Sierra Leone is seeking $3.5 billion of investment from the private sector to overhaul its creaking electricity industry with the aim of increasing output 10-fold by 2017, Deputy Energy Minister Martin Bash-Kamara told Reuters. Sierra Leone, struggling to recover from an 11-year civil war that ended in 2002, has one of Africa's lowest power generation capacities, at just 100 megawatts for its 5.6 million people.
President Ernest Bai Koroma's government has signed several memorandums of understanding with investors to develop power projects in the mineral-rich West African country, Bash-Kamara said. "$3.5 billion is the projected cost of achieving the minimum 1,000 megawatts," Bash-Kamara said in an interview. "This is what it's expected will come in foreign direct investment."
With state finances under strain, the government wants investors to cover the capital investment and then recoup their money by selling power to the national grid, he said. The government has signed a memorandum with China's Hydrochina to build two hydroelectric power plants at a total cost of more than $800 million. The plants at Bekongkor and Mange would produce a total of 260 megawatts.