By Amin Kef Sesay
Truth be told; President Bio’s ‘New Direction’ Government would find it very hard to explain to citizens of the capital city why they do not get regular supply of electricity.
These citizens remember that they used to enjoy a reasonable amount of regular electricity supply during the days of the former President Koroma led APC Government.
Now they wonder out loud why instead of power generation and access increasing to meet demand, it has suffered a frustrating downfall – to the chagrin and annoyance of hundreds of thousands of consumers who moan that they buy top-up but do not get satisfactory service from EDSA.
It particularly angered many Freetonians when in his recent speech to Parliament and the nation, the President said that electricity generation has increased. One very annoyed citizen shouted out loudly that President Bio was very economical with the truth because according to him, many communities in the Western Areas these days complain about going days without electricity.
To be fair with the President and his hardworking Minister of Energy whose resignation many frustrated and angry electricity consumers are calling for as not being up to the task assigned him; they have both time after time told Freetonians that this Government inherited an electricity generation system that was dilapidated.
Coupled with this headache is an archaic transmission and distribution system that wasted much of the power generated by Bumbuna and other available sources.
So far as is known through research, the country’s slide generally into electricity deficit started in the 1970s. After independence in 1961, up to the early 1970s, Freetown and all provincial district headquarter towns had not only electricity but also water supply.
However, due to lack of a maintenance culture and failure to invest in new plants, all these services went into ruin and disuse. The situation worsened with the war that lasted from 1992 to 2002 when Government diverted resources to fighting the war.
Since the war ended, tens of millions of dollars from by the World Bank, GoSL and other development partners to remedy the situation met with little or no success.
Sierra Leone’s energy needs are under resourced and the scarcity of a reliable energy supply is one of the key impediments to Sierra Leone’s economic and social development.
The country’s installed power capacity per capita is among the lowest in the world with approximately 105 MW available for a population of over 7 million in 2018.
The difficulty in accessing electricity is also compounded by significant transmission and distribution network problems, resulting in losses of 34.5% of the electricity supply in the Freetown Capital Western Area alone in 2017.
Added to this is large-scale theft of electricity by both large and small-scale consumers.
However, the situation would not remain dismal for very long; as many new Government and private sector investments into new renewable energy sources, for example the solar farm at Newton, the West Africa Power Pool project and replacing the transmission and distribution line would help to considerably increase generation and access in both the capital city and provincial communities.
There is no truth to be told here other than the fact that president Bio and his New direction government has failed Freetonians big time and this if not rectify is going to cost him his re-election in 2023. President Koroma met Freetown as the darkest capital city in the world. Despite all odds he left Freetown enjoying at least 60% electricity supply. If that has dropped to a bear minimum, in 3 years, under the PaOPa goverment, they have just voted themselves out of the 2023 election.