Residents of Fear God Street in Bonsaac, Asaba, Delta State, have appealed to the Benin Electricity Distribution Company and the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission to intervene in a prolonged power outage following the failure of their transformer.
According to The Punch, the residents alleged that they had spent millions of naira on efforts to repair and replace transformers serving the community, yet remained without electricity months after the latest repair attempt.
They further claimed that they were now being asked to contribute additional funds towards the purchase of a new 750KVA transformer.
However, the Chairman of the Bonsaac 1 Transformer Committee, Michael Morah, denied allegations of financial misconduct, insisting that contributions for the proposed replacement transformer were being paid directly into the community’s bank account.
Morah said the transformer finally broke down on July 25 after several unsuccessful attempts had been made to restore it.
According to him, the community approached NERC and other relevant authorities for assistance but received no response, forcing residents to begin raising funds for a replacement.
“I disagree. I’m not extorting money from anybody. Nobody is paying money to me. Where they are paying money is to the community account,” Morah said.
He explained that the community had an existing account that became inactive but was subsequently reactivated to receive contributions towards the purchase of the new transformer.
Morah also rejected claims that residents had been subjected to levies of N4.8m and N5.3m for two different repair exercises.
“We didn’t levy anybody to pay. We levied those who have connected light and have not paid. In the meeting, it was decided that they should go to those people and collect money and use it to repair their transformer,” he said.
He challenged anyone who claimed to have personally handed money to him for the repairs to produce evidence of such payments.
Meanwhile, concerns over the management of the transformer committee and the handling of funds prompted the community to set up a panel to investigate allegations against Morah.
The panel’s chairman, Okolo Gred, said its report had been completed but could not yet be formally considered because Morah had not convened a community meeting.
“The committee came up with their report, but the chairman, who is Michael Morah, has not been able to call for a meeting. If he had called for a meeting, that report would have been deliberated and maybe adopted,” Gred said.
He said some residents were more interested in seeing a change in the committee’s leadership than pursuing allegations against the current chairman.
“Personally, and some members of the community, what we are interested in is not necessarily to programme to make him permit what he has eaten, but for him to step down so that another set of people would be elected,” he said.
Gred added that calls for Morah’s removal and the election of new committee members had persisted, but the process remained stalled because no meeting had been held to deliberate on the panel’s report.
He also said there were other complaints involving the committee, including allegations concerning payments made by residents seeking electricity connections.
Despite the disagreements, Gred acknowledged that the community’s immediate priority was the restoration of electricity after the latest transformer failure.
Residents have consequently begun another fundraising exercise to acquire a replacement 750KVA transformer.
A contribution schedule circulated within the community indicated that property owners and businesses would pay different amounts. Duplex owners are expected to contribute N50,000, flats N25,000, while shops and self-contained apartments are to pay N12,500.
Filling stations and bars were listed for a contribution of N100,000 each, while schools and churches were also included among the expected contributors.
Morah said he was not responsible for fixing the cost of the proposed transformer, explaining that different price estimates had been obtained.
He said residents had received quotations indicating that a 750KVA transformer could cost above N20m, while another estimate put the figure at about N12.5m.
The committee chairman maintained that his responsibility was to implement the community’s decision and ensure that contributions were deposited into the designated account.
The residents have reportedly been without electricity since July, forcing households and businesses to depend on generators and other alternative sources of power.
They are now asking BEDC and NERC to intervene, saying repeated contributions and unsuccessful repair efforts have imposed an additional financial burden on the community.
Efforts to obtain responses from BEDC and NERC regarding the allegations and the residents’ complaints were unsuccessful as of the time of filing the report.
