President John Mahama has held bilateral talks with his Sierra Leonean counterpart, President Dr Julius Maada Bio in Freetown.

During the talks, both leaders agreed to establish a Permanent Joint Commission for Cooperation between Ghana and Sierra Leone, to enhance their cooperation.

The one-day working visit to Freetown forms part of the continuation of President Mahama’s tour of West African states in pursuit of Ghana’s long-standing foreign policy of good neighbourliness.

Addressing a joint media briefing in Freetown at the end of the day’s working visit, President Mahama thanked his counterpart, for the honour he did him by attending his investiture as President on the 7th of January, 2025, at the Independence Square in Accra.

President Mahama said they discussed a broad range of issues and one of the most important points they agreed on was to establish the Permanent Joint Commission for Cooperation as quickly as possible to become the institutional framework for them to build their cooperation on.

He said they could work together in agriculture and food security as they discussed other issues such as power and electricity and how they could work together to enhance the West African power pool.

“We discussed issues of education and exchange, and we believe that the Permanent Joint Commission for Cooperation is going to be the best avenue on which we can build this cooperation together,” President Mahama stated.

Touching on the West Africa subregion, President Mahama said: “On sub-regional issues, as an old face but a new face in ECOWAS again, we discussed issues to do with the issue of terrorism and the current alliance of Sahelian states and ECOWAS, and we compared notes because he had previously visited the three countries and compared notes and belbelieved t it confirmed the basis for us to continue to cooperate as members of the same sub-region.”

He said President Bio also briefed him on the effort that was being made to get a common African position on security council reform, and that they were much in support of the efforts that he had been making in that regard.

President Mahama pledged to President Bio that Ghana would continue to work with him as advocates.

“At the end of it, he gave me a meal of jollof rice and it was very sumptuous, so I officially invited Sierra Leone to join Ghana and Nigeria in the jollof competition that we’ve been having, but we want to thank the Sierra Leonean people,” President Mahama said.

“I’m not new to Sierra Leone. I’ve done quite a lot of work here. I’ve been an election monitor here and I’m happy to have been able to come back.”

On his part, President Bio once again congratulated President Mahama for his victory in Ghana’s December 7, 2024, general election.

He said during their extensive meeting they discussed a range of issues in the spirit of excellent fraternal relations existing between the Ghana and Sierra Leone.

He said they had reviewed bilateral, regional and international matters of major interest and that they had identified to opportunities to further their development and democratic aspirations within the context of deepening regional cooperation.

During the visit, President Mahama took time to engage the Ghanaian community living in Freetown.