Mr Bamidele Faparusi, the Commissioner for Infrastructure and Public Utilities, who made the demand at a news conference in Ado Ekiti, said “the demand is a matter of right, to shore up electricity supply.”
The commissioner said the current epileptic power supply across the state was becoming worrisome, coupled with heap of complaints by residents.
Faparusi said the state government, in partnership with with some agencies, planned to lay 2,000 kilometres fibreoptics for improved internet connectivity across the state.
“Power is important to any economic development, full power supply could make life comfortable and stabilise the economy for the people across the state,” he said.
Faparusi also said the state government engaged TCN and the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) on how to overcome low electricity supply and arbitrary billing.
“We are having challenges because we have no full control of how electricity is supplied, it is private driven.
“The focus of the Electricity Distribution Companies (DISCOs) is to make profit, but they need to be fair to people. The major bottleneck we identified has been inadequate allocation of power from the national grid.
“We are getting 20 mgwatts, instead of 200 mgwatts which is grossly inadequate to distribute to the people, although BEDC has been sharing the little energy, unfortunate, it is quite inadequate,’’ he said.
On water, Faparusi disclosed that the state government was working hard for the distribution of potable water across the state.
He said efforts were also being intensified to ”banish” open defecation out of the state, adding that toward this end, it had commenced building of toilet facilities across the 16 local government areas.
“We are rehabilitating Ero and Egbe Dams to full capacity to supply water to 14 local government areas of the state.
“We are also delivering 250 kilometres of pipeline across Ado-Ekiti metropolis in partnership with European Union (EU) and World Bank. We are also extending pipelines from Ado-Ekiti to Ifaki-Ekiti.”
