By Ranger

On a sunny but cool Wednesday afternoon, this medium caught up with the General Manager of the National Petroleum (Sierra Leone-Limited), Kobi Walker, at his Siaka Stevens Street office, within the Central Business District, very close to the historical Cotton Tree in Freetown.

The purpose of the meeting was sound his views on the accomplishments, since the inception of the company, as well as the challenges it is presently going through. The GM was very pleased saying it is significant for media practitioners to get first-hand information about the company rather than churning out baseless information about the company for public consumption.

He started by giving a brief background of the company and underscored how in 1977, British Petroleum acquired the shares of AGIP and operated until June 1984 when the Government of Sierra Leone acquired 60% shares from British Petroleum Sierra Leone Ltd. and this new company became the Sierra Leone National Petroleum Company which is 100% Sierra Leonean owned.

He said that the shareholders of the company, who originally were thirty-five committed Serra Leoneans, sacrificed their end of service benefits in 1996 to buy the institution.

Walker maintained how through selflessness, commitment and dedication on the part of the shareholders and various Managerial teams since inception, the company has been growing exponentially.

“Today we have branches in various parts of Sierra Leone and I am very proud to intimate that we have presence in Guinea, Liberia, Ivory Coast and The Gambia,” furthering that they are all doing well in transacting petroleum products which includes petrol, diesel, kerosene, cooking gas as well as lubricants all of which are of high quality.

The General Manager of NP highlighted that they are dedicated to ensuring timely importation and distribution of petroleum products in order to avoid shortage of those essentials commodities.

“We are very mindful of the fact that our valued customers do matter in the success of our business enterprise which is why we highly consider their views and inputs which I believe have been helping us greatly in breaking barriers,” he disclosed.

The GM said all their filling stations are State-of-the-Art structures to make them more attractive and convenient for its customers. “As a matter of fact we are currently refurbishing one of our outlets on Black Hall Road close to the Up-Gun Roundabout in the East End of Freetown in a bid to ensure that our customers always feel comfortable when accessing our products and services,” he intimated adding that most of the filling stations have mini marts and small entertainment joints where people can relax.

The result-oriented Managing Director stated that in keeping with modern trends the company took the bold step in introducing NP Smart Card which could be used conveniently to purchase various petroleum products. “Many are appreciative of this latest move on the part of the company stating that it is a safe way of doing business,” he pointed out stating that the NP Smart Card has security features that could not be easily penetrated by others who are not entitled to it.

He also dilated on the area of marketing NP Gas, which he said, are found in different cylinder sizes and are available at their various filling outlets. “They are user-friendly for cooking purposes and could be easily refilled with the gas we are selling,” he explained revealing that they are also going at affordable prices.

Kobi Walker told this medium that in terms of deepening the country’s Local Content Policy they are at the forefront as nearly all their members of staff are Sierra Leoneans. “As a company we are making use of indigenous talents and skills as that will help individual development and by extension the nation as a whole,” he posited.

Pointing out the key challenge that the company is facing he mentioned the constraint of accessing the required foreign currency (US Dollar) to procure petroleum products stressing that their transaction is purely based on making use of the dollar. “In light of the current depreciation of the Leone to the Dollar the situation has become so compounded but we are collaborating with the requisite stakeholders to ensure that from time to time we surmount this hurdle,” he stated.

He also informed that they have a very good relationship with the Petroleum Regulatory Authority and they are conscientiously collaborating with that institution.

Kobi Walker wrapped up the interview by anchoring that they are doggedly committed to serve humanity.

By Foday Moriba Conteh

Insinuations made that the Home Suite Hotel,which is located at the Aberdeen round-about is posing serious health risks to residents within that community further creating the impression that the business entity’s sewage waste is uncontrollably flowing along nearby streets is totally mischievous ,unfortunate and very misleading.

During sustained and thorough investigations mounted by this medium over a period of timeit was proven beyond all reasonable doubts that the situation is otherwise as it came out glaringly that the flow of the said waste is not in any way coming from or caused by Home Suite Hotel as some are attempting the public to believe. As a matter of fact it is a calculated move on the part of some to tarnish the good image of a business entity that believes in upholding sound sanitary conditions and co-exists decently without any objective of inconveniencing its neighbours.

