My strategy for addressing unique power challenge in C/River —Eyo Ekpo

0
174
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Our Correspondent|6 December 2018

Mr, Eyo Ekpo, the Governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) has told members of the private sector of his plan to tackle the power problems of Cross River State NEGROIDHAVEN has garnered.

Eyo Ekpo who was speaking at the 76th Annual General Meeting and Conference of the chamber, with the theme, “Repositioning Cross River State for the Future” said “We have 660 megawatts of electricity and a large gas pipeline that goes to Lafarge and regrettably we have not taken advantage of it by ensuring that we work with Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company to deploy more distribution transformers across the Southern part of Cross River State. Instead, unfortunately, the Governor has spent time, efforts and money we don’t have building a 26 MW diesel fired power plant to do what? Who will buy expensive diesel electricity when there’s abundant and far cheaper gas-fired electricity in the same vicinity? The Cross River diesel electricity may never be dispatched because no one, except perhaps, CRSG itself, will buy it.

Ekpo added that “Cross River does not have a generation problem in the Southern part, Instead, we have a distribution problem and what my government will do is sit-down with PHED, ensure we enumerate all our customers, meter them and then put together and implement a credible plan for delivering many more transformers across the Southern part, just as has been done in the Northern part.

“Go to the Northern part of Cross River and you will see transformers spaced literally from between 50 and 100 meters but ironically we don’t have generation in the North. This is the opposite of the problem in the South. So that diesel generator we have in the South at Parliamentary Road, Calabar, if at all needed, should have been in the North and we should be working on distribution in the South. So that is the challenged that we have. You don’t see transformers in Southern Cross River like you see in Ogoja or Obudu and this is what we need to achieve.” He stated.

Ekpo explained that he intends to sit with the private sector in the state, when he becomes governor too trash out this issue as.

He added that “In the central part of the State what we have is hydro-electric resources. We have natural waterfalls in Agbokim, we have a dam at Obudu and I gather there’s one in Boki also. Till date not even 1 kilowatt of electricity is being generated from any of those sources. Between Obudu, Boki and Agbokim we can easily get 100 MW of electricity, and Ikom and other parts of the Central Senatorial District will not have the challenges it has as our commercial and agribusiness powerhouses. Also, the North won’t have the problem it has with electricity generation. The North have enough distribution facility and all they need is for energy to flowing through those facilities and then we ensure that they are properly maintained.” Ekpo concluded.

Earlier declaring the occasion open, the CALCCIMA, Mr. Efa Imoke welcomed all participants at congress and charged them to pay rapt attention to all that will be done as it will be beneficial to the operations of their business in the state.