By Bampia James Bundu
Dozens of youth in Portee, eastern Freetown, have threatened to burn down the National Power Authority (NPA) transformer, for what they claim is a biased supply of electricity within the vicinity.
One of them, Isatu Kamara, told Politico that the Wharf Road, Zara Lane and other streets had been getting regular supply of electricity for weeks now, whereas William Street and the other parts of the same community up to Brima Lane continued to "suffer from blackout".
She alleged that they had never got any explanation from the authorities at NPA as to why the community was separated when the whole area used to share the same electricity line.
“The blackouts in one area continue to get the youth angry. They are angry because they always feel neglected by NPA,” she complained and urged central electricity grid to come to the aid of the community before "something serious" happened.
“The youth have plans to burn down the transformer and we are all going to suffer from that,” she said concernedly, pointing out that it was really disheartening to see light next door when others didn’t have it.
Meanwhile, the public relations officer of NPA, Victor Wilson-Clarke, has cautioned the youth not to take the law in their hands urging them to report any grievances to management for further action.
He confirmed that they had received such complaints from people in that community but that they were working hard to ensure that the problem was fixed.
“The community has expanded and our transformer can no longer supply everywhere. So we have to ration the supply of power now”, he said, adding that if they found out that the problem was caused by any of their workers, they would take appropriate action. He, however, appealed to the agitated youngsters in the community to serve as watchdogs and protect NPA property instead of destroying them.
Wilson-Clarke assured that the fault would be resolved immediately as they had already dispatched technicians to check out the problem.
(C) Politico 28/01/14
