By Mark N. Mengonfia
Monrovia-Feb-16-TNR:Many Liberians have over the time complained of constant outages of power being provided by the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC).
Often, power goes off without prior notice to those who are dependent on businesses or home services. This issue has reached Plenary of the House of Representatives with one of its members raising the issue of the constant power outages in recent times.
Representative Taa Wongbe of Nimba County District No. 9 has written that august body requesting that the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Board Chair of the Liberia Electricity Cooperation (LEC) and the Managing Director of the Liberia Electricity Regulatory Commission (LERC) appear before Plenary to discuss an urgent matter pertaining to the inconsistency of the LEC power supply across Montserrado.
The Nimba County lawmaker also talked about recent accusations leveled against the LEC boss regarding the reasons for his high salary compensation. “We would also like to know what Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) he was hired to deliver on,” the Nimba lawmaker said.
He told his colleagues that several residents have been forced to sleep in darkness due to the extremely uneven and subpar distribution of power supply. “We have also seen citizens dying because of lack of electricity in hospitals and other health facilities,” he intoned. The lawmaker said the situation poses a major security risk.
He highlighted various reports in his possession which he said seems to be a governance issue at the LEC, with the current CEO also serving as Chairman of the Board. “We would like for him to clarify this along with the justification for his monthly salary, and that of the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at the LEC, which is reported to be US$17,000.00 and US$26,655.00 respectively.”
“We would ask him to clarify the KPIs for his role in relation to Liberia Electricity Cooperation’s productivity and the best way to handle this issue of stable electricity,” he said.
With a motion from Rep. Muka Kamara, the communication from the Nimba County lawmaker was sent to the House’s Committee on State Enterprises to report in a week’s time.
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