By Tilly Barrie
Director of energy, ministry of energy, Benjamin Kamara, has told a validation workshop for ECOWAS energy access investment programme at Leone Lodge in Freetown that the government was planning to increase access to electricity across the country.
The director said to operationalize and achieve the ambitious target set up in the ECOWAS white paper, each member state was tasked with the responsibility of setting institutional frameworks responsible for increasing access to modern energy services, including establishing a multi-sectoral committee that would allow for the involvement of all sectors and not only those in the energy sector.
Head of energy and environment at the United Nations Development Programme, Saskia Marijnissen, said in 2009 their regional office commissioned an assessment to identify the capacity building needs of ECOWAS member states to ensure improved access to energy services for rural and urban population.
“The report has four key recommendations.Institutional support for access to energy services, strengthened human resources, establishment of national multi-sectoral group and the development of an energy access investment programmes”, she said, adding that with the lack of adequate investments and insufficient private participation in energy development initiatives, the government was faced with a challenge to increase and diversify access to modern energy services for all, especially in rural and peri-urban areas.
Deputy minister of energy, Martin Bash Kamara, agreed that access to modern electricity services in rural Sierra Leone was among the lowest in but with the highest electricity tariff in Africa.
“Rural people use charcoal, firewood and kerosene for lighting their homes and cooking their food. Often these have negative consequences on their environment and their quality of life”, he said, adding that in February 2011, the country held its inaugural meeting of multi stakeholders’ group on access to modern energy services.
Public or private investment, he noted, was very low and said they needed investment in the solar energy sector.
(C) Politico 03/12/13
