• Edo: Obaseki Gives BEDC seven-day Ultimatum to Restore Power

Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, has given a seven-day ultimatum to the Benin Electricity Distribution Company to restore power supply to consumers in the state within a week or risk a shutdown of its offices.

Obaseki gave the ultimatum while concluding the ward-to-ward campaign of the All Progressives Congress in the Egor Local Government Area of the state, where he urged voters to support candidates of the APC in the 2019 general elections.

The governor lamented that the Disco had continued to frustrate his efforts to ensure that residents in the state got stable electricity to power their businesses.

“BEDC has continued to put us in darkness in the state and we will give them seven days to restore electricity or else we will shut their offices down in the state,” he said.

Speaking during the campaign in Ward 9, Obaseki said N500m had been set aside in the 2019 budget to construct an entertainment park and waterworks, urging residents in the ward to support the APC candidates to represent them at the state and federal levels.

He said, “We have awarded the contracts for the repair of the failed portions of Okhoro road and the contractor who went on holiday has resumed work with the promise to start work next week.”

He described Ward 10 as a special ward that had several federal and state institutions, stating that his administration had completed the design of the Technical College road and awarded the contract.

“I have also asked the contractor to rehabilitate Adolor College Road and in two weeks’ time, contractors will commence work,” he assured.

The governor further noted that the rehabilitation work on Adolor College road had become important because over N300m had been spent so far in revamping the Government Science Technical College which would be reopened for academic activities in September 2019 with 1,500 students.

He said, “Due to the work we are doing at the college, the Minister of Power has promised to give us a direct line from Ihovbor Power Plant to help light up the state. Officials of Transmission Company of Nigeria are already in the state preparing the ground to bring power and to enable the people to enjoy 24/7 electricity.”

Reacting, the company in a statement by Head of Corporate Communications, Mr Tayo Adekunle, said that the Disco did not need an ultimatum to restore power in the state.

The Disco said, “Since late December, power has been restored to most parts of Benin affected by the outage caused by faulty power transformers used by the TCN to wheel power to feeders supplying electricity to the Benin metropolis. Average availability in most locations presently is a minimum of six hours.

“Except for few locations with technical fault or isolated issue, nearly 80 per cent of Benin has power supply. As a service provider, BEDC is committed to improving service delivery to the good people of Edo State and other coverage areas. We reconnected three communities in Ekiti and one in Ondo in December, in addition to 42 communities restored back to the grid as of last November.”

“In all our coverage states, we do not need an ultimatum before fixing issues affecting our service delivery.”