By: Ilyasa Baa
Residents of Freetown stand to benefit from a fifty million Dollars grant provided by the World Bank to fast-track phase two of the Energy Sector Utility Project which will provide 45 megawatts of electricity mainly for the eastern part of Freetown.
According to the Chairman of the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on Energy, Hon. Keikura Vandy, the government of Sierra Leone had received over forty million Dollars from World Bank for the implementation of phase one of the above mentioned project.
He said the issue of interrupted power supply in Freetown will be a thing of the past adding that Lungi will benefit from 15 megawatts of electricity through the Built Operating and Transfer project about to be implemented. “We have allocated 25 acres of land for that project already”, he informed this medium. He said negotiations have been made for the use of renewable natural resources to provide light for more citizens so they don’t rely on the existing facilities to light up their homes.
Being the Member of Parliament representing Constituency 088, Hon. Keirura Vandy said the light issue some people are complaining about can not be fixed up by any government in five years. He lamented that the last time major rehabilitation was carried out to fix the light issue in the country was in 1995. He argued that what the ruling Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) under Retired Brigadier Dr. Maada Bio, has done within these five years of governance to provide sustainable energy, has not been done by any administration in the political history of Sierra Leone. He said even advanced economies face challenges when it comes to the transmission and distribution of electricity.
He called on community members to be vigilantes and serve as watchmen to secure transformers from cable thieves. He said the sector loses a lot as a result of malpractices such as the stealing of cables and illegal connections by those who are supposed to pay for electricity. “The provision of energy is quite capital intensive anywhere in the world”, he blasted.
Throwing light on the recently released Auditor General’s Report which claims that millions of Leones were not accounted for by the Electricity Distribution Supply Authority (EDSA), Hon. Kenzo, as he is fondly called said audit reports are not the Gospel Truth but mere opinions.