Bill W. Cooper
Montserrado County District 1 Representative, Lawrence Morris, has attributed the recent power outage being experienced by Liberians to the government’s decision to purchased generators only to be used to keep electricity stable in Sierra Leone.
He disclosed that the issue of inadequate supply of electricity being experienced of recent is as a result of the Liberia Electricity Regulatory Commission (LERC) and the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC) inability to regulate and ensure that the country’s electricity sector is fully managed and prioritize.
“The electricity or power supply that is now coming is believed to be coming from the West African Power-poll (WAP) and not the CLSG. The CLSG is to supply electricity to Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea but what is now happening is that the CLSG is only is supplying Sierra Leone with power,” he informed his colleagues.
Rep. Morris’ assertion was triggered following a presentation by the authorities of the LERC, LEC and Ministry of Mines and Energy attributing the outage of electricity to the low water inflow at the Hydro and some debts owed the MLSG, among others.
But the Montserrado County lawmaker explained that after the lighting of some rural parts of Sierra Leone by its President, Julius Madabio few months ago, it was observed that the current was somehow unstable thus leading to the Sierra Leonian government citing some authorities from the Ivory Coast to explain the reason behind the electricity instability.
“It will interest you to note that the folks from Ivory Coast attributed the fluctuation of electricity in Sierra Leone from Liberia because Liberia has the breaker that is intended to regulate power from the CLSG to Sierra Leone at the Mount Coffee Hydro and that it was tripping because the power from the hydro is not sufficient to keep the breaker up for Sierra Leone to have stable electricity,” the lawmaker revealed.
According to him, following series of engagements between both governments, the Liberian government then in an attempt to regulate the current supply, has now purchased two 200KVA generators which are now at the Mount Coffee with a mandate to only maintain and ensure that the breaker is up for Sierra Leone electricity to be stable and regular at all times.
He wondered, “Does that make sense. For you to be doing something for other country that you cannot even do for your own people and it is all because we do not appreciate what we have and not even value ourselves?”
Meanwhile, the Mont County District 1 Representative has also disclosed plans of a massive protestation to be undertaken anytime soon by constituents if nothing is done to ensure that the Liberian government disembarks from the stabilization of Sierra Leone electricity while Liberia suffers stable electricity.
“Though I am having series of dialogues with my constituents; there is a likelihood that in the coming next two to three months or so, we will witness real protest action at the Mount Coffee Hydro because you cannot be cooking the food and still be hungry,” he added.
