Dr. Kandeh Yumkella Explains the Benefits of Mission 300
By Austine Luseni
Communications Specialist
Energy Sector Lead, Dr. Kandeh Yumkella, has stated that the recently endorsed Mission 300 Compact holds the key to unlocking Sierra Leone’s energy potentials by harnessing international and local resources and partnerships with the view to scaling up access to energy in urban as well as rural areas in the country.
Dr. Yumkella was speaking and responding to questions at the Government Weekly Press Briefing where he praised His Excellency President Julius Maada Bio for his stellar leadership and guidance in the sector, with specific reference to his role in making Sierra Leone benefit from the country’s largest infrastructure development project-the Mission 300 Compact.
“The President recently received the full endorsement of the Sierra Leone Mission 300 Compact from the World Bank and development partners in New York,” he said, adding that he was at the press conference to explain the conception and inception of the project, the funding issues and the targets set.
Dr. Yumkella said Mission 300 seeks to provide access to electricity for over 300 million Africans in countries that continue to experience endemic energy poverty.
He said Sierra Leone was initially left out of the first cohort of 12 beneficiary countries, adding however that, in September 2024, President Bio made a case for the inclusion of Sierra Leone into the second cohort of countries.
The Energy Sector Lead said sector players had worked overtime to develop a persuasive and attractive outline, noting that a combination of careful studies and analytics and experience from members of the team was to praise for the country’s successful development of the outline for the Compact.
“We have these five pillars under Mission 300:expanding generation, leveraging regional integration, promoting decentralized renewable energy solutions, incentivizing private sector, and reforming the utility,” he said.
Dr. Yumkella noted that the country was committed to scaling up access to energy from the current 36% to 78% by 2030,adding that this endeavour requires the stringing of transmission lines, the expansion of the metering system, the provision of renewable energy and clean cooking solutions, the provision of new and bigger transformers, and the development and expansion of new and existing hydropower facilities.
Finance Minister, Fatamadi Bangura, said the Compact was home-developed and was professionally carved to capture the attention of international donor partners.
He praised the country and the team for the capacity to develop and qualify for the Compact, stressing that the President has been at the center of pushing this Mission 300 agenda. With the energy sector and the Feed Salone agenda being inextricably linked, reforms continue in the sector.
