IBRAHEEM MUHAMMAD
President Muhammadu Buhari has inaugurated 330/132/33KV sub-station at Akurba village in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital.
The power sub-station was one of the projects marked out for inauguration by the President during his two-day official visit to the state
The President did not make any speech.
His host, Governor Abdullahi Sule was accompanied by Governors Yahaya Bello of Kogi, Simon Lalong of Plateau and Atiku Bagudu of Kebbi.
Other guests are: Minister of Power Abubakar Aliyu; Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami; Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonnaye Onu, and Mohammed Abdullahi, Minister of State Science and Technology.
Alhaji Abubakar Aliyu, the Minister of Power said the project was one of the legacy projects of the President in Nasarawa State, and that the project which was started in 2017, had been completed and the people of the state were already benefiting from it.
He listed some benefits of the project to include rapid growth in the socio-economic activities by a way of attracting foreign investors who will create jobs, which will eventually change the standard of living of residents in the state.
He said small-scale businesses such as hairdressing, barbing, welding, tailoring are already benefiting from the quality electricity from the sub-station since it began operation few months ago.
He added that with the official inauguration by the President, Nasarawa State had become a centre of electricity distribution.
On the issue of estimated billing, the Minister said measures were in place to tackle it by ensuring that every consumer is metered.
He explained that under the mass metering initiative of the Federal Government, over one million people were metered and over four million were available for distribution in the second phase of the programme.
Aliyu added that the plan of the FG was to make sure that every electricity consumer is metered so as to permanently tackle the problems associated with estimated billing system.
“When everyone has a meter, every customer is at liberty to waste his electricity or control it,” the Minister of Power added.
The Minister, therefore, assured the public that the Akurba power sub-station and other projects by the FG would be fully utilised, given the government’s huge investment in infrastructural development.
The Niger Delta Power Holding Company ( NDPHC ) undertook the project.