Failure of Diplomatic Propaganda: the United States Electricity Debt and Deception in Sierra Leone

On Friday September 27, United States corporate representatives and diplomats announced that the United States Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) has signed a US$480 million compact agreement to fund Sierra Leone’s electricity sector. Sierra Leonean politicians have been dancing with the announcement as if such pronouncements have never been made. Yet, this propaganda message has been repeated quite too many times in the last five years.

US corporate executives and diplomats have countlessly announced this usual promise of electrifying Sierra Leone for years now; a promise they have repeated a dozen times since Maada Bio surreptitiously handed the corruption infested Western Area Power Generation Project to them following his controversial trip to Lebanon in late 2020.

In early May 2024, for example, the US Development Finance Corporation (DFC) announced a US$412 million loan to fund the construction of a new electricity power plant in Sierra Leone. Following the announcement, US Ambassador to Sierra Leone, Bryan David Hunt, said the loan will “revolutionize Sierra Leone’s energy landscape” and the impacts “will be profound, fueling progress, prosperity, and a brighter future for all Sierra Leoneans.” Hunt’s optimistic words echoed those of the DFC and Hunt’s own counterparts in the State Department, as well as the corporate executives of Milele Energy and TCQ Power Limited, the two reported recipients of the US$412 million DFC loan.

Milele Energy and TCQ Power Limited are no strangers to Africa’s new energy debt investment deals that have become regular agenda items at international conferences and multilaterals meetings of development finance agencies, especially at recent World Bank Group meetings. 

Back in May 2024, Milele Energy’s Chief Executive Officer, Erik Granskog and his colleague Karim Nasser of TCQ Power Limited re-echoed Bryan Hunt’s sentiments. They proclaimed their commitment to “delivering sustainable power solution to the people of Sierra Leone…and look forward to executing on the next steps and construction.”

These words have been repeated countless times in the last five years to the extent that they have now become a dog-tired song. Although we would not delve into the murky details of this endless racketeering process for now, and the financial atrocities inflicted on Sierra Leone’s national treasury, it is imperative for us to remind US Ambassador Bryan Hunt and Maada Bio, in the event that they have forgotten, the reasons why this dog-tired state and diplomatic propaganda about funding or financing Sierra Leone’s electricity sector is no longer a convincing lie to regular citizens of Sierra Leone.

And here is why Sierra Leoneans are no longer impressed by the repeated propaganda and deception.

In June 2024, for example, Julius Maada Bio – accompanied by US Ambassador Bryan David Hunt and the deputy head of the DFC Nisha Biswal – gathered a small crowd of his party supporters and US corporate executives at the Kissy Dockyard to again announce the launching of a US$412 million non-transparent electricity debt awarded to Milele Energy and TCQ Power Limited.

They said the US$412 million is to finance the construction of an electricity power plant to double Sierra Leone’s access to reliable energy.

That noise was made just three months ago. But the empty deceptive noise wasn’t the only problem. There was more serious crime in the whole electricity affair and why these empty, deceptive announcements are being regularly repeated.  

First and foremost: there is no record of any bidding process that Milele Energy and TCQ Power Limited went through to take over the Western Area Power Generation Project. Sierra Leoneans aren’t even aware of the conditions surrounding the debts and the process used by DFC to impose the US$412 million debt for just one electricity project in Freetown.

The second problem is this: while genuine questions are being asked about how the DFC and Milele Energy took over the Western Area Power Generation Project, and the legal and financial basis of the US$412 million non-transparent debt imposed through these questionable companies, the United States Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is now dubiously claiming that they have approved and signed US$480 million compact agreement to support Sierra Leone’s energy sector.

The problem gets even bigger when you consider the fact that this is the same energy sector that the MCC’s twin partner, the DFC, surreptitiously took over from British corporations since the defeat of Ernest Bai Koroma and the APC, and for which the people of Sierra Leone now owe United States agencies and corporations more than US$500 million in debt financing for a white elephant project.

The absurdity doesn’t only end with the insult it unleashes on the intelligence of Sierra Leoneans, but also the impudence of thinking that Sierra Leone is a country of ignoramuses, a place where the “uncivilized and uneducated natives” are always ready and willing to swallow lies told by foreign agents and corrupt politicians. That arrogance, a residue of colonial and imperial thinking, is the most offensive part of the ongoing diplomatic lies and political deception unleashed with impunity on the impoverished citizens of Sierra Leone.

But this belligerent irony itself still begs the following question: How can US agencies that have taken over a critical infrastructure project through questionable circumstances and have imposed over US$412 million debts on a country through dubious multinational companies would again claim that they have given US$480 million to the same country and the same people they have imposed such colossal non-transparent debts on through dubious corporate investment deals?

The truth is this: between the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is a predominantly US controlled international financial institution, and the DFC, Sierra Leone already accumulated more than US$1 billion in US imposed debts on the country since Maada Bio and the SLPP assumed power five years ago. This colossal debt burden doesn’t include the irrational and exploitative interest rates charges, not to mention the fact that the country’s strategic and revenue generating assets — including the national airport, the telecommunication services, and mining sector —- have all been taken over by the very US corporate agencies.

Again, how do agencies and financial institutions that imposed more than US$1 billion non-transparent debts on Sierra Leoneans would again claim that they are issuing a gift of US$480 million to Sierra Leone?

Does that make any sense to anyone?

It is either the SLPP rogue alliance, supported by US corporate representatives and development finance agencies, have taken every Sierra Leonean for granted or they think the country is still in the dark ages.

What these corporations, diplomats, and local politicians need to realize is that their recent and ongoing efforts to muddy the democratic conversation on Sierra Leone represents an amateur effort to dodge scrutiny; and it should be too obvious to them that such efforts can’t drown the transparency questions we are currently asking regarding Milele Energy and the DFC’s operations in Sierra Leone.

Now, let us go back to the 18 June 2024 event and ask the simple question: did US Ambassador Bryan Hunt and DFC officials not announce a US$412 million debt for the alleged purpose of developing Sierra Leone’s energy sector? Was that announcement not repeated by Julius Maada Bio during that very occasion? So, if we do examine all their statements (and the dozens of contradictory press releases issued by the DFC since 2021), then the next question that begs for clarification is this: how is the DFC’s US$412 million questionable electricity debt different from, or related to, the so-called US$480 million MCC electricity fund?

Sierra Leoneans have been awaiting answers to these very important questions since June 2024. And no one, including those at the US embassy or their SLPP allies in Freetown, have dared to confront the real questions. Instead, they continued with additional deception, repeated propaganda, and more lies to the innocent, unsuspecting citizens of Sierra Leone.

Nonetheless, we still await answers to these transparency and accountability questions, and we want to make bold to these corporate gangsters, rogue elites, and colonial diplomats in Sierra Leone that: government is never a criminal enterprise. Gone are those days when politicians and corporations think they can run government through organized deception campaigns.

What Sierra Leoneans want is true democracy and real economic development. If politicians and foreign diplomats cannot guarantee these basic rights and needs for the people, they should spare the impoverished Sierra Leoneans the indecency of their insults and deception. It should not be difficult and expensive to conduct diplomatic relations and foreign direct investment with decency.

Editor’s note: Dr. Chernoh Alpha M. Bah is Editor-in-Chief of the Africanist Press, and Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Africa Initiative of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University.