…Bad Management and Corruption

By Mohamed Kamara

The Deputy Minister of Energy (1) Mr. Edmond B. Nonie has revealed at the usual press briefing organized by the Mining of Information and Civic Education at the Civic Hall (formally Miatta Conference Hall) on Tuesday April 7 2026 that the Government of Sierra Leone is making moves to ensure that the Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority (EDSA) be privatized by December 2026.

He furthered that the Capital City Freetown is presently being supplied by between 50-70 Megawatts while other districts are supplied with electricity from Solar Generators which is less than 6% Mega Watts.

Madam Isatu Savage, a retired Civil Servant in an interview with this medium said it’s no secret that government moves to privatize EDSA is due to decades old financial related corruption in the institution which from our archives emanates from political to managerial corruption which result to bad or ineffective management despite government or donor financial supports.

She said in Sierra Leone over the decades, institutional corruption has forced the government of the day to borrow Internal, bilateral and multilateral loans from World Bank, International Monetary Fund, (IMF) African Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank etc.

She said even when the government announces huge sums of energy bailout from concern financial institutions and governments, the implementation despite being technical slows down and finally dies out, adding that

anyone who has being following the financial news in favor of energy development would not hesitate to question why is it that Sierra Leone still depends on Guinea, SLST, Kapowership and the Ivory Coast to boost the country’s energy sector when we have all the national resources to boost our energy needs.

Madam Savage maintained that what is real is that like Sierratel like EDSA.

Political observers are speculating that the next parastatal on the list to be privatized will be Guma Valley Water Company.

The only way to keep our non- performing parastatals is by privatizing them.