-Joe Lahai
The Director General of the Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority (EDSA), Joe Lahai, has said the arrears institutions owe EDSA far Outweighs what EDSA owe the National Revenue Authority.
Engineer Joe Lahai made this revelation at a news conference while trying to clear the air over the decision taken by the National Revenue Authority in sealing the office of EDSA for failing to pay taxes amounting to over three hundred thousand New Leones.
Addressing newsmen, Lahai explained that even though quite a good number of government institutions owe EDSA, that does not in any way mean that they are going to do ‘tit for tat’ like what NRA did. “We are quite aware that we do owe NRA, and we are committed to settle the arrears as agreed upon in a meeting. But we also want the media and the public to know that there are quite a good number of institutions that owe EDSA huge amounts of money, but we believe that as a government entity, there’s no way we can resort to “tit-for-tat’, but believe in constant negotiations, which is the only way forward to resolve it. We are also working on the verified data base of arrears owed to us by all institutions, as what we want is to put out a verified arrears list, which will be difficult to contest” Lahai said, adding that “On the issue of arrears with NRA, we have held negotiation talks with the Ministry of Finance to see how best we can settle the arrears.” When asked about concerns raised by NRA that EDSA had done similar things amounting to deprivation of NRA not accessing electricity, Lahai said the information is not true. “There’s no way we can deprive NRA from accessing electricity supply. Power distribution has no discrimination, and so if anyone says such, then the individual might not be saying the truth. Once the particular feeder is energized, there’s going to be free flow of electricity to all those connected, and we have no way to stop those connected from accessing electricity.
On his part, Deputy Energy Minister 1, Edmond Nonie, agreed that indeed the EDSA office was sealed because of arrears owed to NRA, but said however, negotiations are ongoing for the payment. He told journalists that the issue will soon be resolved, as the office has been open for business.
Deputy Energy Minister 2, Dr. Abdul Rahim Jalloh, said negotiations are ongoing to address the issue. “We have been negotiating with Finance Ministry, as we don’t intend going the same direction. We are serving government and we want to ensure the issue is resolved amicably.
The news conference was held at the conference room of the Ministry at Percival Street, where journalists from different media houses covered the event.
It is important to highlight that EDSA has been cooperative.
Hon Kekura Vandy from the Sierra Leone Parliament stated that based on Parliamentary findings, the sector is challenged and
major reforms only took place in 1995 and facilities rehabilitated.