The Edo State House of Assembly
has directed the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) to restore light
forthwith to Igarra Community in Akoko-Edo Local Council of the state.
The Speaker, Victor Edoror gave
the order yesterday in Benin after the company’s Executive Director, Abu Ejoor
had briefed the House on the development which had thrown the entire community
and its environs into darkness for over a month.
The Guardian learnt that, central
to the crisis, was the decision by the utility firm to remove a 2.5 MVA
transformer donated to the community by the council which was vehemently
resisted, leading to the impasse at hand.
Ejoor, who was in the Assembly to
clarify the matter and state the position of the distribution company regarding
the alleged harassment of the lawmaker representing the area in the House,
Emmanuel Agbaje, said power had been compromised arising from energy theft by
customers, which he noted, was hindering effective electricity metering.
He said though the firm had
metered over 100,000 customers since it took over the defunct Power Holding
Company of Nigeria (PHCN), “but because of the undermining gap, you cannot feel
the impact.
“Energy theft is a major issue.
People should be disciplined enough to allow that energy work.
“If people are compromising
electricity supply, others are paying for it.
“Before we came onboard, over
7,000 customers paid for meters and the monies paid for this metres were no
where to be found.
“Yet we initiated a process to
meter such customers. Even though we advertised the initiative in the
newspapers, only 2,600 customers had come forward to collect their
metres,”Ejoor disclosed.
On the blackout, he accused the
youths of preventing his officials from retrieving a 2.5MV transformer so it
could be replaced with a 7.5MV facility.
Ejoor maintained amid the youths’
resistance that the facility retrieval was inevitable, as the community had
outgrown the current capacity.
He further attributed the
darkness to the N300 million indebtedness of the residents, adding that the
youths had also gone on rampage and “vandalised our insulators.”
The Speaker, besides ordering the
immediate restoration of electricity to the community, said it must be “without
the collection of N750 fixed charge for the period of power outage.”
He also amongst others asked BEDC
to liaise with the representative of Akoko-Edo State Constituency to remove the
2.5MV and install the 7.5MV facility.
Credit: Guardian
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