The Ministry of Energy and Power has made substantial progress in helping to restore electricity to Freetown and the provinces since the end of the war. Though power cuts are still not uncommon in the capital city, the power supply is rapidly improving. A huge amount of work has gone into repairing sub-stations and other installations damaged during the conflict, despite Freetown being under additional strain as a result of the influx of people escaping the war.

The immediate priority for the ministry and the National Power Authority (NPA) is to maintain current generating capacity, estimated at about 30MW, and to maintain existing transmission and distribution lines to ensure delivery of supplies to the people who most need it.

The national grid effectively covers three parts of the country: Freetown, Bo and Kenema. In the longer term, there are plans to extend the network right across the country to bring light to all the provinces and districts of Sierra Leone.

‘‘Focusing our attention on billing’ Emmanuel Grant

One of the crucial factors is money. Energy Minister, Emmanuel Grant, says he is eager to see foreign investors take a more active role alongside the international donor community.

Links with the private sector are already in place, including organisations from Libya and South Africa, while an Italian group is behind the long-awaited Bumbuna hydropower project, stalled by the war. There are still a lot of issues to resolve before the country can hope to bring in independent power producers though, including tariffs, taxes and concession agreements.

Private investment will be crucial, however, if Sierra Leone is to improve and extend its electricity network. Mr Grant says the money supplied by the EU to repair damaged power infrastructure is inadequate. “That money is only meant to rehabilitate the transmission and signal lines that were destroyed by the rebels, but the entire distribution network is in very bad shape. We need about £19 million to refurbish the entire distribution and transmission network.”

The small size of Sierra Leone could be a deterrent to some British investors, although the potential scale of the West African Power Pool – of which Freetown is a signatory – is impressive. There are plans to interconnect Sierra Leone with other countries in the region linking it with larger economies such as Cameroon, Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire.

The NPA is working on another programme to improve revenue collection and bolster its finances. Mr Grant says there has been little or no control over billing in the past, although things are changing. “It has been difficult for them to collect bills. So we are now focusing our attention on seeing whether we could use pre-payment meters, as these would be able to record most of the bills.”

One thing is certain, the energy crisis is pervasive – energy is fundamental to the development of the nation. “You cannot industrialise without energy. You cannot educate your child without energy or even take care of the sick without energy.”