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The National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) and the Sierra Leone Ports and Harbours Authority (SLPHA) have reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening collaboration to enhance port operations while ensuring national disaster preparedness and resilience.
The commitment was made during a high-level meeting between the Directors General and senior officials of both institutions at the Queen Elizabeth II Quay in Freetown, where discussions focused on improving coordination between ongoing port expansion projects and the country’s disaster management priorities.
Speaking during the meeting, SLPHA Director General, Yankuba Askia Bio, said the Port of Freetown has experienced a significant increase in cargo traffic, placing greater demand on existing infrastructure.
He explained that the Authority has introduced temporary measures to ease congestion, including the use of the Inland Container Depot (ICD) at Hastings, pending the completion of a permanent expansion programme.
Bio noted that the Hastings facility is serving as a temporary solution because the land does not belong to the Authority, adding that operations will be relocated once the planned expansion is completed. He also disclosed that another Inland Container Depot is currently under construction at Koya to further improve cargo handling capacity.
Addressing concerns raised by the NDMA over the proximity of the Hastings ICD to the Agency’s proposed Emergency Operations Center (EOC), Bio proposed a joint site inspection involving the NDMA, the Resilient Urban Sierra Leone Project (RUSLP), and SLPHA to assess the situation and identify practical solutions.
He emphasized that decongesting the Port remains essential to sustaining operational efficiency and supporting national economic growth, revealing that cargo throughput has increased by more than 300 percent in recent years. “The more cargo we handle, the more revenue we generate for the government,” Bio said.
NDMA Director General, John Vandy Rogers, highlighted the importance of the proposed Emergency Operations Center, noting that it is a strategic national facility established to strengthen disaster prevention, preparedness, coordination, and emergency response.
He recalled that the NDMA was established in 2020 in response to the lessons learned from the August 14, 2017 Freetown mudslide and stressed the need to preserve adequate buffer space around the proposed EOC. Rogers clarified that the Hastings Inland Container Depot is separate from the Agency’s planned facilities but appealed for careful planning to ensure that both developments can coexist without compromising their respective functions.
The meeting concluded with both institutions reaffirming their commitment to sustained dialogue, joint planning, and closer institutional cooperation to ensure that port development and disaster risk management are implemented in a coordinated manner that supports Sierra Leone’s economic growth and national resilience.
