Nov. 4, 2011 - Yunus Abdulhamid - allafrica.com

There are 2000 communities in Nigeria that do not have access to electricity power supply, Minister of Power, Prof Bart Nnaji has said. He described the situation as unacceptable and to remedy it, the federal government was making effort to revive the comatose Rural Electrifications Agency (REA). The agency has been in limbo for two years.

Speaking to a delegation of political and community leaders from the 10 towns in Ihiala Local Government Area of Anambra State who visited him in his office in Abuja yesterday, the minister said the "condition which made the creation of REA inevitable is still largely there."

He described electricity as a basic right of the Nigerian people.

"This belief explains the ongoing power sector reform "which has since it was launched last year enjoyed the support of our people and the international community."

Prof Nnaji also disclosed that 1,946 projects being carried out by the REA are at different levels of completion and, therefore, should not be abandoned. Rural electrification contractors, according to the minister, are owed N3.4 billion.

"It is painful to listen to or read accounts of rural electrification contractors who have sold their houses or died as a result of this huge debt owed over a long period," he observed.

He justified the increased vote for the Rural Electrification Agency in "our budgetary proposal for the 2012 financial year."

The leader of the Ihiala delegation, Engineer Fort Dike who is a member of the House of Representatives, implored the minister to improve power supply in his constituency which he called the largest local government area in Nigeria.

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