Makeni residents say "they will sue EDSA to court" over Blackouts

By: Alsuine Rehme Wilson Some residents in Makeni, mainly women, have told Awoko Newspaper that they’re unhappy with the extensive power outage in the city and its environs especially with the way and manner the Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority in the area is regulating the supply of electricity. Most of them in conditions of animosity said they’ve and are still being subjected to suffer a lot of damages with their freezers, televisions, fans plus their other electrical devices as a result of the irregular-rotational supply of lights in the city. “Our livelihood for over ten years now depends on our freezers from where we freeze and sell cold water and assorted drinks on daily basis but since EDSA started giving us on an off supply without any public notification, most of our freezers and other electrical device have been damaged, some are beyond repairs which has increased the burden on us. “Our once bright city is no longer called the city of light and it’s now hard for some of us to be able to make our daily livelihood since we no longer get enough electricity supply as it was before,” they further stated. For other residents, many of whom are elites, they've described the situation as an unfortunate one and blamed the Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority and its partners for treating the issue with levity. “EDSA just give and take lights as and when they like without thinking of the negative impacts such practice will have on us consumers and subscribers to their prepaid meter services. It’s unfair and if this situation of persistent power outage continues it will cost most of us not only educational but socially and economically as well.” Juldeh Bah, a retailer who sells Ataya, coffee and groundnuts at his show which is located along Azzolini highway with bravery told Awoko Newspaper that he has experienced drastic decrease in his daily sales since July, 2020 and blames it to the irregular power supply in the city that has saw his shop getting lights twice in every seven days. “I’ve to pay the Makeni City Council my business licenses fee for 2021 and even this year I’m yet to pay because of the reduction in my daily sales and I pray that the council’s metropolitan police don’t come and ask me to pay soon because I don’t have that money yet. If the blackout continues, customers will not be visiting my shop at night to interact and buy my commodities and I will be left with only one option which is to fold up my coffee and ataya business,” he disclosed. For some members of the Academic class in the city and its environs, “they’re threatening to sue the Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority to court for failing to communicate to them as customers the coax of the persistent blackouts, as well as for depriving them the use of services they are paring for, if its management don’t respond to grievances soon.” These grievances from residents of Makeni, the largest city in the Northern region of Sierra Leone, comes exactly twenty-one months since the city lost its pride as the one time city of lights after the Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority region announced in July, 2022 there was going be rotational supply of electricity for a period of two weeks to let them conduct the annual routine repairs at the Bumbuna Hydro dam,” but after a month when they finally completed the repairs, the city has seized until presently to enjoy its once 24 hours electricity power supply but remains gripped by rampant blackouts. When contacted to speak on the concerns from their customers, officials of the Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority in Makeni says “the issue of blackout is not our making but one that has to do with the increase in the number of customers which remains very challenging for us as an Authority to supply electricity as before when the number of uses were not bloated as it’s now.”