Salone At 55… NO WATER! NO LIGHT!
In 2007 when President Koroma came to power,
he promised Sierra Leone an uninterrupted supply of electricity but observers say that the electricity supply
in the country is very erratic and interrupted especially in the capital
Freetown.
This, they say has been a perennial problem
for the people of Freetown, the capital
of Sierra Leone where in every dry season the people experience power cut and
shortages across the city .
Also they bemoaned the acute shortage of water in Freetown. The
shortage of water in the capital of Freetown has been a very serious problem
for the people as every now and then underage children, mostly girls, are seen
with jerry cans scouting for water across the capital, especially in the unholy
hours of the night
This has led to the increase of teenage
pregnancy in the capital as late at night vulnerable girls will be out in the
street looking for water thereby becoming the prey of area boys.
Adama Sesay a young girl said that she became
impregnated because she was always out in the street in the night looking for
water for their home.
Many girls like Adama sesay have been impregnated
because of the shortage of water in the capital and the fact that they have to
be in the street late in the night to search for water.
The reason the Guma Valley Water Company gave
for the shortage of water is the same reason they have been giving all this
while and that is, the growing population in the capital is not commensurate to
the amount of water the colonial dam is producing and that the human activities
with the water catchment areas is another cause of the water shortage problems
The Minister of Ernergy, Oluniyi Robin Coker
promised the people that during the dry season this year Freetown will not see
the usual power cut yet today most areas go for up to a week without a blink of
electricity supply.
The World Bank through it Access to Energy
Programme has embarked on the unbundling of the energy sector but it seems as if the unbundling has not been
able to solve the problems of power cut especially in the capital Freetown
According to World Bank estimation the
country needs 5,600 Mega Watts of Electricity to give to the people but they are only getting 76 Mega
Watts which will reduce drastically during the dry season.
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