By Ishmael Sallieu Koroma
Ecobank -SL, one of the leading Pan – African banks in the continent has on Monday 11th November signed a partnership through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Sierra Leone’s National Minerals Agency at an official ceremony at the NMA headquarters on New England Ville in Freetown.
The partnership is geared towards information sharing between the two institutions, collaboration as well financial solutions for the mining sector in the country.
Speaking during the official signing of the MOU, Managing Director of Ecobank-SL, Sebastian Ashong –Katai said that the bank have been operating in the country for 17 years stating that they recognized that the mining sector is a critical sector with in the economy of Sierra Leone.
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’ So we have been playing a supporting role throughout all those years supporting mining companies with financing, with payment services , with foreign exchange services and generally shining light amongst the mining investor base across the network,’’ he said.
He said that, they have also been working with the mining agency for several years but felt it fitting to actually formalized their relationship and put some structure around it.
‘’So our partnership with NMA will be driven largely around knowledge sharing and collaboration. We shall be putting all our financial products and networks at their disposal of the NMA and indeed of the various institutions as well that work with the NMA. we intend to be able to work together to support events that take place within the mining sector whether they be in Sierra Leone or in abroad,’’ The Ecobank MD assured.
The Ecobank MD added that they will also be looking at various types of dues that they know investors may want to pay stating that today’s official partnership with NMA will increase their visibility and make them more attractive to players within the mining sector .
‘’ It will grow our customer base and it will overall give us a very positive reputation,’’
On his part, Director of Mines at the National Minerals Agency, Peter Bangura praised the official signing of the MOU stating this is something that he is supportive of as an agency.
‘’ This is the first port of call when investors do come in, in the mining space. They have to come here. Yes, this will give you honestly a very good opportunity to have access to them. As I said we will only do that for banks but it will be much more professional and meaningful if we have that relationship,’’ he said.
Peter Bangura added that, their partnership with the Ecobank will be beneficial to Ecobank in terms of information sharing stating that arguably the best market in Africa committing that they are very much willing for this great partnership. The MOU was climaxed with both parties signing the agreement, followed by photo- ops.
