THE Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) on Wednesday, told the State of Osun House of Assembly that it would cost a whooping sum of N90 million to restore power supply back to communities in Ife North Local Government, which have been experiencing power outage for some months.The Regional Head of Osun Region of the IBEDC, Mr. Akin Ogunleye, stated that the distribution company had tried its best in resolving the power outage, thinking that the situation is what it can handle until it found out about the whooping sum which the company could not afford.
ADULAWONEWS had last week reported that the House of Assembly summoned the Managing Director of the IBEDC, the Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC) and the Federal Competition and Consumers Protection Commission (FCCPC) after a motion by Hon. Lekan Olatunji over the power outage in the area.
According to Ogunleye, the best solution to the problem is to replace the faulty transformer with a new one but the company is faced with paucity of fund and cannot for now take the full responsibility of restoring power to the affected communities in the local government.
He said: “When we were contacted on the power outage, we got to work thinking that it was a minor thing that we could fix; only to find out that the coil of the transformer had gone bad.
“The bill we got for the repair of the transformer was around N28 to N35 million, experience had taught us that it is not the best to repair but replace with a new one which is in the region of N90 million, which IBEDC cannot afford now”.
The Speaker of the Assembly, Rt. Hon. Timothy Owoeye, stressed that the Assembly won’t stand and watch residents of the state thrown into darkness without finding a lasting solution to the situation.Owoeye adjourned the meeting till October 27, 2021 for IBEDC to come up with a solution template.