By Joseph Lamin Kamara
A female vocational training institute in Freetown says the country’s electricity supplying company is responsible for a fire accident on Monday, which destroyed its building and many other things.
The Progressive Women’s Association (PROWA) claims the fire outbreak at its OAU Drive building emanated from unstable power supply from the Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority (EDSA).
“I was sitting in my office, and the electricity supply was going on and off. To my surprise, I heard the security shouting ‘fire!’ And when l came out there was smoke all over the place, “PROWA’s director Grace Kamanda told Politico, at the burnt office.
In 2011 government passed the Sierra Leone National Electricity Act, and the then National Power Authority (NPA) was unbundled, leaving the Electricity Generation and Transmission Company (EGTC) and EDSA to take over the generation and supplying of electricity in the country.
Kamanda said the fire, which broke out around 4 pm, had destroyed all their documents and many other things worth millions of Leones.
“This is going to affect the operations of the school,” she lamented.
PROWA’s caretaker, Isaac Sesay, also blamed EDSA for the accident. He confirmed that there was instability in power supply shortly before the outbreak.
Sesay also blamed the National Fire Force (NFF) for responding late to the accident.
NFF’s headquarter is about 200 metres off PROWA.
However, EDSA’s public relations officer, Winston Clerk, denied they were responsible for PROWA’s disaster.
Fire accidents are common in Freetown, especially in the dry season, and many people have blamed their troubles on power supply.
But Clerk argued that most of problems that were reported by their customers were due to poor internal wiring by individual households.
“People have not been checking their internal wiring system. They just want to cast blame on the authority,” he defended.
Clerk however warned people to ensure they had appropriate electrical wiring so as to prevent problems caused by electricity supply.
The Freetown sub-operational officer of NFF, Abdul Hamid, confirmed to Politico that their investigation into the fire outbreak proved that the accident was caused by electricity supply.
He however denied they arrived late.
© Politico 14/05/15
