Edo: Ossiomo Power Company Throws Hospitals, Govt Offices, Others into Darkness

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By Reporter

For the greater part of last week, electricity consumers connected by Edo State Government to the Ossiomo Power Company Limited, were left without supply, due to outage.

The development Midwest Herald gathered led to disruption of supply to Edo State Government offices, including hospitals along the Ossiomo supply corridors.

Other places that were affected are some companies in the so-called Edo State Industrial Hub.

Several reasons have been put forward for the incident which has caused electricity consumers huge economic losses.

A source disclosed that, the power outage was as a result of shortage of gas to the Power generating Company.

Although no explanation was given for the “non supply of gas”, Midwest Herald gathered that, gas supply may have allegedly cut-off by the Nigeria Gas Company due to arrears of unpaid invoices by Ossiomo.

The situation has resulted to blackouts in Benin City because the street lights are connected to the supply.

The blackout entered the fourth day last Friday, forcing several medium and small business to lament of their plight of losing fortunes because of power outage.

The outage has also disrupted surgeries at the Edo State Government health facilities, and left patients with the option of private hospitals in Benin City.

A doctor in the Government Specialist Hospital told Midwest Herald that, the drastic decision was taken to avoid casualties. The hospital he said has already ran out of water.

Ossiomo is a flagship project that has been celebrated by Edo State Government as game changer in the energy need of the state.

However, a staff of the company confided with our reporter that, the company is facing cash-flow challenges due to low patronage.

She confided that, Edo State Government was the company’s major consumer, which is hardly enough to meet the operation costs of the company.

The latest disruption has added to other instances where the Nigeria Gas Company disrupted supply to Ossiomo due to the inability of the company to pay for gas.