Rev. Simon Asige, a retired educationist and minister with the World Light Temple is sad, depressed, and disappointed to return home only to realize that his community, Sherigu Kumbilingu in the Bolgatanga Municipality of the Upper East Region still lacks electricity after over four decades of living and working outside the community.
Formal education and work took him out of the community for more than 40 years though he intermittently visited the community and was aware of the situation. However, he is yet to come to terms with returning home following his retirement having reached the retirement age of 60 to see his community still without electricity.
He said prior to his retirement in 2014, he was convinced the area will soon have electricity following the extension of poles with some wiring done which signaled progress in connecting the area to the national grid. Work has for years stalled with residents saying no further step has been taken to address their concerns.
Though delighted to be alive to talk about the concerns of the people, the retired educationist is sad and depressed that he had to live through different phases of Ghana’s development and still has his community backward due to the lack of electricity.
On how this is affecting the residents, he explained that the community would have seen better development if it had been connected to electricity.
He said residents are compelled to walk towards the main Sherigu township to grind food items and charge their mobile phones among other things he considers as basic and could be done in the community if electricity is extended to the area.
The unfortunate development he recounted is hampering quality education since children are drawn back and cannot read at night.
It is therefore his hope that the various stakeholders charged with the responsibility of connecting them to electricity will act swiftly without any further delay to address their concerns.
“Just before I retired in 2014, I was told that they had already sent the poles and I knew that I was coming back home to meet the light. Only for me to have stayed for seven good years now and no electricity. Honestly speaking, I feel terribly bad that in my own community, we don’t have lights, and we have to go all the way into town to perform common tasks like grinding food items.
Unfortunately, this has impacted education in this area negatively because they don’t have lights to sometimes read at night. People are compelled to walk about two Kilometers to just charge their phones.” The retired educationist and minister of God cried out.
