The Managing Director of Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), Mr. Chiedu Ugbo, has said that the 252 Megawatts Gbarain Power Plant in Bayelsa State will begin operations soon to cater for the power needs of the people in the state and other nearby states.
Speaking on Wednesday when members of the House of Representatives Committee on Power visited the power plant on an oversight function, Ugbo stated that cash flow constraint was the major issue that delayed the resuscitation of the Power Control Module that got burnt recently.
According to him, when he came on board in 2016, Gbarain Power Plant was still a construction site, but they took major steps by fixing the temporary power control despite being owed close to N200 billion.
He said that the Power Control Module (PCM) being an engineering issue, it will be difficult to mention how soon it will be fixed for use, but disclosed that the work is in progress.
He said: “We had to put a unit to the grid and unfortunately, the temporary power control module put in place got burnt. But at the time it happened, we had a more pressing threat to the community, which was that the line pipe laid before 2015 was being washed away by River Nun.”
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The deputy governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, blamed ‘endemic’ corruption and lack of patriotism on the part of most stakeholders in the power sector as a major stumbling block to efforts being made by the government to drive industrial and economic development in Nigeria.
Speaking earlier, the Chairman, House Committee on Power, Hon. Victor Nwokolo, said they were in Bayelsa for an on-the-spot inspection of the burnt section of the power transmission station at Gbarain in the Yenagoa Local Government Area.