By Hassan J. Koroma in Bo & Prince J. Musa in Kenema
Sierra Leone’s electricity situation is again on the spotlight with a major power crisis ongoing in the southern city of Bo and Kenema in the east.
The two cities are among the three largest in the country outside the capital Freetown, and are currently battling incessant power outages which have affected businesses and led to a rise in crime.
In Bo, where residents have expressed disappointment at the government they support so passionately, businesspeople say they are barely functioning with the near total lack of power.
And in neighboring Kenema, the police say the situation has led to an increase in the crime rate as thieves take advantage of the dark to attack innocent residents.
The Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority (EDSA) say they supply what they receive, laying the blame of insufficient power supply on the Electricity Generation and Transmission Company (EGTC) which is in charge of generating power.
Kenema and Bo are neighbours and the two get their power supply from the same source – the Dodo Hydroelectric Power Plant, which is based in Kenema District.
According to EDSA, Bo city is divided into three zones of north, west and east, with each area receiving electricity supply for only seven hours a day and three times a week.
But residents say besides the erratic nature of the power that is supplied, the voltage is so low that it hardly powers their appliances.
Emmanuel Josiah, a welder working along the Bo-Taiama Highway, says he seldom gets power supply and that when he does the voltage is hardly enough to power his machines. And this, he added, is costing him a lot of money due to his inability to meet contract deadlines.
“For the past eight months now I have been using my generator due to the poor electricity supply which costs me a lot of money and loss at the end,” he told Politico.
In November 2018, just a month after he was sworn into office, President Julius Maada Bio during his thank you tour in Bo and Kenema assured the people that necessary provisions were being put in place to resolve the problems of acute electricity shortage in the two cities. He said he had specifically instructed the Minister of Energy, Kanja Sesay to speedily put to an end the persistent blackout in the two districts.
In his declaration at the Bo Coronation Field, the president said the people voted for him to see "progressive change" and that that change must be visible. Bio then set December 2018 as target for ensuring provision of sustainable electricity supply in the city.
Residents of Bo say the only time the city has experience sustainable electricity since then has been when the president has visited.
Jeremy Ben Simbo, Regional Chairman of the Civil Society in the Southern Region, said he was personally disappointed at the Minister of Energy, Kanja Sesay who, despite being a native of Bo, “has failed to make any visible improvement in the region’s power problems”.
He went on: “Sierra Leoneans are expecting change and better performance in electricity is one of the key priorities in President Bio’s manifesto”.
He said they largely depended on electricity supply to run their business.
Kenema City was recently labeled as the district with the highest incidents of robbery, prompting the police high command to put in place security strategies to normalize the situation.
But ASP Dikisu Kamara, Divisional Operations Officer in Kenema, said the current power crisis had reversed the situation, noting that criminals had been emboldened to commit various crimes against peaceful civilians during the dark hours.
He pointed out that even solar lights that were installed by the government to light up the streets had not been spared by the thieves.
“Blackout has caused a lot of headache for us. Robbery has increased as solar lights have been stolen and some have been vandalized by thieves. Police job has been very difficult to perform in the face of such circumstances,” he said.
Kamara said they had arrested five suspects who were helping them with investigations. The suspects, he alleged, were arrested for removing signposts at the Mano Junction-Kenema highway.
ASP Kamara further disclosed that he and his operations team had arrested several suspects for allegedly carrying offensive weapons including machetes.
Kenema has a joint power supply arrangement with Bo which, before now, was known as the Bo-Kenema Power Services. The Dodo dam from which power is generated is in Kenema whilst the infrastructure to convert the energy into power supply is in Bo.
Civil Society activist, Augustine Allieu Sannoh sees this new energy arrangement as the main cause of unreliable power supply.
Sannoh told Politico that since last year they had been fighting to halt the energy collaboration between Bo and Kenema saying that the arrangement was not beneficial to the people of Kenema though the dam is located there.
“Everything about Energy Distribution and Supply Agency (EDSA) is based in Bo which is totally wrong. I expect the local stakeholders to approach the Minister and EDSA so that they can look into the concerns of the Kenema residents,” Sannoh said.
But EDSA management contradicts Sannoh’s claim stating that the energy collaboration between Bo and Kenema is not the problem of the blackout in Kenema.
EDSA Manager, Mustapha Ngovoa shifts the blame to the Energy Generation and Transmission Centre (EGTC).
“We distribute what EGTC supply us,” Ngovoa said.
The EDSA manager also informed Politico that since energy supply was insufficient, the agency had had cause to ration the light to cater for the interest of everyone.
The EGTC Station Superintendent in Kenema, Sahr Brima says the water level at the dam site is very low at this time of the year, while three of the machines for the provision of thermal power await repairs.
He said that if the three machines were working the situation would be completely different because an additional 2.7 megawatt would be added to a city which needs 4.3 megawatt for nonstop electricity.
We hope to hear from the Minister of Energy, Kanja Sesay next week
© 2019 Politico Online
