This country profile was published in November 2008 in our annual 'Africa in 2009' issue. The next edition, 'Africa in 2010' will be on sale 23 November 2009.

Click on the drop-down menu above to see Sierra Leone's Top Companies and Top Banks.

Despite a shaky first year, it looks as if President Ernest Bai Koroma – the All People’s Congress (APC) leader elected in September 2007 – may just have done enough to mark it out as something of a success. The UN might consider Sierra Leone the least developed country in the world, but its new ranking in the World Bank’s 2009 Doing Business report makes it the easiest place to open a business in West Africa. A glut of ghost workers has been eradicated from the civil service, parliament finally passed the Anti-Corruption Act, and the president publicly declared his assets.


Koroma’s not had a lot of luck with his cabinet and a reshuffle is likely in 2009, although he will not say when. Despite his signing of ministerial contracts with delivery targets in the former insurance executive’s effort to run the country like a business, many onlookers worry the president does not have sufficient hold of his players and is committed to help those who helped him win the tense 2007 presidential run-off.
Among the problems is the Anti-Corruption Commission’s (ACC) investigation into a power deal that the energy ministry signed which could cost the country $100m a year. The ACC found that the procurement procedure “raises the red flag and suggests corrupt practices have taken place”.


Another bittersweet moment was the suspension of transport minister Kemoh Sesay in connection with an investigation into a 700kg haul of cocaine captured from a South American plane that landed at Lungi airport. UN officials say the cocaine trail through the country is the largest single threat for a country which is still recovering from its 1991-2002 civil war, amid high unemployment and widespread poverty.


The UN scaled down its 300-strong peacekeeping mission in October to a 70-strong peacebuilding team, but belief in stability seems assured. Koroma has promised to concentrate on getting agriculture going, albeit via mechanisation and the development of infrastructure in general.


While GDP growth rates in 2008 will be less than the 6.4% registered in 2007, taxes are being streamlined. Rising prices and double-digit inflation caused by worldwide food and fuel crises have largely been contained, with none of the disturbances seen elsewhere in the region. Government offered a fuel subsidy from long-term stored surpluses and local fuel is now smuggled into neighbouring Guinea, where prices have skyrocketed. The IMF gave the country a rap on the knuckles for breaching domestic revenue and fiscal targets, although donor commitments, especially from the UK, are nevertheless rising.


The minerals sector has not prospered, losing the country valuable foreign exchange revenues. The largest industrial diamond mine in the country, Koidu Holdings, closed for perhaps the next four years following riots at the end of 2007. Sierra Rutile, part of London-listed Titanium Resources Group, at one time the country’s largest employer and foreign exchange earner, has also undergone a disaster after its new dredge, which was set to double production by an extra 100,000 tonnes a year, collapsed, killing workers in the process. Prospects for re-starting iron ore mining at Marampa, which shut down in the 1970s, have sagged as the two UK companies with a piece of it are at legal loggerheads. The country’s first industrial gold production may commence in 2009, however, courtesy of Cluff Mining.