PPP and the role of Chinese infrastructure investment

Abdul Rashid Thomas, editor of the Sierra Leone Telegraph, has raised questions about decisions surrounding the building a new bridge linking Freetown and Lungi as a ‘public-private partnership’ and the role of Chinese infrastructure investment. Thomas writes, “the government should obviously not be oblivious to what has befallen other countries and should be circumspect about what type of assistance to seek from China. (…) Infrastructure funding and bilateral loans from the traditional European investors have dwindled substantially in recent years and China is currently a major funding source for infrastructure in many African countries. On the whole issue of investment in infrastructure and transport, it is high time we took a closer look at the operation of the National Commission for Privatization (NCP) and the Public Private Partnership (PPP) unit at the Vice President’s Office.”