By Josephine Lagawo
232news
The epileptic power supply of recent times from Sierra Leone’s Electricity Distribution Supply Authority (EDSA) has brought discomfort to not only many Sierra Leoneans but other public and private institutions.
Outrageously, the Well of Parliament was plunged into utter darkness on Tuesday 31st January 2023 due to power outage. This was when the Sierra Leone Nursing and Midwifery Act was being debated. No sooner had the Deputy Minister of Health and Sanitation, Princess Dubgba completed the first and second reading of the Bill, than there was a general roar of disgust. Medical practitioners, mostly nurses and midwives who were at parliament to be part of the process had to use their phone lights to navigate their way out of the well.
Embarrassingly, the Speaker of Parliament announced that the sitting would not be adjourned. However, very many of the visitors had to leave Parliament after waiting for a long while.
For over three weeks now the electricity supply from EDSA is nothing to write home about. Do you have light in your area? has been a commonplace part of the everyday conversation of many Sierra Leoneans. “EDSA is playing games with my power supply…on a bit…then off for a while… back on again for a few minutes and then off again. In this day and age …and with my dependence on the internet… I cannot fathom a more ridiculous situation,” one diplomat posted in an international forum.
In a bid to cover its ineptness, EDSA issued a public notice unconvincingly blaming problems associated with inter-connectors and listed a number of areas that are supposedly to be affected by the so called problems. Yet the whole of the western area has been experiencing the on and off electricity supply.
