Niger state government has said that the disconnection of electricity supply to Government House, State Secretariat, the Minna General hospital and the Secretary to State Government’s (SSG) office by the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) over alleged N1.3b debt is an attempt to embarrass the government of the state government.
Its reaction was sequel to last Saturday’s disconnection of Government House, Ministries, Departments and Agencies, including the Minna General hospital over accumulated bills.
The power firm’s regional public relations Officer, Alhaji Mohammed Adamu,explained that the state government defaulted after initial agreement to offset outstanding sum running into several billions of Naira.
However,Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Alhaji Ibrahim Ahmed Matane in an interview the AEDC is merely trying to embarrass everyone because the state government have not defaulted in paying monthly N57 million as agreed.
“The AEDC is claiming that the government is indebted to the tune of, N1.3 billion, but again have failed to also let the public know about the one we paid over a period of time. I think they are just out to embarrass everybody by going out and cutting lights just like that”.
Matane said the government will continue to handle the issue of the AEDC with maturity, adding however that he sees no reasons why the company still go ahead to embarrass the state government by throwing the entire government facilities in darkness.
On what the government has done to remedy the situation, Matane said,:“We have been dialoguing with them, even yesterday (Saturday), we met and still talking. But you see they just went to town to embarrass everybod.The average consumption monthly according to the AEDC is estimated at about N70 million, for all the disconnected facilities but based on agreement the state government have been paying N57 million monthly and have not defaulted.
“Even in the court of law, debts with mutual agreement on mode of payments is allowed or acceptable and we agreed with them on how we will be paying, but like I said, as a government we still maintain this gentleman approach to handling the issue”.
