Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki, has said that the decision to create a Ministry of Energy and Electricity from the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources is to enable it execute the electrify Edo project.
This was contained in a statement signed by the media aide to Governor Obaseki, Crusoe Osagie and made available to journalists in Benin.
“The need to separate the Ministry of Energy and Electricity from the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources is because we have a project called Electrify Edo, which would be executed under the new ministry,” he stated.
He added that “electricity has been privatised and government needs to domesticate it in the state.” Obaseki explained that the state government would place emphasis on completing ongoing projects.
He added: “The state is home to the Edo-Azura Power plant, which feeds the national grid as well as the CCTEC Ossiomo Power Plant, which is expected to provide embedded power supply to government buildings, hospitals, streets on the Sapele Road axis of Benin City, among others.”
According to him, it is expected that with the coming on stream of the Ossiomo power plant, there would be need to regulate the local electricity market, which the ministry would be in charge of.