Delta community’s power project faces fresh challenges

The efforts of Ogwashi-Uku people in Delta state to restore electricity in the community may have hit a brick wall, as indications emerged that the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) may have denied any knowledge of the community’s efforts towards fixing its long-standing electricity blackout.

Findings from indigenes that were privy to a recent meeting between the host community and BEDC, hinted that the Distribution Company (DISCO) may have washed its hand off the contract awarded by the people of Ogwashi-Uku to an engineering firm to fix the DISCO’s obsolete equipment within the community in December last year.

It will be recalled that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Agency (NERC) had warned communities to steer clear of repairing the installations of DISCO’s handling their various states, as in line with the law setting up the various companies; it is not the duty of communities to rehabilitate disco’s equipment.

NERC in an advertorial published in some national dailies sometime in December last year had also instructed communities who desire to fix disco’s equipment by themselves to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the company and forward same to their office for future guide against any breach.

In a bid to embark on self-help towards restoring electricity to their community, Ogwashi-Uku community have had to embark on fund drive among its indigenes, which led to a son of the community donating about N20,000,000 for the repair and replacement of BEDC obsolete equipment within the community.

“The move is to ensure that Ogwashi-Uku is lighted up again before Christmas.

We are determined to achieve that goal and to that effect, contract has been awarded for the repair of BEDC equipment within the community,” an emissary to the financial donor had hinted at a meeting convened over the awarding of the contract sometimes in early December, 2016.

Findings however by our reporter revealed that while the contractor handling the project has replaced some of the fuse boards located in strategic parts of the metropolis, that is, cables in various parts of the quarter in the community are still lying on the ground, while some of the electricity poles are yet to be fixed.

Although efforts to reach the contractor for comment did not yield result as our correspondent was not able to get his cell phone number as at the time of filing this report, investigation and reports from sources who spoke on condition that they would not be named in print, hinted that the contractor has in recent times, maintained that he has complete4d the contract projection line with its contractual obligations.

But sources who were privy to a meeting between BEDC officials and members of Ogwashi-Uku Development Association (ODA) recently disclosed to our reporter that the disco has washed its hands off the efforts of the community to fix the obsolete equipment on the ground that they were not aware of the move and so, were not carried along in line with NERC directives.

The President-General of the town’s Union, Sir Emmanuel Okafor when contacted over the matter, revealed that the town’s union has convened a meeting over the matter. “But the meeting will hold when the contractor handling the project is around so that we can know exactly what the problem is”, the president-general said. But to a swift reaction, the Public Affairs Manager of BEDC in Edo/Delta State, Mrs. Esther Okolie denied knowledge of any working agreement with the community, stating that the community was yet to sought out itself from many issues regarding the project for the light.