The Minister of Energy, Hon. Cyril Arnold Grant, has warned that electricity theft and illegal connections are pushing Sierra Leone’s power sector to the brink, as accumulated debt in the sector has now exceeded US$200 million.
Minister Grant disclosed on Tuesday, 10 November 2026, during the Government’s Weekly Press Conference organized by the Ministry of Information and Civic Education at the Miatta Civic Centre, Youyi Building in Freetown. The special session focused on electricity theft and illegal connections.
He said the mounting debt, accumulated across government institutions, businesses and other electricity consumers, poses a serious threat to the financial stability and operational efficiency of the electricity sector.
“Electricity theft and illegal connections are undermining the effective operation of the national power system,” Grant said.
“This is not just an institutional problem. It requires all of us, government, electricity providers, security agencies and consumers, to work together.”
The Minister identified electricity theft and illegal connections as major contributors to revenue losses, describing the practices as serious threats to the country’s electricity supply system. He cited cases in which electricity meters are bypassed or improperly installed, allowing some consumers to access electricity without paying for their actual consumption.
He warned that unless electricity theft is addressed, it could further undermine the revenue base of electricity providers and deepen the financial challenges confronting the sector.
The growing arrears have weakened the capacity of electricity institutions to sustain adequate power generation and distribution, carry out essential repairs, maintain infrastructure and improve service delivery.
Against this backdrop, Hon. Grant disclosed that a task force operating under the Office of the Vice President had been established to investigate and address the underlying challenges affecting the electricity sector.
He said the task force is expected to conduct comprehensive assessments of electricity consumption, inspect meters, identify illegal connections and investigate meter tampering and other forms of electricity theft.
He also urged consumers to pay for electricity through authorized channels, avoid illegal connections and meter tampering, and report suspected electricity theft or damage to power infrastructure to the relevant authorities.
The $200 million debt is a sharp rise from the nearly $100 million debt the Minister revealed in December last year, when he said about $50 million alone was owed to Karpowership, the Turkish company that supplies a large portion of Freetown’s electricity.
He had also disclosed then that the government owed close to $20 million to another foreign power supplier, CI Energies of Ivory Coast, plus debts to solar companies and to Guinea for electricity.
EDSA continues to lose nearly 50% of the power it generates due to non-payment and tampering, according to the Minister’s earlier explanation.
For residents in Waterloo, Calaba Town, Tombo, Newton and across Freetown, the crisis means more blackouts, overloaded transformers, burnt cables and falling poles that take days to repair.
In October, Minister Grant himself slammed EDSA for failing to inform the public about prolonged outages across the Western Area, and for delays in restoring supply after basic faults.
EDSA officials blamed overloaded transformers and rising demand from new communities that now exceeds network capacity.
An official from the Ministry of Energy told The Informant Newspaper that several projects are expected to improve supply, including the Peninsula-Waterloo transmission line funded by Japan through JICA, the World Bank-funded Energy Sector Utility Reform Project, the NANT 108MW Generation Project scheduled for first commissioning in Q1 2027, and the 40MW Innovent Solar Project in Benguema scheduled for completion in January 2027.
But Minister Grant insists none of those projects will work if theft continues.
“We need collective action. If we steal electricity, we steal from ourselves. We steal light from our hospitals, our schools, our businesses and our children.”