Ondo communities to get light oon

After 16 months of power outage, succor may soon come the way of communities in Ondo State South Senatorial District, if the measures put in place by the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC), is anything to go by.

The BEDC boss in control of Ekiti and Ondo States, Mr. Edgar Ernest, who signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), last week to that effect, noted that the N1.9b debt estimated for the six councils in the district has been classified into pre-privatisation and post-privatisation, starting with Odigbo Local Government Area.
He revealed that the first phase would cover Odigbo LGA with a term of agreement that stipulates the outstanding debts for the local government will be divided into two: pre-privatisation and post-privatisation.
“Pre-privatisation means debts prior to co-investors’ taking over, which is from November 2013. On post-privatisation debts, we have agreed that customers will make payment of 50 per cent of that immediately.”
The BEDC chief stated that the other 50 per cent would be paid over a period of three months that has started counting, while the pre-privatisation will be paid over a period of one year.
While lamenting the power outage in the country for over two weeks now, which he attributed to vandalisation of pipeline that has drastically dropped the power supply for BEDC mandate areas to nine per cent, Edgar expressed the commitment of the company to providing adequate power supply to consumers, as the bottlenecks that marred power distribution in the past have been promptly resolved.
“Once you pay your bills as at when due, we are statutorily obliged to render adequate services to our teeming consumers. I am assuring you that the restoration bid will be extended to other councils in the area.”
The Chief Technical Officer of BEDC, Mr. Ashok Acharya, who represented the Managing Director, explained further that the company is making frantic efforts to serve its customers better. Acharya said the major drive of the company is to be self-sufficient in terms of generation and distribution.