that storage problems will soon be over 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. At the end of the various reconstructions, NP SL will have a gantry with six loading arms in 10 minutes simultaneously, while APP will deliver eight loading arms with similar speed.
What has been seen here today did not happen overnight or through magic, but a collaborative effort of every stakeholders and the political will from His Excellency, the President, Dr. Julius Maada Bio. We hope All Petroleum Products will come live in the first quarter of this year and that will boost our storage capacity as the national target is to have stocks that will last for six months,” he said.
The General Manager of the Sierra Leone Ports Authority, Dr. Abdulai Fofana and his deputy Yankuba Askia Bio, were also part of the visiting entourage.