The Minister of Planning and Economic Development (MoPED), Madam Kenyeh Barlay revealed in her keynote address at the validation and roll out of the National Public Investment Management Guidelines that the framework, put together with support from the World Bank, is the single most important document in the country to guide investments and urged the committee to strictly enforce it.
The Government of Sierra Leone has adopted a Public Investment Policy (2024) and an accompanying Public Investment Manual (2022) to strengthen the planning, appraisal, selection, budgeting, implementation and monitoring of public investment projects.
These instruments establish the principles, institutional roles and procedural requirements for managing public investments across the full project cycle. However, to operational these frameworks and ensure consistent application across Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and Local Governments, there is a need for practical Public Investment Guidelines. The Guidelines translate the provisions of the Policy into clear operational instructions for officials involved in the preparation and management of public investment projects.
These guidelines therefore support improved project quality, stronger fiscal discipline, enhanced accountability and better value for money in public investments.
The Minister made the statement at the Council of Churches Hall on King Harman Road in Freetown on Wednesday 24th June 2026 during which she encouraged MDAs to include climate change and gender responsiveness, continuous training and prioritize projects disclosing that government has taken the bold step to strengthen and improve efficiency, that there would be no sustainable projects with funding delays that results to increase in their costs and revealed that all ongoing projects would be reviewed.
According to the Minister, the framework would prevent wasteful spending and improve budgeting enlightening that the guidelines shall apply to all public investment projects and programs undertaken by the government of Sierra Leone regardless of the source of financing and that these includes projects and programs funded through the national budget, loans and grants, Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs), Local Governments and State Owned Enterprises (SOEs).
Earlier, the Development Secretary, MoPED, Mr. Ambrose James underscored the importance of the event to effect reforms noting that every year mistakes have been made and not learning from experiences, that now the Ministry has taken the bold step to streamline the portfolio and see all the requests made by MDAs to ensure that they fit into the portfolio.
He further noted that the development portfolio must fit into the guidelines, observed that it would be no more business as usual, revealed that the new guidelines would be rolled out for effectiveness to make it easy for all MDAs noting the lot of recurrences in projects and underlined the need to improve on quality to have fair share of the budget stressing that the reforms would help the country and its development partners.
According to the Development Secretary, old projects would also be reviewed and that new ones would be exhausted before approval by the MoPED and the Ministry of Finance and appealed to participants to be attentive.
The Deputy Director of Budget, Ministry of Finance, Idara Mahdi, disclosed that the reforms are coming at a critical time when public funds must be spent judiciously, that the new guidelines would reduce wasteful spending, enhance the delivery of better services and standards, serve as a tool for public investments and called on all stakeholders to adhere to the framework to ensure that they are properly implemented to guarantee transparency and accountability as well as strive to integrate climate change and smart principles for efficiency and value for money.
She also called on MDAs to strengthen coordination, align investments with government priority areas, capacity building, monitor and evaluate, identify risks and stronger accountability and transparency to ensure value for money revealing that the budgets are now overloaded and that the new framework is a tool for planning and budgeting, capacity building, as it is not a one off event.
Highlights of the event were PowerPoint presentations on Sierra Leone’s Medium Term National Development Plan and the Need for Alignment of Planning, Investment and Budgeting by Dr. Sheka Bangura, Validation and Roll-out of the Public Investment Management Guidelines, discussions and the questions and answer session while Mr. Alpha Bangura, Director of Public Investments, MoPED, chaired the event.
