The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) has incurred the anger of Niger State government which accused it of persistent power outage despite the state’s nearness to the power source.
The state Commissioner for Works, Alhaji Abdulmalik Cheche, who spoke to news men shortly after the State Executive Council meeting, complained that the power failure in the state has persisted despite government’s pleas to the power company to increase electricity supply.
He said that the state which hosts three Hydro power generation stations with 4,800 megawatts combined capacity (1,600MW each) should not suffer power outage, adding that since AEDC has refused to increase electricity supply, the state government will stop all payment to the company.
“It was resolved in the council that the state may decide to stop its own debt payment to the AEDC if the service they provide did not improve. The state has also resolved to stop provision of transformers since the power sector is no longer owned by the federal government but the private sector.”
Cheche asked the people of the state to be patient on the matter and that government is planning for an alternative source of power supply.
“We are calling on our people to continue to exercise patience as plans are under way to have an alternative state owned backup power supply that will be generated and distributed directly to the state.” [myad]
