The Oyo State House of Assembly has summoned the Commissioner of Energy, Mr. Seun Ashamu, some personnel of ministry of energy and Oyo State Rural Electrification Board, over abandoned and uninstalled transformers across local governments in the State.
The lawmakers during the Tuesday plenary lamented the condition of abandoned transformers procured by the Executive Arm of Government in 2011.
In a motion jointly moved by Femi Julius Okeyoyin (Saki-West), Abiodun Fadeyi (Ona Ara) and Kazeem Olayanju (Irepo/Olorunsogo), the lawmakers noted that electricity is indispensable in the socioeconomic development of the nooks and crannies of the State.
In the motion, the lawmakers lamented that some transformers purchased by the then government with tax payers’ money worth billions of naira were rotting away in different locations across the state.
“The public properties procured with public fund ought to be protected and utilized for the purpose of their acquisition.
“We discovered that they cannot function because the capacity (300KVA – 500KVA) not commensurate with the electricity requirements of the areas they are allocated to.
“We are calling on the executive arm, the concern ministries and agencies to take statistics of all the uninstalled transformers in the respective local governments and work towards installing them where suitable to avoid wastage while our people are suffering.”
Speaker of the House, Adebo Ogundoyin during the house then affirmed that the lawmakers are inviting the concern persons, ministries and agencies to appear on the 5th November, 2019 to give situation report on the issue.
He said, “We have the new ministry of Energy and it is part of their responsibility. We are inviting the Commissioner, the representatives and Oyo state Rural Electrification Board to come and explain to this house while these transforms are sitting uninstalled and rotting away.
“When we talk about development in any society, road, water and electricity are paramount. Therefore, every opportunity to make these available to our people will be taken.”
