Commentary

By Ronald Williams (RAW) , USA.

Along the lines of credibility, politicians have to learn to be careful in their desperate attempts at finding something to criticize or risk losing credibility. Well, one has to have credibility to begin with to be in a position to lose credibility. Here is one of his statements amongst many I find to be very odd and to an extent distasteful.

“It has been real punishment for consumers in various parts of Freetown with the frequent and sudden power cuts in the midst of jubilation by unconvinced hired APC supporters.”

How can it be “real punishment” to experience frequent and sudden power cuts today when you are coming from a state of constant blackout? At least they have some electricity today. You cannot lose what you do not have. The writer(veteran SLPP politician Dr. Sama Banya) uses the adjective “sudden” to describe power outage today. One would think the power outages of yesterday were scheduled.

He then says: “There can be absolutely no justification for this situation.“

By what logic of expectation does Dr. Sama Banya or anyone else think the Bumbuna project would/should start and it would be pump uninterrupted electricity to the entire country all at the same time? Is he suggesting all or nothing? What is wrong with the APC government starting from whatever level the electricity output is at now and work its way up and improve on it? Or is Dr. Sama Banya so accustomed and dedicated to the alternative, the old way of doing things, the downhill doctrine I call it. Take what is good and run it to the ground or that which is already bad and make it worse, with passion, prejudice or sometimes both.

Should the APC government not have commissioned the project because it would not light up every house and hut in the country? I do not know which one is more appalling, the idea or the suggestion.

Can someone ask him what the justification was for years and years of blackouts? I heard he was an active participant in that situation, so maybe he should comment on that.

It is from statements like these Dr. Sama Banya is making you get to know whether someone is part of the problem or part of the solution.

Editor’s note: We publish below Dr. Sama Banya’s article:

By Dr. Sama Banya, Freetown, Sierra Leone.

We are confused and not quite sure what the electricity supply to the city is right now. It has been real punishment for consumers in various parts of Freetown with the frequent and sudden power cuts in the midst of jubilation by unconvinced hired APC supporters; the situation deteriorated over the weekend. There can be absolutely no justification for this situation. After all, no one coerced the government into rushing to commission the Bumbuna hydroelectric dam which had taken 34 years to complete.

The APC it appears has been more interested in scoring a propaganda point than in bringing constant and clean electricity to Freetown. Who would have thought that so soon after all the publicity and the singing, druming and dancing that what is coming out of Bumbuna is no better than the output of the Japanese Mitsubishi generator and the global machines were putting out before?

I am particularly disappointed that Professor Ogunade Davidson had allowed himself to be involved in this deception of the consuming public. He and the general manager of NPA Dr. Zubairu Kaloko owe us an explanation. The question is simple, is Bumbuna operating at full capacity? If so why is it not supplying all the parts of the city at the same time and why the frequent blackouts? If the answer is in the negative then why all the unnecessary noise about the project now satisfying the needs of the city?

I laughed the other day when my poor illiterate relative asked whether it was true that the key for the machines (meaning the turbines) were at the Vice President’s residence. When I laughed at the naivety of her question she said that it was because from what she’d been told, the Bumbuna machines were huge but she couldn’t hear the sound when she visited King Tom. I had to explain that there were no such machines at King Tom and that even at Bumbuna it was impossible to hear the sound of the turbines from where the commissioning ceremony took place because they were way down at the bottom of the river. We may laugh but from what we are currently going through, there is no point in NPA being mumu about the situation. The people are by now accustomed to their inconsistencies, even the dancers......