By Sayoh Kamara
Enough is enough. Sierra Leone’s electricity sector has become a monument to incompetence, mismanagement, and quiet corruption—and the numbers coming from the World Bank should make every citizen furious. EDSA now owes Independent Power Producers over US$91 million, up from US$70.6 million just months ago. That debt alone now accounts for more than 1% of our entire GDP.
Let’s break it down:
How does a utility that forces Freetown residents to install prepaid meters—pay before you even switch on a light bulb—still manage to run into this level of debt? How does EDSA, surrounded by meters everywhere from Hill Station to Calaba Town, only collects 76% of its billed revenue?
The obvious questions EDSA is not clearly answering: Where is the remaining 24%? Who is feeding on it? And how long will we pretend not to know?
Meters Everywhere, Money Nowhere—The EDSA Mystery:
Freetown is metered. You pay to charge your meter. The meter deducts your units, and the lights go off when your credit is finished. That’s the simple reality.
So why is EDSA acting like a blind beggar holding an empty bowl in the middle of the market? It is because the system is deliberately designed to fail, and the beneficiaries of that failure are hidden in the shadows of EDSA’s own operations.
The Real Leaks and the Protected Scoundrels In The Dark:
The “Technical Losses” Fairytale: EDSA loves to hide behind the excuse of technical losses. Yes, the network is old. Yes, transformers blow. But technical losses cannot explain a quarter of revenue disappearing each month. That’s not poor infrastructure. That’s poor accountability.
Illegal Connections: A National Curse: To speak the uncomfortable truth, illegal connections are not happening without insiders.
EDSA field staff, technicians, and meter readers are part of an underground network engaged in bypassing meters for the right price. Businesses pay for illegal hookups. Some “big men” get special treatment. Some homes have sophisticated heavy duty appliances that consume huge wattages that are bypassed from meters.
Meanwhile, the honest consumer pays more to keep the system from collapsing entirely.
Government Arrears—The Sacred Cows:
Some of the worst defaulters are government ministries, military installations, the police, and even water systems. They consume, don’t pay, and walk away untouched—leaving EDSA to bleed.
When government fails to pay, EDSA collapses; and when EDSA collapses, the citizen suffers. It is that simple.
Internal Fraud; The Open Secret:
The internal thievery perpetuated by EDSA is far-reaching including, fraudulent vending, ghost customers, token manipulation and manual overrides. The billing “adjustments”-buying EDSA top up with the same amount of money but with varied tokens (units) is one mysteriously manipulation that appears to benefit some people within.
There are employees in EDSA who are millionaires today because the system is porous by design.
IPPs Bleeding, Country Suffocating:
Independent Power Producers (IPPs) have reached their breaking point. They generate power, but EDSA doesn’t pay. So they delay supply. They cut generation. They threaten shutdowns.
As a consequence of these rogue behavioural conducts, what follows are debilitating and frustrating: incessant blackouts, load shedding, crippling businesses, strained hospitals and healthcare centres and citizens and overwhelmed in darkness; literally and economically. This is not mismanagement anymore. It is sabotage of national development.
The Big Question EDSA Must Answer Now:
Where is the 24%? Where is the money that consumers paid?
Where are the units that were bought but never accounted for?
Where are the revenues that should have cushioned the utility from collapse?
Where is the leadership? And most importantly: Who are the individuals and institutions benefiting from this deliberate state thievery?
A Call to Action: Enough Silence:
Sierra Leone cannot continue to dance around this crisis. This is not a technical issue. It is a governance scandal, which by all indications requires: a forensic audit of EDSA’s entire revenue chain, a crackdown on illegal connections; starting with the big offenders, a mandatory payment by government institutions with no exceptions, a public disclosure of EDSA’s monthly collections and losses, and indeed, an immediate institution of reforms of the leadership that has allowed this rot to deepen.
Is darkness therefore a Business in Sierra Leone?
Ironically, it appears as though darkness is profitable to EDSA as its inefficiency becomes institutionalized. The people pay. The meters tick. The units disappear.
But the money; our money, never finds its way to the power producers who want to keep this nation vibrant.
Until we demand real accountability, Sierra Leone will remain a country where the citizens pay upfront for electricity and still sit in the dark wondering who is stealing their light.