The current and real situation at the scene is this : there is a supermarket just close to the hotel which is allegedly oozing out the sewage waste which goes under the fence of the hotel from where it is spilling out on the streets creating a very nauseating and pungent smell in that environment. According to an official of the Management of the hotel when this problem emerged they drew the attention of the Freetown City Council but the latter responded that they will contact the Sierra Leone Road Authority but lamented that no action was taken by the two institutions to rectify the situation. He emphasized that as a business entity they do not have that power to dig any street or road as it does not fall within their purview. The official disclosed that they decided to fund the digging of a passage, with the assistance of the military,that runs underneath via the Aberdeen Police Station to the sea. “Already the area that was dug has been tarred,” he also revealed.  The good news is that construction work on the drainage is currently completed and the residents in the locality are very cooperative in that regard.

“We are really impressed with the move so far made by the Management of the Hotel to facilitate the construction of the drainage although some of us are very mindful of where the sewage waste is coming from. As far as we have resolved we will give our meaningful inputs to ensure that the problem is solved once and for all,” Musa Stronge, one of the youth activists intimated this medium during one of the fact-finding investigation adding that they are calling on the attention of the Government to intervene as there is the likelihood that the sewage waste could affect other localities.

“One cannot really fathom how a business entity such as Home Suite Hotel, which is competing with other hotels in that part of the country can complacently sit by and pamper an ugly thing like this to happen when in actual fact it is trying its best to attract customers,” the Hotel official logically argued adding that it is possible for such a thing to happen based on intermittentdislocations or technical hitches but they will not turn a blind eye to it. He, however, regretted that instead of trying to really find out where the problem lie some are peddling the negative information that the sewage waste is coming from Home Suite Hotel.

Still trying to hammer home his point he rhetorically asked: “Does it make sense for us to see the sewage waste gathering at our fence with our customers and even ourselves feeling uncomfortable with the offensive smell?”

He said the problem is one that could be caused by clogged or corroded pipes but said that it could be surmounted further underscoring how they are willing and ready to work collaboratively with all the stakeholders in order to timely construct the drainage and ensure that the sewage waste has a proper channel that it could go through for it to be disposed safely.

By Ranger

The National Petroleum Sierra Leone Limited (NP-SL Ltd) is a very successful petroleum selling entity that assiduously continues to ascend the slippery ladder within the economic landscape of this country. The meteoric rise of NP should not come as any big surprise to anyone as it epitomizes the crystallization of determination, hard work and sheer entrepreneurial skills on the part of Sierra Leoneans who formed the company and the capable managerial teams that have been steering the affairs of a 100% indigenously owned outfit. Its continuous ascendancy is indeed a clear manifestation of dogged commitment by all those who are associated with it to succeed.

If there is one outstanding feature which makes the company quickly identified then that could be its innate passion to give maximum care and attention to its numerous customers. The company’s shareholders and management do not joke with Customer Care as it is prioritized in all the company’s transactions. This could sound very simplistic when looked at from the face value but for NP, its thorough and cautious implementation is very close to their heart and indeed such is paying fruitful dividends. Of course it really makes sense that availing customers with qualitative petroleum products, dealing with them respectfully , negotiating win-win deals will all contribute in retaining customers as well as wooing new ones. With all amount of certainty it could be safely concluded that NP has mastered that business technique, deepening it and is working well to which many have attested.

It has been established by development specialists that proper implementation of the Local Content Policy is indeed a very important cog that should be in the wheel of the engine to thrust growth. One business entity that is strictly adhering to enhance the Local Content Policy in this country is NP. The shareholders and Management of the company have made it a matter of policy to get in its employ indigenes and even in cases where expatriates are engaged, local members of staff are given the opportunity to understudy them so that at the end of the day they will imbibe the necessary skills to take over. This is very advantageous in the sense that it helps in providing jobs and to develop a crop of competent individuals which the country needs in its development interventions.

Cooking is an inevitable aspect of human life, whether for domestic and commercial purposes. Man depends on food for survival, individuals invest in food businesses and the like. Very mindful of the hazardous effects of depleting the environment, using traditional means of cooking, here specifically talking about making use of wood, charcoal, the company deemed it prudent to introduce NP-Gas which is very fast to ignite, quick to perform, safe and highly convenient. NP Gas, which is in different sizable cylinders could be accessed at the company’s filling stations and authorized dealers.

