By Sam Pratt
In Cape Town, South Africa on Tuesday 4 February 2020 President Dr Julius Maada Bio ended the first set of bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the Africa Mining Indaba, first discussing with a senior adviser to President Cyril Ramaphosa of a visit of 30 investors to Sierra Leone.
Jeffrey Thamsanqa Radebe from the Government of the Republic of South Africa, who conveyed their plans to organise a delegation of investors to the resource-rich West African nation as soon as they get a date from Freetown, told President Bio that the potential partners would be interested in small grid power, off-grid power and large scale mining.
Mr Radebe, who served as Minister in the Presidency from 2014 to 2018 after having worked as Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development from 2009 to 2014, said to help them finalise the team, they would need to know about projects in those areas of interest and what the country’s policy around private-public partnership was.
The President also met Jeff Couch, Director at the Orion Resources Partners, a global alternative investment management firm with approximately US$6.0 billion assets under management – private equity, hedge fund and merchant services.
“We have accepted this meeting to better understand the investment opportunities within the Sierra Leone mining sector. Our specific interest is in base and precious metal opportunities,” he said.
Later the founder of Genesis Energy Holdings, with integrated operations across the industry value-chain of oil, gas and power in South Africa, São Tomé and Príncipe, Guinea Bissau, Benin and others, also said it was great meeting the President.
Akinwole Omoboriowo II, a UK trained specialist in electricity prices and modelling, said they look forward to opportunities in developing power plants that utilise numerous fossil fuels such as gas, diesel, HFO and renewable fuel sources such as hydro.
It should be noted that the meetings are coming after President Bio delivered the keynote address at the Indaba Mining 2020, the world’s largest mining investment event taking place in Cape Town, South Africa, and emphasised that Sierra Leone now needed trustworthy mining partners.
