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10 communities lament five years of outage

By Ekemena Azaino
11 January 2016   |   11:16 pm
TEN communities in Ovia North East Local Council of Edo State are lamenting the absence of electricity in their area for the last five years.
Electricity poles in the community

Electricity poles in the community

TEN communities in Ovia North East Local Council of Edo State are lamenting the absence of electricity in their area for the last five years.

The communities – Egbetta, Utese, Uhen, Ogbese, Olumoye, Ugbuwe, Aghanokpe, Okodo, and Ugbodo – said despite the numerous presentations made to both the federal and state governments, and the various promises obtained from them, the situation has not changed, as they still live and sleep in darkness.

Speaking with newsmen at the weekend, youth president of Utese communities, Mr. Terry Ebose, said the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) denied the communities electricity, a situation that is yet to be rectified by the successor company, Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC).

Some years back, there were challenges ranging from power supply distributed to these communities. The PHCN had complained that its installation that supplied the communities at Okada was not able to distribute to other communities. After a while, we started experiencing some epileptic supply in a sharing scheme that saw us not having light for two weeks, before we were completely forgotten for five years.”

According to him, BEDC had refused to restore electricity to them on the allegation that the communities had owed over N900,000 within the period under review. ‘’When we heard this, we were astounded at the huge debt we were alleged to have owed the distribution company, but after some thorough review of the situation, the outstanding bill amounted to N349,000, which we agreed to pay after we are reconnected, despite placing many of us on estimated billings.’’

Also commenting, the chairman of Egetta Community Development Association (CDA), Mr. Austin Ediae, said there is no explanation for the current state to which the communities have been subjected.

He, however, called on the state government to come to their rescue as it has become very difficult for the communities to carry out most of their businesses without electricity.

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