The company has high profiled customers with tight schedules who may have limited time to always wait in queues in order to purchase petroleum products. Besides, some people are not used to have huge cash in their possession but prefer using smart cards. For these reasons the company went the extra mile to introduce NP Smart Card which customers, those who can afford it, could use to purchase petroleum products. From what was so far gathered all the customers who are using NP Smart Card are well satisfied doing so saying it is very convenient further praising NP for rolling out that initiative.

The viability of NP could be measured by its expansionist achievements both within the country and in the West African sub-region as is evident with the opening of branches in Guinea, Liberia, Ivory Coast and The Gambia. For a hundred percent indigenously owned company to go to such a level of spreading its tentacles is actually commendable and worthy of praise. As far as we know the branches in all those countries are doing extremely well although there are inevitable challenges which it has been surmounting.

One thing which cannot be challenged is the fact that NP, not only here in Sierra Leone but in other places where it is functioning, is greatly contributing to revenue accumulation when we think of its timely payment of taxes which Governments are using to fund various development projects.

Regardless, of all the teething challenges that stand in the way of NP, one of which is the depreciation of the Leone to the Dollar, as the company purchases petroleum products in dollars, yet still the company is navigating its way through murky economic waters.

Without mincing the truth, NP’s ascendancy is really breath-taking and highly impressive.

By Orange SL PR Unit

Orange is one of the leading telecommunications operators in the world, present in 29 countries with 154,000 employees worldwide. Orange operates in about 20 countries in Africa meaning that one in every 10 people is an Orange customer.

Orange acquired the Airtel operations in Sierra Leone in July 2016 and was recorded as the first company to invest in Sierra Leone immediately following the end of the Ebola epidemic.

Since the inception of Orange operations in Sierra Leone, the company has invested about $112 million dollars in the areas of network modernization and expansion; human resource as well as corporate social responsibility in the last two years.

The company has further invested about $96 million dollars in modernizing and expanding its network infrastructure. This investment has resulted to the construction of about 94 new sites mainly in the rural areas, the modernization of the company’s passive infrastructure and active RAN equipment, the replacement of all core equipment, the implementation of a new intelligent network platform for prepaid billing management; the establishment of a new switch to handle voice traffic, a new packet core for the internet traffic and the launch of a new Data Centre.

This exceptional and incomparable work done so far, has resulted to the connection of about 925 new localities with thousands of Sierra Leoneans now accessing data, voice and financial  services for the first time.

In respect of human resource, Orange has invested about $16 million dollars in the last two years. The company prides itself in capacity building by ensuring that its employees benefit from soft skills, technical and leadership trainings. The company nurtures talent from on-boarding; ensures retention and provides exposure opportunities to other Orange affiliates.

Orange being a multi-service provider and a responsible corporate citizen places emphasis on corporate social investment. In the last two years, the company has invested about $ 400,000 dollars mainly in the areas of women empowerment, health, education and the environment.

Orange remains the first operator in Sierra Leone to contribute to the government’s Free Quality Education (FQE) agenda by pledging the sum of $1.5m in material assistance over a period of five years beginning from 2019.

In honour of its pledge, the company recently launched five major projects under its FQE initiative as follows:

• The Super Coder Academy to train 100 senior secondary school students in five years.
• The provision of 10,000 hygiene packs for girls between the ages of 12-18 years over a period of five years.
• The running of an inter-secondary school quiz and debate competition every year for five years with the aim to provide one computer lab for the winning school every year.
• Open classrooms to provide 300 free certifying digital courses for 500 teachers.
• The distribution of 1,000 solar pack kits to 1,000 schools in 1,000 off-grid villages.

Orange also recently launched the first Coding School in Sierra Leone in partnership with the Directorate of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI) with an estimated cost of about Le2.75 billion ($308,000).

The coding school is scheduled to commence in December 2019 with an aim to train youths in coding and other software skills in readiness for the country’s digital transformation, to foster entrepreneurship, reduce unemployment and develop the country’s innovation ecosystem.

As part of the company’s strategic ambition for Sierra Leone, Orange is present in the country with a strong industrial project that will lead to invest significantly to cover most of the population in the country with telecoms and mobile financial services. This is why orange is committed to invest additional $24 million dollars this 2019 to build 55 new sites, and to extend its 4G Services to the rest of the country.

Orange remains committed to providing the best telecom services in Sierra Leone ensuring its customers get an “unmatched “experience