Post a comment
His Excellency President Julius Maada Bio has said that it was time to correct the historical injustices that Kono had suffered from for far too long by delivering to the district a fair share of national development in appreciation of its critical place and significance within Sierra Leone’s economic and revenue matrix.
President Julius Maada Bio was speaking at the commissioning ceremony of the CLSG electricity in Kono, where he also extolled his government’s human capital development initiative and called for the productive use of energy.
Welcoming His Excellency and his entourage, Regent Chief of Gbense Chiefdom and the Chairman Council of Kono Paramount Chiefs, Chiefs A.M. Kamanda and E.Torcheh Foyor in that order, said the people of Kono were more than delighted to be connected to the CLSG grid, noting that Kono was determined to show their appreciation to the President at the polls.
While officially switching on the light, President Bio said electricity was a critical driver of national development, adding that there was no way his government was going to maximize the benefits of its flagship human capital development initiative without energy.
He praised the Minister of Energy and his team for achieving such a stunning feat, noting that the Minister needed to take the plaudits for his special effort in making sure that Sierra Leone started to use the CLSG electricity even before Liberia and Guinea.
President Bio said his government was still making serious development strides in the face of the harsh economic situation brought to bear on the entire world by the COVID-19 shocks and the lingering Russia-Ukraine crisis.
He spoke about the Millennium Challenge Compact which he said was holding a lot of positives in store for the energy sector and appealed to the people of Kono to overwhelmingly support him in his second term bid.
President Bio concluded by calling for the productive use of energy and by encouraging women and artisans or skilled men to make good use of the electricity to enhance their livelihoods.
Energy Minister, Alhaji Kanja Sesay, said the occasion was in fulfillment of a promise President Julius Maada Bio had made to the people of Kono with respect to electricity.
He gave a historical background to the CLSG project and informed the gathering of the significant technical works that had been done on the project in Sierra Leone, adding that the CLSG electricity in Kono was going to be on a 24-hour basis.
“Let me use this opportunity to announce that with the intervention of President Bio, we have come with five thousand meters for the people of Kono which you are going to get without any cost,” the Energy Minister announced to the acclamation of the jubilant crowds, while also cataloging a number of towns in the district that would soon benefit from electricity.
Mr. Sesay concluded by informing the gathering about mutually beneficial partnerships that his Ministry had forged with mining companies for the productive use of energy, citing the Power Purchase Agreement he signed with Koidu Holdings as a typical example.
