The collapse of the
Independent Power Plant
built by the Akwa Ibom
government has led to
prolonged power outage
from the Power Holding
Company of Nigeria (PHCN) in
Eket and its environs even as
a parallel fuel scarcity is
inflicting a brutal toll on
economic activity.
SaharaReporters learnt from
officials of the PHCN in Eket
that the power plant, which
has never operated optimally,
broke down and has not
been fixed.
The officials could not
specifically say exactly when
the power plant packed up,
but it was gathered that the
situation has persisted for
more than one month. The
status of the 190 megawatt
capacity power plant has
been shrouded in secrecy as
officials of Ibom Power plant
located in Ikot Abasi, with
officials refusing to comment
when contacted. Meanwhile,
the price of petrol and
kerosene has risen to N200
per litre, following scarcity of
petroleum products
occasioned by a tanker
drivers strike in the state.
The energy shortages spell
nightmares for small
business operators whose
daily struggles for survival
have become more
burdensome. Essien Joseph, a
welder in Eket, said that the
high cost of petrol alongside
power outage from PHCN has
become unbearable.
“The situation has become so
frustrating and we have
stayed for weeks without
power to run the welding
machines and there is no
alternative because the small
generators cannot power a
welding machine,” he told
our reporter. According to
him, “Even if you get the
industrial power generator,
where is the fuel to power
it? This is the situation we
have been going through for
several weeks.
” Similarly, James Benson,
proprietor of a business
centre on Eket-Oron road,
lamented the crippling of
business in the past three
weeks. “We have been
hoping that the power
situation would improve in a
few days based on the
assumption that it was a
routing fault which would be
cleared soon but it has
persisted, and the high cost
of petrol has also worsened
things. “At N200 per litre of
petrol, how can we make
photocopy and break even?”
he asked. “We used to
charge N10 per copy without
light when we bought petrol
at N97, how then can we
increase it?”
Sources in the Eket Business
Unit of PHCN said that the
utility company was facing
limited energy supply from
the national grid. “We were
having stability here because
the power plant generates in
excess of what we require
locally, so we [would] feed
the surplus into the national
grid but there was a sharp
drop in supply because we
now depend on supply to the
national grid since the Ibom
power plant crashed,” an
official told SaharaReporters.