As part of activities surrounding his three days’ state visit to Sierra Leone for the first Scaling Up Nutrition Movement peer learning visit to Sierra Leone, Vice President Jeremiah Kpan Koung on Wednesday, May 29, 2024, toured the Jolaks Palm Oil Refinery on the outskirts of Freetown, and the Pee Cee and Sons Holding Agriculture Investment in Lungi, Port Loki District, Sierra Leone.
According to a dispatch from the Office of the Vice President, Pee Cee Agriculture Limited, boasting 65 hectares of cultivation land, primarily focuses on onion farming.
However, it has also delved into local vegetable oil production under its Jolakas brand in Freetown.
Meanwhile, Jolaks Palm Oil Refinery stands as Sierra Leone’s largest palm oil refinery and soap producer, renowned for its Padi Cooking Oil and assorted soap varieties such as Diva, Zoom, Jazz, and Power +.
During his visit, Vice President Koung expressed immense admiration for the innovative agricultural techniques employed to enhance productivity, suggesting that Liberia could adopt similar methods under the Boakai-Koung Administration’s agricultural expansion efforts.
Notably, he commended the multi-million-dollar investment’s utilization of modern irrigation technologies, including a sophisticated reservoir for efficient backward irrigation.
At the Freetown refinery, VP Koung learned that raw materials, particularly palm oil, are sourced from the Mano Oil Palm Plantation in Liberia and occasionally from Golden Veroleum-Liberia.
VP Koung hailed the investment as a model for private sector-driven national development, advocating for Liberia to follow suit by supporting food security, government initiatives, and fostering community development, economic growth, and environmental sustainability.
Koung’s visit to Sierra Leone, part of a three-day official working visit for the Peer-to-Peer Learning initiative, aims to foster collaboration with Sierra Leonean counterparts, exemplified by discussions with Vice President Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh on combating malnutrition and infant mortality.
