The Rural Electrification Agency (REA) has unveiled plans to complete part of the 1,994 abandoned rural electrification projects across the country.
In a statement according to the MD/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of REA, Mr. Ahmad Salihijo Ahmad, he was said to have disclosed this in an interactive session with the media in Lagos.
He said that due to paucity of funds and vandalism of power assets, the agency would not be in a position to complete all the 1,994 abandoned projects.
REA is an agency of the Federal Government established to provide reliable electric power supply to rural dwellers irrespective of where they live and what they do, in a way that would allow a reasonable return on investment through appropriate tariff considered economically responsive and supportive of the average rural customer.
Ahmad, explained that the abandoned projects were legacy projects transferred to REA when it was carved out from the Ministry of Power, saying some of the uncompleted projects dated back to 2013.
He said the REA was formally a department in the Ministry of Power and upon its upgrade to a fully fledged agency, all the projects that were initiated under the defunct department were subsequently moved to the new agency.
The REA Managing Director, while confirming the existence of the abandoned projects, said that was part of his first intervention upon assumption of office over two years ago.
‘‘When I assumed office, I had to call for the files of these abandoned projects and thereafter appointed officers to visit the various sites of these projects. Upon submission of the various site reports, it was clear that we couldn’t go on with some of the projects because some of the project sites had been vandalised and equipment carted away while we could not get budgetary allocation to continue with others,’’ he siad.
He added that the agency managed to fund some of the projects from the budget allocated to it to ensure that they are completed to serve the purpose it was intended for.
‘‘If we decide to complete all the 1,994 projects, we may end up struggling with it for the next two years due to paucity of funds while other new projects that need urgent attention may suffer for it due to paucity of funds. So what we have decided to do is to strike a balance.
“Many projects that cannot be completed but rather we would be more strategic in selecting fewer projects that will impact more on the people that it intends to serve by completing them,” he said.
On efforts to achieve steady power supply to SMEs, Ahmad said REA in partnership with Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) is developing a 1MW power plant for the Wuse Market in Abuja.
He hinted that the poor state of power supply to the market was hurting the fortunes of SMEs traders at the market, with noise pollution from the huge number of generators at the market posing more health for the traders’ wellbeing.
