The Minister of Communication, Technology and Innovation, Madam Salima Mormorna Bah has announced that 96% of Sierra Leoneans are now connected to mobile internet.

Minister Bah made her statement to show the progress gained in her one year in office at the government’s weekly press conference on Tuesday. 

In her opening remarks, Minister Salima Bah demonstrated the progress her ministry has made so far in one year. She conveyed that they had increased mobile connectivity to 96.7% and that over five million people had registered sim cards.  Likewise, 96 percent of Sierra Leoneans are using 2G connectivity, 95 percent are using 3G and 87 percent are using 4G.

She continued that there is progress for 5G connectivity to be launched in Sierra Leone and there is a massive increase of people using modem Wi-Fi, and this is because of the high level of increase in internet connectivity.

Madam Salima Bah added that they had launched the Emergency Internet Bandwidth to connect all government ministry agencies to make work easier and more effective, and they had also signed an agreement with NCRA to link citizens’ information with data.

She furthered that they had also opened an ICTU Scheme training center with support from Huawei and Orange to train 2,200 Sierra Leoneans and 500 entrepreneurs on cyber security and digital entrepreneurship. Minister Bah emphasized standards and said they had launched the National Government Architecture which gives way to digital transformation plans and how to install those structures.

She cautioned about the wastage of internet in government offices as that was bad and would reduce productivity and increase costs for the government. She emphasized that they had planned to put a strategy to curtail the wastage of internet in government offices.

She explored contingency plans for an internet shutdown in Sierra Leone, including a switch to alternative options. For instance, she mentioned a potential partnership with Guinean Telecom to provide connectivity if Sierra Leone’s internet service were interrupted, allowing a temporary switch to Guinea’s service until the restoration in Sierra Leone.

She emphasized the importance of the partnership, noting that Sierra Leone’s reliance on a single internet cable poses a risk of significant service disruption. However, the interconnection with Guinea could mitigate this risk, as Guinea’s lack of interconnections with other countries could provide a beneficial redundancy for Sierra Leone.