BEVERLY HILLS, October 10, (THEWILL) – Respite is in sight for commuters that ply the both trunk A roads, as
The Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has directed the contractors handling the Owerri/Aba and Owerri/Port Harcourt roads to return to site immediately.
This was disclosed by the Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, after he hosted the Minister on Tuesday at the Government House.
According to the Governor, the contractors have been given a marching order to ensure that the roads are completed without further delay.
“The Honourable Minister for Works, Housing and Power is in Imo State for a short meeting,” he stated.
“I have made my concern known to him as regards the neglect in the State, especially with regard to the Aba-Owerri road and Port-Harcourt-Owerri road.
“And currently, it appears to me that the Minister has done a lot on his part to ensure the completion of those roads”.
“The Minister has also informed me that he has called the contractors concerned to see me immediately with a view to completing the Aba – Owerri road project and Owerri – Port-Harcourt Road projects.
“We also talked about the issues of power in the State. He has indicated the interest of his Ministry to ensure a stable power supply. We have also discussed about the Federal Housing project which he promised that the issue of land will soon be resolved.”
The Minister, while briefing Journalists at the end of the meeting with the Governor, said “We came in for our monthly Power meeting. Some of the issues we discussed were the expansion and distribution network of some of our communities like Nebo, New Heaven, Onitsha, Aba, among others on the power quality and service experience.
“We have grown the generation capacity from 2,696 MW in 2015 to 7,000 MW in September this year. Transmission has also improved from 5,000 – 6,900.
“We now have a new problem and that is our production capacity has exceeded the distribution company’s wholesale power. So, power currently put on the grid is 4,600MW, Compare that with what we had 3years ago, we have essentially doubled it, but we can do more.
“These monthly meetings help us to do local diagnosis to what’s happening in this local Disco. To what is happening in this local communities. Some of these things I have spoken here, I have also addressed the community issues across the country, communities that host power stations without power. We are solving them one after the other.
“The governor has also brought my attention to Egbema Power Plant and its challenges. We inform your Excellency that we make progress month by month.
“We expect that your power experience should be better and how to extend services to places like Nnewi, Ihiala and Okija which are parts of the Enugu distribution franchise. We can’t discuss power in these areas without the inter-state geo-metric power issue. And how to solve it.”
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