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Senate committee chides Discos for poor power supply

By BusinessNews Staff on April 24, 2014

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Power and Metallurgy, Senator Philip Aduda, has expressed dismay over the epileptic power supply in the country and lamented that despite the completion of the privatisation of the power sector last year, Nigerians have been complaining of incessant outages.

Aduda stated this on Tuesday while briefing journalists on the two-day assessment tour of the sites of some electricity distribution companies within the Federal Capital Territory as part of the oversight functions of his committee.

He noted with concern that Nigerians had anticipated substantial improvement in power supply since the privatisation process was concluded.

“All what Nigerians want to see is substantial power supply. I am no longer comfortable with the situation of power outage in the country; that is why we decided as a committee to embark on a two-day oversight function that will enable us to see things for ourselves,” the senator added.

At the office of Kann Electric Distribution Company, Aduda said he told the Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Neil Croucher, that the committee members were there to see facilities put in place to ensure service delivery to Nigerians and to ensure that the government’s 40 per cent equity in the firm was being properly maintained.

“This is paramount because we can only talk of industrialisation when there is adequate power supply,” he said.

The senator stated that the Federal Government had done well by ensuring that the privatisation process was successful, “hence, we expect nothing less than adequate power supply in the country.”

He pledged that his committee would not relent in its oversight function until the situation would have been completely brought under control.

Aduda said that handlers of the Kwukwu-Aba transmitting station had promised that the facility would improve and stabilise power supply in Abuja not later than June 30.

He, however, said the gesture was not limited to Abuja only but all over the country, with the various distribution companies working hard to ensure steady power supply.

He added that consultants at the Apo substation had attributed the epileptic supply of electricity to problems of generation and transmission, but that the issues were being attended to at the moment.

The senator maintained that all what Nigerians wanted was adequate power supply and, therefore, charged the electric distribution companies to intensify efforts in order to meet the June 30 completion date of the project.

[Punch]

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