From Ighomuaye Lucky, Benin
The Management of Benin Electricity Distribution Company BEDC (PLC), yesterday, attributed the incessant vandalism of its facilities to poor power supply to its franchise states.
The Chief Technical Officer of BEDC, Mr. Jonathan Lawani, who disclosed this on behalf of the management while addressing Journalists in Benin City, however, appealed for government’s stringent measures to curb energy theft.
He said the company had more than 10 cases of vandalism while two other persons were electrocuted in the process.
Mr. Lawani said that the claim that those vandalizing their equipment are staff is not 100 percent true based on the evidence before them adding that, the two persons electrocuted were not their staff.
Lawani while responding to why there is still no electricity despite claim by the company that the ongoing upgrade of facilities have been concluded, he said that immediately the company was done with that, the issue of unavailability of gas stepped in.
“Yes, the project has been completed, we are suffering because generation has decreased but the advantage and the potential benefits for us , is that, the minute that generation increases, we are blessed to have this project completed because we will now have capacity to take more energy”, Lawani said.
He said as soon as there is enough gas supply, the company is sure of increasing its energy supply to its customers.
He also said that the era where community assists the company with facilities and thereafter asked to pay some money to fix them is over adding that such cannot be tolerated again.
He said any community or individual that wants to assist the company must liaise with it so that it will be guided on the best equipment to buy in order to avoid a situation of causing more damage to the company in a bid of trying to help