16 February 2016, Lagos – Lagos State Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources, Mr. Olawale Oluwo has stressed the commitment of the state government to providing steady power supply for the people of the state through the light up Lagos initiative introduced by the state Governor Akinwunmi Ambode on December 9, 2015.
He said the intention was to make sure that the administration takes street light to every part of the state. “We will also want to ensure that where we have street light we will make sure that are working. The light up Lagos initiative is not only about street lights; street light is only a small component of it”, he added.
He explained that the governor, who used the initiative vigorously during his electoral campaigns, has been very much committed to the initiative, stressing that the initiative was at the implementation stage.
Oluwo, who disclosed this at a media briefing to mark the Badagry Electrification intervention, which was part of the light up Lagos initiative, said the initiative was predicated on the fact that the state is not to generate, transmit, distribute and supply the gas of the power generators, adding that the other stakeholders who have bought the power asset following the privatisation programme of the federal government they are the ones to carry out those duties.
He further stated that the concept of the Light up Lagos is divided into six stages, which are the power advisory board, independent power supply (which we have been doing before as a state, and which we have about five one at Lekki, Ikeja, Alausa, and the last one powering the secretariat at Alausa), the independent power project and others.
Oluwo said: “Therefore what it means is that the state is now moving away from the concept of creating Integrated Power Plants (IPP) that generate power to the state, to moving to make government provide power to the people in collaboration with other stakeholders. The state is moving away from providing power to itself, to working with stakeholders to ensure that power comes to the people.
“Then for the street lighting which is the second part of the light up Lagos campaign. We have a programme we are following to make sure we deliver on that. The first we did was to ensure that all the street lights in Lagos can be put under one basket because street light used to be scattered amongst almost nine agencies of government which made the management to be very difficult.
“Then we had the Lagos state Electricity Board (LSEB), Lagos state Metropolitan Transport Authority (LAMATA) Lagos state Ministry of Works and Infrastructure (LSMW), even at the federal level, we had Federal Airport Authority (FAAN) and we also had Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) which was used to power the street light of Third Mainland bridge, we also had Senators and House of Representative members who saw construction of street light as part of their corporate social responsibility and the local government who are owners of the street light we are bringing into the neighbourhood.
“We are moving from that to connect all of them and create a national grid so that we can power the state and bring light to the neighbourhood. We are bringing street lights to all the border towns in the state, so that as soon as visitors as soon as they enter the city, they will see the state the beauty of the street light. After we have done this grid, we will put everything on our IPPs, because as we speak today we are already paying for this IPP power. So we will put technology in place that will help us ensure efficiency and from that we can partner with the private sector. This is because the governor believes that the private sector can run the street light better than the public sector.
“The rural electrification, with respect to the rural electrification, what we have seen is that the post privatization of the power has created a business model where power is been distributed on the basis of who can pay more. So you find a situation where the Gencos are more attracted to give power to those communities that have paid high tariffs that means some people will not have light.”
“There are other communities off the grid, they have the problem of not getting power, there is a particular community in the border town of Badagry that does not have light in 16 years which we are going to light up. The state has made it part of it plan to reach out those communities that are not part of the grid and bring them into the grid. We have done rural electrification at Ibeju-lekki, Badagry, soon we will going to Ikorodu, Alimosho and other communities.”
- This Day