BY: HAJA HAWA KOROMA
The Ministry of Information and Communications Youyi Building has held a dual press conference on Thursday 2nd June 2022 for the Sierra Leone Electricity and Water Regulatory Commission and Statistics Sierra Leone to shed light on the recent issues that these two institutions have embarked on.
The Director General of the Sierra Leone Electricity and Water Regulatory Commission, Emmanuel Mannah stated that their purpose for the press conference was to give an update on the structures and tariffs of both the electricity sector and the water supply sector. He said that, this commission was established through an act of parliament so as to regulate the services of these two sectors. They also ensure to create possibilities for everyone to have access to electricity and proper water supply. The commission is also responsible to regulate the prices of the commodities to ensure that everyone can afford them and maintain price control among the service providers.
He added that, they serve as the middle man between the interest of the government, the interest of the service providers and the interest of the consumers making sure to balance these interests. He also said that their job is never done and they are always a topic of discussion because everyone wants better services. Service providers always want to increase prices, the government wants to provide jobs and all these things are very costly and it is difficult to maintain the balance but that’s why the commission was established to handle these kinds of issues.
The D. G mentioned that these two sectors do no always operate as other market competition operates. In the normal market operations, marginal force marketing is always equals to price, so they always ensure the profit margin and create efficiency. For the water and electricity sector, they always regulate them to provide technical data as to what inspires price change in their market because the commission is always concerned about the public interest first before all else. In so doing, the commission also takes into consideration the cost of production as they want to make sure that the service provider’s financial background is maintained and other considerations that the commission may think relevant.
So, their Acts mandates them to review tariff settings and to make sure at any point in time the price set is enough to make the services are provided and at the same time to make sure that the price is stable.
There has been an increase in the Guma Valley Water Company prices for Bowser services and sachets water producers as well. According to the D. G all these prices were influenced by the global economy that we are faced with and that is affecting prices in all sectors. He stated that they have thoroughly cross checked to see whether or not these prices are supposed to be increased an after a thorough regulation they found out that if these service providers were to maintain the initial prices they will run out of business as their businesses will not be generating sufficient income to keep them running.
The Deputy Statistician General of stats SL, Andrew Jonny also shared analysis on the just announced census results in order to clarify the figures of the total population of Sierra Leone. He carefully explained the circumstances at which the census was conducted, how it was conducted and how they arrived at the results that were announced.
Mr. Andrew stated that there is a huge misunderstanding amongst the citizens of Sierra Leone with regards the total Regional population in Kenema as compared to the total Regional population in the Western Area Urban; he carefully explained the geographical structure of both regions and how they derived those numbers. He added that the Western Urban in itself is a small region compared to a whole district (Kenema) which consists of different chiefdoms and populations, so it is impossible to generate more population in one region than a whole district.
Mr. Andrew stated that, this census was not only handled by a local team, but it consisted of an international team as well, comprising of experts who are well seasoned in their course, so their is no way they Stats SL could produce results that are not authentic. He ended by saying that Stats SL is ready to defend the authenticity and credibility of the National housing and population census results wherever and whenever.
