In furtherance of its mandate of ensuring power availability in communities of energising communities spread across its franchise states which were without power supply for a long period or yet to be connected to the national grid, the management of BEDC Electricity PLC (BEDC) says it has connected Oke-Irhue, an agrarian community in Uhunmwode Local government area of Edo State to the national grid for the first time in its existence last Sunday amidst fanfare by her inhabitants.
The distribution company (Disco) which made this known in a statement declared that the connection of Oke-Irhue to the national grid was to demonstrate BEDC’s resolve to partner with communities without electricity supply in addressing their power outage challenge having fulfilled all necessary preconditions for energisation.
“We the entire people of Oke-Irhue are happy in that 15months after the community’s General Assembly worldwide took up the challenge and struggle to light up our community, God finally answered our prayers during this special season of Christmas by granting our village the opportunity to be linked with the national electricity grid today 29-12-2019, a project which has been ongoing since 2002,” remarked CP Douglas Agbonleni (rtd), President, OCGA National Assembly.
BEDC’s powering of the community with electricity on Sunday put an end to the travail of some members of the community who over the years had relied solely on generator as the only source of power as they have never been connected to the national grid since inception. This has however slowed down the pace of development in the area despite being blessed with abundant resources even as the residents opined that the energisation will no doubt spur the socio economic development of the area.
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President General Oke-Irhue Community General Assembly (OCGA) Mr. Douglas Agbonleni commended members of the community, the electricity committee for their patience, commitment and cooperation in ensuring that the energisation project became a reality and urged them to guide “this noble project jealously against the activities of vandals.”
He also thanked the federal government and the entire community members including those in the diaspora for the actualisation of the project which he said started through the Rural Electrification project (REA) initiated since 2002.
BEDC however took over the project and carried out enumeration, line rehabilitation/maintenance and also the subsequent metering of customers by through its Meter Asset Providers (MAP) scheme.
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