Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC) Acting Managing Director Mohammed M. Sherif has threatened potential power shedding and a return to electricity instability if Liberians continue to engage in power theft.
Speaking Monday, May 5, 2025, on a local radio station in Monrovia, Sheriff disclosed his five-year vision aimed at ensuring Liberians and businesses have access to reliable, affordable, quality, and sustainable electricity.
“Electricity shading, in the context of solar panels, refers to the reduction in electricity generation when sunlight is blocked by an obstruction, such as trees, buildings, or other panels, leading to a decrease in the overall power output of a solar photovoltaic (PV) system. This shading can significantly impact the efficiency and performance of a solar installation,” he said.
The LEC Acting Managing Director warned Liberians to desist from power theft and pay their electricity bill, as it will only cause the institution to revert to load power shading for communities, which he said is not good.
According to him, they have brought in over fifty thousand meters in the country to connect Liberians, and created a digital strategy and dashboard tracking to curb power theft.
“We need to pay our bills. We need to think about all the enjoyment we are receiving. You see how enjoyable it can be when you leave jobs and come home and see electricity. You no longer sleep in the heat. Just think about it. If you can’t pay, we will go back to where we were before- load power or electricity shading for communities. We have a way of tracking those involved with power theft. We have a dashboard at LEC that we can use to track you,” he said.
According to him, his vision aligns with President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s energy vision, saying, “When I met the President, his vision is that in five years, everyone, each and every business should have access to reliable, affordable, quality, and sustainable electricity. And that is the vision we carry across the board.”
“We have developed our 90-day action plan intended to reduce load shedding. But we can only achieve this vision if we do it collectively,” he stated.
He narrated that in the next five years, there will be nothing like load shedding; Liberians should get ready to buy their electricity token because the recent sustainable electricity that Liberians are enjoying is here to stay, as the government has deepened regional network with Ivory Coast and Guinea for power supply.
Commenting on domestic generation, he pointed out that they are looking at the entire value chain of generation, transmission, distribution and commercial to optimize domestic production.
Also, within the project, those working on the power plant will be trained in Liberia with a technical college and hospital to support local generation; this is expected to be completed between 15-16 months, producing the first 140 megawatts.
Sherif disclosed that the second project is the Sola Plant extension of the Mount Coffe Hydro to 40 megawatts from the current 88 to 100 megawatts, and another solar plant will be made available by October 2025.
“We also have another 16 megawatt, which is technically twenty megawatts from the IAC Project in the Shuffling area. We are in the process of completing the legal leasing agreement. So, when all those are added, our domestic generation may not even lead us to import electricity and that is where we want to go. So, this year, we are relying on import leveraging on our regional network. But, in the future, these are the sustainable plans,” Sheriff noted.
The LEC Acting boss disclosed that on May 3, 2025, an instruction was given to release US$4.5 million to Ivory Coast for the payment of the electricity supply and another USD 500,000 was sent to pay for the transmission, and those funds are coming from LEC’s personal revenue.
