Recent engagement by the Commissioner General, National Revenue Authority (NRA) Ibrahim Brima Swarray with indigenous importers and the mining sector on revenue mobilisation drive among other things has exposed the Minister of Energy, Alhaji Kanja Sesay.
The Commissioner General, in his desperation to trivialise the current pressure with electricity power cuts the city now faces, let the cat out of the bag by disclosing that the government has to pay the Turkish Karpowership $46 million, the reason why the ship stopped supplying electricity to the city.
The CG further told indigenous importers and the mining sector that the government disbursed Le400 million (old leones) on a monthly basis on energy.
By the look of things, taking into account the current state of the country’s economy, it is but obvious that the government could no longer bear the situation and therefore requested the management of Karpowership to step on its break with regards the supply of electricity to the city and its environs.
The request by the government for Karpowership to pipe down its supply justified that the hydro ship has finally reached the end of the road in Freetown.
Such public disclosure by Swarray to strategic sectors of the country’s economy has been viewed by many in the government and the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) as a willful act to naked or shame one of the SLPP’s most faithful partisans, Alhaji Kanja Sesay.
Speaking on the need for revenue generation, the NRA Commissioner General frantically told indigenous importers and the mining sector that government will not continue to borrow, lend or beg when visible businesses are running in the country that simply collect Goods and Services (GST) and other taxes.
The Commissioner General’s true revelation further exposed the deliberate attempt by the Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority (EDSA), Communication and Community Relations Manager, Sarh Nepor, to misinform the public.
Nepor told the media and by extension the general public that the management of EDSA requested the ship to stop its supply of electricity to avoid electricity wastage.
‘EDSA requested the Karpowership management to reduce its supply for now and if needs be they will be recalled to continue with the supply of electricity,’ Nepor lied to the public.
Nepor justified that the country is in the season when it can fully generate electricity supply from the Bumbuna hydroelectricity dam, the Cote d’lvorie, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea electricity interconnection project and a standby thermal plant, the Black Hall substation, that he said are all cost effective.
In an interview with Reuters News Agency, the Minister of Energy, Alhaji Kanja Sesay, disclosed that the government of Sierra Leone has paid the Turkish Karpowership $40 million which was accrued over time because the government subsidises more than half the cost of the ship’s charges per kilowatt hour.
One of SLPP’s faithful, Alhaji Kanja Sesay, noted that the government had to spend more on the subsidy because it charges consumers in what he described as the weak local leone currency, one of the worst performing against the dollar, in which it pays the power provider.
The floating power plant, this medium was told, deployed around 65 megawatt power generation capacity to Sierra Leone since 2020 and has been supplying 80% of its total electricity needs.
The minister has confessed to Reuters News Agency that switching off Karpowership had reduced electricity to the capital by 13% resulting to the alternative supply of electricity in the capital.
Many well minded citizens have wildly attributed the statements of NRA Commissioner General, the Minister of Energy and the Communications and Community Relations Manager, Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority (EDSA), as parallel due to the constant lies that existed between the statements.
Reliable source have it that the inability of the Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority (EDSA) to pay the Karpowership has been largely attributed to the many economic leakages that continue to engulf the sale and financial management of EDSA credit over the years.
Senior management of the Ministry of Energy, Forum News SL was told, are in the habit of collecting EDSA’s monthly bills to specific industries and deposit them into their personal accounts.
Such syndicates, inside sources revealed, have been a longstanding issue that past and present senior and middle level management categories are still benefiting from.
Such unknown figure accounts for huge sums of money from the sales of EDSA credit being diverted to individual accounts.
Owing to the fact that junior and other contracted staff gradually becomes knowledgably about such illegal lucrative deals, they have allegedly devised ways to be also collecting EDSA’s monthly bills in medium, smaller and household connections which also speaks volumes to the fact that those leakages loom in the Ministry of Energy.
Administrative inadequacy, Forum News SL was told, is glaring in the sale and management of EDSA credit as most private companies hired or recruited for the sale of EDSA credit rely on credit purchases with many on most instances unable to make full payment in return.
Such contracted companies for the sale of EDSA credit are predominantly party companions bent on party connections to wave the huge amount of debt accrued over the years thereby shifting the burden on the government.
Other companies have also opted to enter the business of the sale of EDSA credit, despite with the required capital, equipment and personnel, the ministry have vehemently refused to open the competition for fear of putting party members and relatives out of business.
Since the advent of the Bio led administration, misappropriation, embezzlement, monies spent with supporting documents and monies unaccounted for continue to dominate the ministry’s audited statements to date.
The habit of governments converting ministries, departments and agencies to compensate families and political party supporters continues to render government institutions invalid for purpose to a large extent.
