The presidents of Sierra Leone, Mozambique and Malawi, have separately visited the headquarters of the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, BADEA, in Khartoum.
During the visit, the African leaders discussed with BADEA Director General, Mid-hat Sami Lutfi, ways to boost cooperation between BADEA and their respective countries.
Lutfi reviewed with the three African leaders the bank’s operations in the three countries since it was established. He also discussed with them BADEA’s current and future activities in those three countries.
In a press release, BADEA said it would soon send a joint technical team with the Saudi Development Fund to assess and evaluate an electricity project in the western part of Sierra Leone, where BADEA granted a loan of USD8 million to fund the first phase of the electricity project.
BADEA said it would study requests for the funding of new projects in the above three countries.
As at the end of last October, BADEA has spent a total amount of USD44 million on 10 development projects in Sierra Leone. This brings to USD141 million the total Arab assistance and those of the bank to Sierra Leone by the end of June last year.
The bank also spent in Malawi a total amount of USD34 million on 21 development projects to bring the total Arab assistance and those by from the bank to USD104 million.
As for Mozambique, BADEA spent USD166 million on 33 development projects, including a debt relief of over USD11 million as part of the program on Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC), while Arab assistance to Mozambique, including BADEA’s assistance, totalled about USD472 million.
Source: WAM/SA
Photo: President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of Sierra Leone
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