Sierra Leone's President Ernest Koroma has officially announced the set up of the Public/Private Partnership Unit in his office at State House in Freetown.

The Unit has been working now for quite a long time ago but it had never been officially launched due to to the unexpected invasion of the Ebola epidemic. Now after the country got to beat Ebola's numerous challenges, the President and his team are ready to re-activate the PPP program and set in motion once again the Agenda for Prosperity.

President Koroma was himself a successful businessman before entering politics and therefore knows the potential benefits that will emerge out of a solid partnership between the public and private sectors.The President said yesterday at the Miatta Conference Centre in Freetown, Sierra Leone:

Government alone does not have the resources and expertise to deliver on all the priorities set out in our Agenda for Prosperity. The budgeted cost for the delivery of the Agenda for Prosperity is approximately US$5.2 billion. Government is faced with the daunting task of generating up to US$2.2 billion, leaving a funding gap of about US$3 billion. Clearly, US$5.2 billion is beyond Government's budgetary capacity. Therefore, in line with global trends, the Government has decided to explore PPPs as a priority option to meet its infrastructural and institutional development needs. Huge potential exist for returns to private sector in these partnerships; huge potentials exist for Sierra Leone to benefit from these partnerships.

The Public Private Partnership (PPP) Unit has been established with the support of the UNDP, DfID, AfDB, the WB and IFC.

Sierra Leone has created the PPP Unit's Project Transaction Advisory Support Fund. The fund has been established to support the preparation of PPP potential projects into bankable proposals.

According to the Progress Report of the DFID Programme of July 2015, the PPP Unit is now accelerating work on a number of high priority projects.

• FCC Mall and King Jimmy Mall: the PPP Unit has provided comments and advice on the final draft of the report, which will mark the delivery of the first DFID pre-feasibility report.
• Freetown Estuary Study: inception report has been produced and pre-feasibility study is now underway to conclude by end June 2015.
• Solar Project: pre-feasibility study is underway to conclude by end of August 2015.
• Health post-Ebola. The IFC-World Bank consultant is investigating various projects relating to health and will be concluded by end of July 2015.
• A number of other post-Ebola Pipeline projects of Affordable Housing, Local Content Distribution, Recycling and Waste, and Road-maintenance are also planned to receive pre-feasibility studies to be completed by end of September 2015.