By Sulaiman Jalloh
In a move to expand the business environment in Sierra Leone, the country has benefited twelve million euros (£12M) grant from the European Union.
In his opening statement, the financial secretary at the ministry of finance Mathew Dingie sat the support is to expand the business environment and enhance competitiveness in Sierra Leone, noting the funds will target three main business sectors which includes, through the ministry of trade and industry to support small and medium business enterprises that are actually doing the production of goods that the country will export and to support agencies like the standard bureau to monitor small and medium enterprises.
The ministry of finance Sheku Ahmed Fantamadi Bangura expressed gratitude to the EU for partnering with Sierra Leone over the years and promised to ensure to deepen the partnership in order to complete the effort of President Bio on his big five game changers to creating more jobs for the people of the country, noting access to finance is not the only challenge faced by businesses but also skills to expand their businesses more so to add value to dramatically generated production to able to access EU market sometimes is phenomenal.
“The amount that is involved is not a small amount of money, twelve million dollars for sector reforms, for training’ he altered, noting the standard bureau needs to be capacitated, adding with the said support the will delve into capacitate the bureau. He assured that this is cementing in a deeper way to strengthen the partnership between the European Union and the government of Sierra Leone while registering his full commitment to ensuring the shared value will be exhibited for the delivery of the project.
Minister of trade and industry, Ibrahim Alpha Sesay whose ministry is the direct beneficiary expressed gratitude for participating in the signing ceremony saying the project is a follow up to the previous project of the West African Competitive project, noting the project will do lots of things, adding the project clearly supports the big five game changers which is the main priority of the government of President Bio and the mid-term national development during the lifespan of the project. He added that the only way to change the narrative is to empower the private sector particularly small and medium enterprises that cover about eight four percent of the country’s employment rate.
Speaking of challenges minister Sesay said the private sector faces financial challenges, noting most of them are informal so they lack the teaching skills to be able to access the financial institutions, adding the exchange rate is not friendly as well and his ministry is working with the standard in order to improve their skills. According to him, if the business environment is conducive through domestic and foreign investments then there will be increased in export and prosperity.
Delivering his speak on behalf of the European government, the EU Ambassador to Sierra Leone Manuel Müller said it is an exciting journey together with the government and people of Sierra Leone to have launched the ‘Business Environment and Competitiveness for Salone’, noting through the twelve million Euros EU funded programme they will work with the government of Sierra Leone, private sectors, development partners for economic growth and job creation.
According to ambassador Müller the program will focus on key areas among which he mentioned is to strengthen competitiveness of local Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), saying they recognize that a workforce is essential for driving innovation and increasing productivity while promised to enhance access to quality non-financial business development services and to strengthen the capacity of MSMEs in order to scale up businesses across the country.
“In order to have a competitive private sector, we also need access to markets, he pointed out, explaining the second area of focus saying the program will also focus on the national quality system on building the results of West Africa Competitiveness program (WACOMP), adding the EU will continue to join efforts to achieve compliance with EU SPS standards by promoting trade integration and overcoming technical barriers to trade to open up new markets for Sierra Leonean products and enhance the country’s competitiveness on the global stage.
“A conducive business climate is in a cross-cutting issue through all the big 5 that the government has identified’ he asserted, pointing the EU funded program is about partnership, collaboration and shared relationships while recognising the effort of the ministry of trade and industry and its related agencies and the national investment board for their contribution to the formulation of the program.