Bauchi State government has said it spent about N400 million on repairs of broken-down electricity transformers and fallen poles in many rural areas across 20 local governments of the state.
Governor Bala Mohammed made this known during his ongoing project inspection tour to one of the benefitting rural areas in Toro local government of the state at the weekend.
Mohammed, who lamented that almost all the affected rural areas have been disconnected from the national grid due to activities of unscrupulous elements, charged all benefitting communities to protect electrical installations in the area to check the activities of vandals.
“We are here in continuation of our project inspection tour, we have a very good initiative based on the promises we made to our people that we are going to reactivate all the power lines in Bauchi state that have fallen down”, he said.
The governor, while lamenting that almost all electricity poles installed during the administration of former Governor Adamu Mu’azu have collapsed due to activities of vandals, said at the time he took over, no single electric pole was in good shape.
According to him, “from here Hawan Panshanu up to Bauchi, there was no light, from Bauchi up to Lanzai there was no light, from Bauchi through Ganjuwa to Ningi there was no light, from Bauchi going through Dass and from Bauchi to Alkaleri, there was no light”.
The governor, who said that the state government decided to look inward to do the job through direct labour, noted that he had set up a committee under the chairmanship of the commissioner for power with members across party lines to look into the problem of the power sector in the state.
The governor said out of the N400 million earmarked for the repairs of the transformers, N370 million has already been released for the job. He expressed delight that all the areas mapped out for repairs have been completed and light restored.
According to him, two other areas that are still pending would also be completed soon, adding that the remaining N30 million would soon be released to enable the committee to complete its assignment.
“During the execution of the project, we had a lot of challenges, where there was no community buying and then thieves and hoodlums came and stole some of the installations but we quickly worked with the traditional leaders, we have told them that it is their property and they must guard it against thieves and vandals”, he said.
