By Alusine Fullah

Minister of Energy, Alhaji Kanja Sesay highlighted the activities of his ministry at the Weekly Press Conference conducted by the Ministry of Information and Civic Education Hosted at the Foreign Affairs Conference Hall. In his opening statement, the Minister Said He Has Been Looking for Such Opportunity to talk to the Press. He went further that he wanted to talk about the Sector and that he is not only talking to people in the hall, but Sierra Leoneans outside the Hall as well. He continued that He was given the mantle of the Sector by President Bio to accomplish his Presidential manifesto.

The Minister furthered that President promised to improve the energy sector and also promised to diversify the energy sector through Thermal, Bumbuna and Renewable Energy.  The minister continued that the Country Receive Eighty Three Percent of Bumbuna Electricity, and that is also possible when the Hydro has a full supply of water

He mentioned some Agencies like EGTC and EDSA, saying that EGTC is responsible for the Supply of electricity and they act as a Referee and also responsible to regulate electricity but people always blame EDSA for power supply outage.

The Minister furthered that Freetown in Particular was supplied by Bumbuna plus other Branches like Kingtom Mini Power Grade and others which supply about 27 percent of electricity supply. He continued that after taking over governance, they met Karpowership to negotiate on the project negotiated by the previous overnment that agreed on 19. 4 Cents and after 22 with their new negotiation, they agreed on 16 Cent as against the previous 19 Cents by the previous government.

The minister also said that through their new negotiation they Agreed on A Five Years Contract Instead of the Demanding Fifteen Years Contract by Karpowership. He Furthered  that Karpowership has ten machines in its disposal, and each machine is supplying twelve megawatts and they negotiated to get about sixty megawatts.

He told the People about government effort in injecting a lot of money into the energy sector. He also talked about the privatization of the selling of meters, and that government is not involved in the selling of meters.

Mr. Kanja Sesay boasted that the government is electrifying Bo, Kenema and Kono Districts and also touched on the transferring of generators to distribute and supply lights. He said that government received support of 17 Mega Watts of Solar by the World Bank and Seven Mega Watts is allocated to Freetown and 10 megawatts is allocated to Lungi for the electrification of the Air Port.