Sierra Leone Telegraph: 29 November 2025:
Allied Irish Bank (AIB) is one of the two largest banks in Ireland and a long time funder of Irish NGO GOAL. In January of this year, a delegation from AIB led by Colin Hunt, AIB Chief Executive Officer, visited Sierra Leone to see first-hand the impact of their funding.
GOAL is Freetown City Council’s implementing partner for the construction and operation of the Kingtom Faecal Sludge Treatment plant, and is one of the sites visited by the delegation.
A major benefit of the plant has been the production of briquettes, an alternative cleaning cooking fuel but production of the briquettes has yet to be scaled to enable commercial sale.
With the support of Irish Aid, a machine that will automate production and manufacture at scale, has now been purchased and will be in Freetown at the end of December.
“On Thursday, at AIB’s Sustainability Conference I was pleased to share how through multi stakeholder collaboration, a liquid waste solution has evolved into a clean cooking solution that will soon be available for sale to Freetonians. The briquettes from the Kingtom Faecal Sludge Treatment plant will reduce demand for charcoal and should therefore reduce deforestation.” Said Mayor Aki-Sawyerr.
In another development, Mayor Aki-Sawyerr has handed over the Kingtom Dumpsite to Sierra Forever Green Ltd to drive plastics recycling and promote job creation.
Tuesday 25th November 2025 marked a major milestone in the implementation of the City Council’s Transform Freetown – Transforming Lives development agenda.
The Kingtom Dumpsite was officially handed over to Sierra Forever Green Ltd – a recycling company that will manage the dumpsite whilst operating a plastics recycling facility.
With an expected daily processing capacity of 30 tons of plastic, the recycling facility will create approximately 500 jobs. Many of the informal waste pickers currently in Kingtom will be absorbed into a formal arrangement with greater protections and better incomes.
Speaking about the handing over, Mayor Aki-Sawyerr said: “I am very excited by the demand for plastics that will be generated by the facility which will in turn reduce plastic waste in our city. Keeping Freetown clean is our collective responsibility so Freetonians please comply with the new sanitation bylaws – register with your FCC approved service provider so that your waste doesn’t end up on our streets, gutters or waterways”.
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