By Septimus Senessie in Kono
The Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority (EDSA) in Kono is faced with allegations of bribery and corruption where it has embarked on an expansion of power supply. Authorities say they are baseless.
Residents this week accused “rogue elements within the power supply authority” of taking undue advantage of the high demand for connection to the grid and were making illegal payment requests for meter installations.
Kono District, specifically Koidu Town, was reconnected to the national grid less than a year ago after decades in blackout, a situation occasioned by the civil war. But only a few communities were connected at the time. EDSA is implementing Phase II of the project that will see other parts of the diamond-rich district connected.
Part of the newly built power house at Simbakoro
According to the authority, the official cost for a meter is Le 705,000. After securing the meter the applicant is expected to buy a pole and cables by themselves to connect power to their homes.
The installation is supposed to be free of charge yet residents claimed that EDSA staff had demand payment of at least Le 100,000. They said some asked for as much as Le250,000 for connections.
And after going through all this, the commissioning of the meter, which officially is at no cost, had also attracted charges from the EDSA staff, according to the residents.
Even at community level people alleged that they were being asked to pay before they could get the polls.
The Kono power expansion project commenced at the beginning of January 2016. Seven new communities in the Koidu township had been identified to benefit from the pole and meter installations.
Kumba Amara, a resident of one of these communities, Sinneh Town, told Politico that some EDSA officials would ask them to payment Le20,000 per household before their community could be connected. She said they were also told that they should pay for the poles and cables.
Mohamed Bah, a businessman trading in pharmaceuticals at the main Kainkordu Road in Koidu, said he had to part with Le2 million to have his house connected.
Bah recalled paying Le750,000, plus an extra Le50,000 just to secure the pre-paid metre. He said the Le50,000, which he described as the “gate way to get the metre,” was said to be for registration.
The drug seller said they were also required to pay another Le50, 000 to “commission” the meter. And anytime they recharged their meter, Bah went on, some units were deducted.
Engineer Pastor George Sesay, in charge of EDSA in Kono District, vehemently denied all the allegations, describing them as “baseless, unfounded and fabricated stories” meant to distract their “well focused attention” from their expansion project.
Pastor Sesay said the policy of EDSA was that any staff found wanting for such acts would be sacked.
The allegations came just about a week after the district EDSA office announced the arrival of a “huge supply” of electricity poles and cables for the expansion project.
He said there were enough poles and cables to take care of the targeted communities, and he reiterated that the poles were being distributed at no cost to the residents.
Sesay said EDSA was only responsible to distribute electricity to communities from the power house, noting that those wanting to connect their houses and business places should do so at their own expenses but with the supervision of the power authority to ensure proper connections and avoid fire disasters.
When Koidu was first re-connected to the national grid, it was hooked on to two separate 1 megawatt generators. The cost of production of electricity, coupled with other factors, meant that the residents enjoyed power supply for only five hours. This has however been increased to 12 hours recently.
EDSA officials said the plan was to gradually get to a 24-hour supply. To that end two new 3 megawatt generators had since been installed but were not operational.
Engineer Mohamed Marrah, the head of the Electricity Generation and Transmission Commission in Kono, said installation of the six megawatt consisting of two generators of 3 megawatts each was completed some two months ago. He said they were still not able to operate them because consumption rate of electricity was so small that they hadn’t been able to meet the threshold.
The low power consumption was attributed to the low financial status of the mainly rural population. Few people were able to pay for electricity even when they were actually able to secure the connection fee.
EDSA said it had introduced a “soft loan programme that will make the metres available to customers who can’t afford to pay the Le705,000 at a go”.
According to Pastor Sesay, with the new system customers would be allowed to pay the sum of Le250, 000 as first instalment and the balance would be deducted gradually anytime they recharged.
(C) Politico 03/02/16
