Monrovia – Vice President Joseph Boakai has commended the new management team of the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC) for the level of progress made so far and promised government’s continued support to the corporation in its efforts to take affordable electricity to the people.
The Vice President made this remark when the Managing Director of LEC Mr. Foday Soko Sackor paid him a courtesy call to provide him detailed update on the current status, and progress being made at the LEC.
According to Mr. Sackor, current Sales in kilowatt hours are up by 31%, Revenues are up by 12.6%, and Gross profit is at 41.9%.
“As our generation potential goes up, we will definitely increase our power supply to the people and subsequently reduce tariff”, said Mr. Sackor.
It was recently announced by the LEC in line with the President’s address to the nation, that electricity tariff will be reduced by 20 percent (from 49 cents per kilowatt hours to 39 cents per kilowatt hours) as of March 1, 2017.
Vice President Boakai congratulated the new management team on the many successes highlighted in the report.
“This is the first time I have had such detailed report from the LEC and I must commend the new management on the many successes in this detailed update.”
“We want to congratulate you for the efforts so far.
This is why I believe that Liberians can efficiently run the LEC. I’m sure with the strategy that you have put in place, you will succeed,” he said.
Power theft was also a key issue during the discussion. According to the LEC, a total of 33% of its total power generation is being lost through power theft.
“The LEC is losing about 2.5 million dollars monthly due to power theft.
There have been over 400 arrest made including some large businesses. We need the support from the Executive and the legislature to help us reduce power theft. We need stringent laws to deter would be perpetrators from engaging into power theft,” Managing Director Sackor said.
It is important to note that the current management team has alleviated a backlog of 2,500 pending connections and maintenances they inherited from the previous management team.
The corporation in a single day recorded of 583 new customer connections as compared to previous connection averaging 200 connections a month.
According to Mr. Sackor, Tuesday and Thursday have been set aside for community outreach activities where all managers including the Managing Director are out in communities connecting new customers and carrying out repair works.
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