Expert Tasks Amaechi On Rural Power Supply

An appeal has gone to the Rivers State Governor, Rt. Hon Chibuike Amaechi, to expedite action on the implementation of the initiative aimed at making rural communities have unfettered access to clean electricity supply.

General Manager, Joelink Electrical Industries Limited, Engr. Madu Chigemezu, who made the appeal in Port Harcourt in an interview, described the rural electrification initiative as a strategy with potential to reinvent and reinvigorate socio-economic development of the rural communities in the state.

Chigemezu said that as one of the Niger Delta states, Rivers State was faced with high topographic challenges, and noted that only such a pragmatic approach aimed at providing electricity to the rural mass, would lift the state from the shackles of poor communication infrastructures, poverty occasioned by weak economic foundations, create employment, reduce criminality, elevate social lives in the hinterlands and check rural-urban drift.

The general manager observed that the rural electrification project embarked upon by the administration has developed too many cogs in its wheel, and urged the government to take decisive action on this issue of public importance to fast-track the process in the interest of the generality of Rivers people, who reside in the rural communities, where electricity is a luxury instead of a necessity.

On the newly commissioned Trans Amadi Gas Turbine facility, Chigemezu, commended the government for the success recorded so far, and noted that with the two turbines functional and added to the rural electrification template, the state would be the haven for both local and foreign investors.

He, however, frowned at the inability of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to evacuate the power generated by the gas turbine facility, and described the situation as an irony and a discouragement to a lofty goal.

While taking a swipe at PHCN’s lack of transparency and embedded corruption, the general manager, expressed confidence that with the renewed impetus brought to bear on efforts to reform the power sector by President Goodluck Jonathan, the dream of solving the nation’s power problem by breaking the monopoly enjoyed by PHCN on power distribution would be realized.  

Chigemezu advised the president to be strident and decisive in taking decisions relating to the decentralization of power distribution in Nigeria by granting licences to interested states and corporate bodies to build infrastructures necessary to improve the power distribution network in most states and communities, especially in the Niger Delta, where a lot of power generation infrastructures have already been built. 

Chris Oluoh