By Chernoh Alpha M. Bah and Matthew Anderson
An ambitious energy project to build an electricity power plant in Freetown has incurred more than $1 billion in debt despite the land for the project being leased for $1 in 2017. Fifteen years after its conception, there has been no construction of the power plant in sight, but multilateral debts for the project continue to accumulate.
The proposal to construct Freetown’s 125MW Power Plant in Kissy Dockyard to address the city’s electricity crisis was conceived by Sierra Leone’s Ernest Bai Koroma as part of his agenda for change in 2008. However, far from resolving the city’s perennial electricity crisis, the project has not only failed to make any progress but has also exacerbated the situation, fueling corruption and raising urgent concerns about the city’s ability to meet its growing energy needs.
More than 25,000 documents meticulously collected by the Africanist Press reveal a web of corruption implicating top All Peoples Congress (APC) and Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) politicians since the inception of the Freetown Power Plant Project in 2011. Shockingly, our investigation revealed that Sierra Leone’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) not only failed to curb this corruption but also facilitated its growth, serving as a weapon and a shield for individuals and corporations involved in this complex web of corruption.
The documents reveal that Karim Nasser’s CECA and TCQ Power have been at the center of an ongoing scheme that perpetuates debt and propaganda while promising to provide sustainable energy to Sierra Leoneans.
Some of the documents indicate that Karim Nasser and Emmanuel Katepa were granted a 30-year lease for two plots of state land in Kissy Dockyard, situated east of Freetown, to construct the Freetown Power Plant. The lease agreement signed on January 23, 2017, awarded more than 6.8 acres of state land to CECA and TCQ Power for a nominal fee of $1 to construct the power plant. The undisclosed lease agreement formed part of a power purchase and financing agreement signed between leading Sierra Leonean politicians and TCQ Power, as well as CECA’s Karim Nasser and Emmanuel Katepa.
The land lease agreement, signed by Ernest Bai Koroma’s then Ministers of Lands and Energy Diana Finda Konomanyi and Henry Macauley, was witnessed by Koroma’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Joseph F. Kamara, who also signed as the government’s attorney on many of the project’s documents.
When contacted by Africanist Press about the project, many of Koroma’s former ministers refused to comment on the deal. One former minister stated that she signed without being aware of the document’s details.
The lease agreement, under clauses 12(2), imposes strict restrictions on the disclosure of information to ‘unauthorized persons’, significantly limiting the transparency of the project.
“Each party shall hold and use its best efforts to procure that its shareholders, affiliates, and contractors hold in strict confidence from any other person all documents and information concerning the generation project,” the confidentiality clause of the lease agreement stated.
Since 2017, when the 30-year land lease was given to Nasser and Katepa, our investigation has found no evidence that any construction of a power plant has begun on the site.
“The lease was granted under the condition that a power plant would be constructed within a reasonable timeframe, but this has not been the case,” Michael Berewa, a respected civil servant, told Africanist Press.
A few weeks before he left office, on March 7, 2018, Koroma organized an event at the proposed site in Kissy to mark the commencement of construction of the power plant. The attendance list included representatives of the World Bank Group, the African Development Bank, and the former British High Commissioner to Sierra Leone, Guy Warrington.
At the event, TCQ Power’s Karim Nasser said the ceremony had brought them “closer to delivering more electricity to the people of Sierra Leone.” His project counterpart, Paul Hanrahan, the CEO of Globeleq, representing Britain’s financial stake in the project, expressed similar excitement.
“We are very excited at the opportunity to participate with CDC and TCQ in Sierra Leone,” Hanrahan said, adding that the project “provides Globeleq an opportunity to develop relationships with key decision makers and enables us to support the energy sector and build more generation in the country.”
Notwithstanding these glowing statements, it turned out the event only celebrated a ghost project; no real construction was taking place in the Kissy Dockyard area. Although Koroma had signed millions of dollars in debt financing agreements with CECA and TCQ Power, the Freetown Power Plant Project remained a development idea on paper only.
The proposal to construct Freetown’s 125MW power plant in Kissy Dockyard to address the city’s electricity crisis was conceived by Sierra Leone’s Ernest Bai Koroma as part of his agenda for change in 2008.
Early in 2011, the Koroma regime enacted a new electricity legislation that privatized Sierra Leone’s electricity supply. The legislation created two parallel institutions: the Electricity Generation and Transmission Company (EGTC) and the Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority (EDSA) to replace the state-owned National Power Authority (NPA).
At the time of these legislative reforms, international development agencies had all ranked Sierra Leone 178 out of 189 countries with the least access to electricity.
Development experts stated that weak oversight of the electricity sector was responsible for the poor ranking, and they suggested that dismantling the NPA and privatizing the electricity supply would enhance the country’s electricity transmission and distribution capacity.
However, the dismantling of the NPA and the privatization of the electricity supply in Sierra Leone have not resolved the country’s perennial electricity crisis; instead, they have further worsened access to electricity and fueled corruption.
Officials of the Koroma regime and their foreign counterparts privatized the country’s national electricity infrastructure, exploited Freetown’s desire for electricity, and went ahead to accumulate huge multilateral debts that were never used for the stipulated purpose.
When he assumed office in 2018, Maada Bio established several Commissions of Inquiry into the Ernest Koroma administration, particularly the handling of Sierra Leone’s economy under the Koroma regime.
The investigation discovered, among other things, that the Freetown Power Plant Project was one of the “ghost infrastructure and service-related projects” used by the Koroma administration to accumulate unexplained wealth during the APC’s tenure in office.
