The Honorable Vice President Dr Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh yesterday officially opened the ECOWAS Community Parliament Joint Committee meeting in Freetown.
The joint committee meeting is one of the formulae to bring the institution very close to the people. The theme of the meeting is on regional energy market and energy transition.
In his opening statement on behalf of His Excellency, President Dr Julius Maada Bio, Dr Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh highlighted the strategic importance of energy to the productive sector to bolster economic development in the region.
VP Dr Juldeh Jalloh showcased the immense progress the government has made to increase energy access from 16 % in 2018 to 35 % through increasing generation, enhancing transmission and improving the governance of the sector.
Touching on the prospects of the energy transition in the
sub-region, the VP called on the need to build on existing initiatives such as the West Africa Power Pool to enable other countries like Sierra Leone to plug into the TRANSCO electricity line. The VP further underlined the need to attract private sector investment in the energy sector, create a regional clean energy hub using gaz resources from Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal to support the productive sector in the region as well as a mineralization gateway to transform the regionโs natural resources such as iron ore and bauxite.
According to the VP, a viable productive sector powered by sustainable and affordable energy holds the key to promoting industrialization, create jobs and increase revenue.
The VP received a resounding standing ovation from the members of the community parliament and other participants for what most of them referred to as a pace-setting address.
