… absence of budget provision for monitoring identified as key setback
Experts and engagement officers have raised an alarm over the increase in tragedies and disasters recorded in the power sector in recent times, arising from incidents and accidents, and the Akwa Ibom State government is working with the electricity distribution companies (Discos) to fight the menace.
This is as weak budgetary provisioning has been identified as a major factor in growing incidence of electric disasters and deaths leading to huge losses.
Some of the latest incidents have led to mass deaths at public viewing centres in parts of the South South. Some of those who climb billboard to change advertisements in Port Harcourt have met their tragic end due to poor safety culture and lack of safety training.
Experts in the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution (PHED) company and message communication industry have therefore resolved to fall back to summits and seminar series to bring back awareness to safety consciousness in the power sector. They want the masses and power sector technicians to know that electricity is an instant killer, if misapplied.
The National Power Summit, which will hold in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, on October 11 and 12, would target “Reducing the alarming trends in staff and public fatality in the Nigerian power sector.” It is the second safety summit so far, which started in Port Harcourt.
On the criticality of the summit series, one of the brains behind the summit, Gabriel Egede, head of safety at the PHED and head of the organising committee, told BusinessDay in an exclusive interview that incidents of accidents with loss of lives and property lead to huge losses in the sector with expenses on the part of power authorities. “The summit will help determine standards set in the industry for safety and review compliance levels and know who should enforce them,” he said.
A communications expert and strategist in the power sector, Chinedu Amah, CEO of Sparkonline.com, said preliminary investigations revealed a huge lack of budget provisioning for regulators to do their work; “It is like the masses have been left to their faith to sort it out with electricity danger.”
The summit would beam light on budgets for regulators. “How is enforcement captured in the budgets or how do you meet standards without budgeting for it?” It is observed that regional and urban planning units look the other way, thus massive violation of rights of way (RoW) in power, water, oil, gas, etc, occur freely. There is huge loss of man-hours, money, etc, across board.”
The summit would also review how the public has been supported to monitor the work of the regulators and how to hold the regulators and agencies accountable. They would examine what information tools there possible are for the media to monitor the degree of action by regulators.
In her contribution, Chioma Aninwe, the CSR Engagement Officer for PHED, under the Corporate Communications Department, said the authorities may not know that one of the hardest tasks is breaking sad news to a family, telling a woman that her husband or bread winner will not be coming home; that something happened to him.
She said it is dreadful to be the one to break sad news to a happy family and to begin to say, we are sorry that a line snapped and unfortunately your loved one-stepped on it. “It is so difficult to be the first person to convey bad news or tragedy to a child, a wife. The FG should look at safety again. There may be regulations, but are they being observed or enforced?”
She went on: “Another issue is right of way (RoW) and buildings under high tension. What is the government doing about this? Such matters should not be left to Discos. The Discos should not be pushed against the public.
She said, “There should be huge advocacy. Discos cannot do this. Let the National Assembly should step in too. It can happen to anybody. Disaster is taking place everywhere, from Kaduna to Aba. The FG should take this matter very seriously. Let action start from the FG and cascade down to the Discos. Safety can become a part of the primary education system so that children can be very safety conscious as it is abroad. FG should make safety a nationwide campaign.”
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