Maada Bio then utilized Sierra Leone’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to pressure Koroma and his British corporate allies to surrender their investment interests and shares they owned in the Freetown Power Plant Project. Under threat of prosecution, Koroma and Globeleq were forced to withdraw from the project. The renegotiated energy deal gave US-financed Milele Energy 50.1% ownership of the project.
After taking control of the project, Maada Bio and his US-funded corporate allies then announced new plans in July 2021 to build the proposed Freetown Power Plant as a Liquefied Natural Gas Plant.
Officials of the Bio regime said the power plant, once constructed, will help address Sierra Leone’s rolling blackouts and expand its national electricity system to accommodate additional renewable energy solutions in the future.
They even promised that Milele Energy and TCQ Power will complete the construction of the power plant by “the fourth quarter of 2024.”
However, the Milele Energy deal was problematic from the outset. The 20-year power purchase agreement with Milele Energy was signed in violation of Sierra Leone’s finance and anti-corruption laws. The mandatory competitive bidding and public tender statutes and regulations were never followed in awarding Milele Energy a stake in the project in early 2021.
“No competitive bidding rules and public tender processes were followed in awarding Milele Energy a stake in the Freetown Power Plant Project,” a former senior official in Sierra Leone’s energy ministry told Africanist Press.
“Maada Bio just handed the project to Milele Energy without following any of the transparency and finance laws of Sierra Leone,” the official said.
Added to these legal violations, the Bio regime also failed to reveal complete details of Milele Energy’s profile and absolute ownership, details that would have enabled real public scrutiny of Milele Energy’s track record and whether the company actually had the proven capacity to deliver on its contractual responsibilities when it was awarded the energy investment deal to build a power plant in Sierra Leone.
However, in July 2021, the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) announced it had disbursed a US$217 million loan to the Maada Bio regime through Milele Energy and TCQ Power to finance the construction of the ‘new power plant in Freetown,’ signaling US financial involvement in the project. To receive DFC funding, the Bio regime was instructed to revoke Sierra Leone’s 1960 Arbitration Law, paving the way for new arbitration legislation. The new law, designed to protect Milele Energy and other DFC-funded corporations in Sierra Leone from future renegotiation or cancellation, also promises a stable legal environment for foreign direct investment. The new arbitration law was passed in September 2022, also domesticated Sierra Leone’s obligations under the New York Convention and the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States.
Over the four years following these reforms, there was a significant growth in DFC’s financial support for the construction of the Freetown Power Plant. What started as a US$217 million loan in July 2021 had more than doubled to over US$412 million by June 2024. But despite the mounting debts, no construction work had yet commenced on the project site. Yet, on June 18, 2024, Julius Maada Bio and his cabinet officials held another event in Kissy, east Freetown, to launch the construction of the Freetown Power Plant. The event was held on the very site where Koroma held his own event in March 2018.A year later, our investigation found no evidence that any such construction of a power plant had begun in Sierra Leone since the June 2024 event.
Toward the end of 2024, when construction was expected to be completed, Milele Energy suddenly folded its operations, suspended its Twitter account, and sold out all its investment shares to Osprey Renewables Africa Limited. An “emergency meeting” held on October 16, 2024, in London, agreed on a “special resolution” to change the company’s name to Osprey Renewables Africa Limited.
An Africanist Press investigation revealed that the application to change Milele Energy into Osprey Renewables Africa Limited was submitted to the Registrar of Companies for England and Wales on the same day (October 16, 2024) and was approved on October 17, 2024, less than 24 hours after the application was submitted. American executives Erik Granskog and James Ireland, who received DFC loans to build the power plant, also exited the company without explanation.
However, while Milele Energy metamorphosed into Osprey Renewables, the Bio regime, and its corporate allies transferred the electricity infrastructure project to a newly constituted subsidiary company, Anergi Sierra Leone Investment Limited, a subsidiary of the Anergi Group.
Similar to the Milele Energy arrangement, Anergi Sierra Leone Investment Limited also faced identical legal violations and transparency issues. The company, also incorporated in the United Kingdom on July 24, 2024, has Maria Stratonova and Omosuyi Fred-Omojole as its listed executive officers. Stratonova and Fred-Omojole have now replaced Milele Energy’s Erik Granskog and James Ireland. However, the financing agreements and transactions to convert the corruption-infested Freetown Power Plant into Anergi Sierra Leone Investments Limited were carried out in October and November 2024, also without any public tender or competitive bidding.
Corporate records also show that Anergi Sierra Leone Investment Limited was in fact incorporated one month after the June 2024 event in Freetown, which supposedly marked the start of the power plant’s construction in Sierra Leone. Anergi reportedly received a US$292 million loan from the DFC on December 10, 2024, to “finance the construction and operation of a power plant in Freetown.” even though the said project was supposedly being constructed by Milele Energy and TCQ Power. This new DFC and Anergi Sierra Leone investment transaction was completed during the final weeks of the Biden-Harris administration despite no construction having commenced since the project was launched in June 2024.
In a rather bizarre yet familiar move on June 25, 2025, the Bio regime again re-announced that Kandeh Yumkella, a key figure in Bio’s energy sector and a significant player in these corrupt energy deals, has signed another “new agreement” with CECA and AG&P to build the same Freetown Power Plant.
Officials now say they have signed another US$150 million “landmark agreement for the construction of a liquified natural gas (LNG) terminal in Freetown.”
Between Ernest Koroma and Maada Bio, Sierra Leone has amassed a staggering sum of more than US$1 billion in multilateral debt financing. This was intended to build an electricity infrastructure and distribution system that, to this day, remains a promise unfulfilled.
Similar to the Ernest Bai Koroma administration, the Maada Bio group has used the electricity project as a means to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in multilateral loans. However, the promised energy production and electricity distribution systems are yet to materialize in Sierra Leone, leaving the country in a state of urgent need.
