Since 1972, the Electric Power Corporation has served Samoa by connecting families and communities to the electricity and to date, 99 per cent of the nation has access to the electricity with one per cent being connected through solar panels.

Starting this Sunday, EPC will celebrate 50 years of its’ existence to honour the service of founding employees who started from the bottom with barely enough technological support and the ongoing commitment of over 300 of its employees.

Manager Corporate Governance, Tuiafelolo John Stanley and E.P.C. Chief Engineer, Tupa’i Posi Latu announced the three-day program for EPC’s 50^th anniversary in a media conference on Friday.

“We praise God for 50 years of EPC’s journey to this day. Despite the many challenges with the extreme weather events and other experiences, but we praise God for 99 percent of the country has been connected to the electricity,” Tuiafelolo said.

“The purpose is to thank God and second, is to celebrate those who has served in the sector since 1972 to this day. We have only just started our careers at EPC but there were those that started this sector in the previous years, some have passed on and some have retired so it’s our appreciation of everyone who have had their own contributions to EPC in all these years.”

Tupa'i reminisced on the number of challenges EPC experienced in their 50 years journey.

“EPC faced many challenges since beginning especially when it comes to equipment, and we relied on manpower mostly unlike today given how fast technology is today. Back then we would walk all the way up to mountains to connect electric lines as I said, manpower and skills,” Tupa’I said.

“Diesel was the only source of energy used back then and now solar is a big help especially for rural areas.”

Another challenge EPC endured in its early years is the lack of engineers to make work easier although a few foreign engineers were available and hired from overseas at the time when needed.

Meanwhile, not only the numbers of local engineers have increased, but there is quite good gender balance in EPC now.

The celebration will commence with a service on Sunday at the TATTE Convention Center, followed by a slideshow to be displayed during the service which will showcase those that have worked at EPC in its’ early years, sharing their experiences about the lack of equipment, poor safety, insurance and many more interesting topics.

An Open Day has been scheduled for Monday which is open to the public but mainly targetting students to explore the work EPC does in the country.

At the same time, three choirs who were selected during the week from the choir competition will perform their final performances at TATTE.

The logo competition winner will be announced on Tuesday together with the wining choir during the prize giving as the final event of the anniversary.

Of the 58 entries, only three were shortlisted for the $3,000 prize to be announced on Tuesday.

EPC’s 50^th anniversary is also included in the government’s year-long independence program of the nation’s 60^th anniversary.