Osun Assembly gives IBEDC 48hrs ultimatum to restore power in Ife-North LG

Osun State House of Assembly Speaker,  Mr Timothy Owoeye, on Wednesday gave Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company, IBEDC, 48 hours ultimatum to restore electricity supply to Ife-North Local Government Area of the state.

Six communities in the local government, including Ipetumodu, Edunabon, Moro, Yakooyo, Asipa and Akinlalu, had on September 23 this year protested against 4 months blackout due to breakdown of 7.5MVA sub station transformer in Moro.

While meeting with officials of IBEDC led its Regional Head, Osun, Mr Akin Ogunleye at the House of Assembly, the Speaker said the lawmakers would watch their people suffer because the company failed to discharge its responsibility.

He added that “Whether you repair or replace the transformer, you have to restore electricity to the communities in the next 48 hours. It is a known fact and law that it’s not the responsibility of electricity consumer or community to buy, replace or repair electricity transformers, poles and related equipment used in the supply of electricity”.

However, in his response, Ogunleye said the company cannot raise N90 million needed to replace the faulty transformer having agreed that it is better to replace than repairing it at a cost of about N35 million.

In his words, “When we were contacted on the power outage, we got to work thinking that it was a minor fault that we can 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 28 to 35 million Naira, experience had thought us that it is not the best to repair but replace with a new one which is in the region of N90 million which IBDEC cannot afford”.

The meeting, however, agreed that IBEDC Managing Director appears before it on October 26 with a template that would ensure that electricity is restored to the areas.

Credit: Vanguard