- The Abia state government says it plans to hold a Public Hearing on the State Electricity Bill, which is pending in the state House of Assembly.
- The Commissioner for Power and Public Utilities said that the bill picked relevant items from an existing electricity Act.
The Abia state government says it plans to hold a Public Hearing on the State Electricity Bill, pending at the state House of Assembly, the Commissioner for Information, Mr Okey Kanu, said after the state Executive Council meeting.
Kanu said that the House was expected to quicken the process of passing the bill when they resumed their recess. “The passage of the bill will give further impetus to the ongoing reforms in the state’s power sector,” he said.
He said that the Light-up Abia Initiative had been expanding beyond Aba and Umuahia, with 4,346 Solar Lights installed in 86 locations across the state. The lights were meant to improve the security and aesthetics of the towns for comfort.
Also, the Commissioner for Power and Public Utilities, Mr Ikechukwu, said on Monday that the bill picked relevant items from an existing electricity Act. He said the old law was passed before the Federal Government removed electricity generation, transmission, and distribution from the exclusive legislative list.
Monday said the new bill, when passed, would help establish an Abia electricity regulatory authority to regulate the state’s electricity market. He promised that the law would protect Abia residents and investors in the energy sector, having provided for the installation of prepaid meters and the possibility of recouping investors’ funds.
Also last week, the Abia State government adopted an Off-grid electrification policy and action plan policy proposed by the Nigeria Off-grid Market Acceleration Program (NoMAP).
This happened in Umuahia, the state capital, at a one-day stakeholders’ workshop on the policy for ministries, departments, and agencies organised by the NoMAP.
According to the resource persons, the NoMAP is the brainchild of the Shell Foundation and USAID and is supported by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and a couple of other donor agencies.
They also informed the participants that most of NoMAP’s work centres around policy and regulation, intervention like funding for off-grid companies, stakeholder engagement, and capacity building.
A program associate with NoMAP, Jennifer Anya Lekwa, said they are helping ministries, departments, and agencies document their policies and plans of action for off-grid electricity.