By Olamilekan FAWAS
The immediate past Chairman, Nigerian Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Mr. Emmanuel Akinwole, on Wednesday urged the Federal Government to give loans to electricity distribution companies to replace their dilapidated equipment.
Akinwole made the appeal in Lagos. He said such a loan would enable electricity consumers to enjoy improvement in power supply.
According to him, most equipment for distribution of electricity nationwide are bad and require replacement. “DisCos rely on these dilapidated equipment to get supply to consumers in different parts of the country.
“Some of the transformers used by these companies have outgrown their usefulness, while some cannot work for two days in a week before breaking down.
“Some areas have been on outage for weeks, months and even years, due to rotten equipment owned by DisCos.
“DisCos have resorted to begging communities to buy transformers and cables by themselves to be able to enjoy electricity supply whereas this is supposed to be part of their responsibilities,” he said.
The former chairman said the recent increase in power generation had yet to be felt by most Nigerians because of distribution challenges.
“When it rains in some areas in Lagos, there will not be supply for about seven days; some DISCOs have continued to reject energy allocated to them by Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) due to bad equipment.
“Consumers are being forced to pay for electricity that is not available; government should have a roundtable with them to tackle these challenges.
“We know what government has achieved in transmission; it should reflect distribution. If it is loan or grant that they will need to improve on their networks, the government should assist them; the increase in power generation has not reflected in many homes,” he said.
