OGHADA – Expectations are high in some communities in Orhionmwon and parts of Uhunmwode local government areas of Edo State, as maintenance work on broken down electricity cables, poles and transformers in the area is expected to commence soon.
The communities which include Abudu, Evbuobanosa, Iguomoson, Uvbe, Igbogiri, Iru, Ofien, Idudolor, Evbuohen, Evbosawe, Ugboayon, Oza, Ugbeze, Oghada, among others have been without electricity for more than five years.
Our correspondent observed that, youths from the affected communities since last Friday embarked on clearing and cutting down of trees along the cable lines to enable engineers have unhindered access to the faulty equipments.
According to a youth leader in the area, Saturday Irabor, the Agbor business unit of Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) notified the communities of arrangements to reconnect them back to the national grid.
Irabor said the repair works was supposed to commence “on 23rd of December last year”, adding it was deferred “to January” this year due to the festive period, hence the communities mobilised themselves to create a conducive environment for the engineers, to fastrack the repair work.
When contacted, the AGBOR business manager could not be reached for comment, but an official who spoke on condition of anonymity at the unit said the development is not unnconnected to ongoing network clean up exercise geared towards improving service delivery in line with BEDC’s Service Reflective Tariff (SRT) regime in the electricity supply industry.
The official was however silent about the electricity debt owed by the communities, which BEDC earlier said prompted it to suspend service to the area.
Efforts has been made in the past to fix the problem, but to no avail, until May last year when Edo State Oil and Gas Producing Areas Development Commission (EDSOGPADEC) installed 2.5MV/3311VA transformers at Oghada community to boost power supply to the affected areas.
However, barely two months after the installation, vandals struck and went away with the armoured cables in the transformers which they later abandoned inside a bush where the community recovered them.
Most businesses that depends on electricity are expected to bounce back when finally fixed, as some business owners has been forced to either close shop or relocate elsewhere, thereby crippling socio-economic activities in the area.
