By Crispina Cummings
Parliament on Tuesday ratified the West Africa Power Pool (WAPP) project which deputy Finance Minister Momodu Kargbo said would be financed by the ECOWAS Commission with a US $ 21 million grant. Kargbo said the National Power Authority would be the sole beneficiary of the project that will include the import of petroleum products.
MP for Constituency 98 in eastern Freetown, Karifala Conteh said that apart from the NPA and BKPS, "the WAPP project on its own can solve the energy problem of Sierra Leone". He said Sierra Leone was lagging behind other partner countries noting that by 2007 Ivory Coast had a capacity of 1,400 megawatts with almost half of that coming from a hydro source, while Guinea Conakry had at 331 megawatts by the same year.
The MP said that during the same period, Sierra Leone could only boast of generating 5 megawatts, which he described as "shameful". He thanked President Ernest Bai Koroma "for his strides in moving Sierra Leone from that position to about 30 megawatts in 2014 and congratulated the minister for signing the agreement.
Andrew Lungay, MP, of the SLPP said he was disappointed that while Ghana started their hydro program in1957, Sierra Leone was starting only now.
He said the recent sacking of the minister would not solve the problem but that all monies allocated to the ministry must be properly taken care of.
Paran Tarawally, MP also of the SLPP called for "sustained electricity" instead of emergency power projects".
(C) Politico 27/02/14
