Family desperate for electricity demands answers

An elderly father from Saoluafata has gone public with an appeal to the Electric Power Corporation (E.P.C.) to find out what happened to their application for their home to receive electricity.

Afuvai Maselusa, who is 60-years-old, visited the Samoa Observer, to express his concerns saying he has attempted many times to get answer from E.P.C. only for his pleas to fall on deaf ears.

Afuvai claimed that his family paid $300 for the connection fee to E.P.C. workers when they visited for an inspection of their property in March. 

"We just want some answers," he said.

"Our only source of light at night is a kerosene lamb. As you can imagine this is not safe for my children, especially the chemicals and the smell. We’ve been facing difficulties for months now and we need our electricity light as soon as possible."

Afuvai said he and his family are originally from American Samoa but they recently moved to Saoluafata.

He said he visited the E.P.C office countless times but was given the same response.

"They always say later," he said. "Which is very sad to me. It’s very inconvenient and it's bad service to make people wait like this for so many months and to be given the same response when we visit their office.

“I spend money as well on my transportation fares to town and given how many times I visited their office, it’s really not sitting well with me.”

Afuvai even revealed the name for their account, Susiolefeagaiga Maselusa, to make E.P.C. aware.

"I just want them to deliver the service we paid for," he said. "When they came, they said they cannot work until we paid. And we did."

Attempts to get a comment from the E.P.C through emails and phone calls were unsuccessful.