Electricity crisis in the country that cannot pay the Turkish company

Sierra Leone’s Minister of Energy, Kanja Sesay, announced that power outages occurred in the capital, Freetown, as a result of the Turkish company Karpowership reducing its electricity supply due to an unpaid debt of 40 million dollars.

Speaking to Reuters, Sesay said that as a result of the subsidies implemented by the government, a large debt was created over time. Noting that the government had to support the subsidies due to the rapid depreciation of the local currency against the dollar, the minister said that after the Karpowership decision electricity supply to the capital decreased by 13 percent.

The Sierra Leone government had created a commission to discuss raising electricity rates.

Reuters reported that the company Karpowership signed agreements to supply electricity to the country in 2018 and 2020. The news noted that the Turkish company has agreements with other African countries that have electricity shortages.