By Septimus Senessie in Kono.
Hundreds of residents of Koidu, the headquarters of the eastern district of Kono stormed the streets on Sunday night jubilating over the solar street lights after they were powered on for the first time.
It was the test phase at key locations including Post Office Road, Old Yengema Road, Bongalow, Number Nine and Yardu Road.
Men and women, young and old – but mostly the children – took to the streets as most were seeing street lights for the first time because it had been almost forty years since the streets lit up.
Coordinator of the civil society organization Leadership Efficiency Advocacy for Development-Sierra Leone (LEAD-S/L), described the electrification of the streets in Koidu as “the start of a thousand mile journey of the development of the district”.
Even though he thanked the government for it, Berns Komba Lebbie said the district deserved more than the solar light on a few streets “considering the economic viability of Kono and how its diamonds have helped bail out the country.”
Lebbie said that the 20-kilometer road work in Koidu was ineffective and accused government of not taking any action to make it right nor had it told the people of Kono where the problem lay.
He slammed the poor water and sanitation situation in the town saying “the water project is nothing to talk about” bemoaning that the district had been lagging behind the rest of the country despite its huge mineral and human resources.
In an exclusive interview with Politico, the field engineer for the solar electrification project of Kono who works for Angeliane International Limited, Subhash Chandra Singh, confirmed that it was meant for two months and would end in mid July.
He said the whole solar project throughout the country was being funded by the government of India through Exin Bank and that they had so far planted and connected about 300 poles. He said that by mid July they would have completed installing all 800 poles on 12 major streets and 28 public places in the town, adding that the life span of the panels is 20 years if properly managed.
