The Rural Electrification Agency (REA) deserves greater attention because it is living up to its calling, Minister of State for Power Jeddy Agba, has said.
Agba, during an interaction with State House Correspondents, said the agency had touched communities across the country’s geopolitical zones, and urged the incoming administration to priotitise it.
According to him, the focus had been on taking power to the remote and rural parts of the country, saying none of REA’s projects had been cited in any city.
Agba, who programmes, including Primary Health Schemes and the Market Improvement Projects, as part of projects handled by REA, said the government should take another look at its work. He also urged the incoming administration to treat it as a star agency.
He said: “The Rural Electrification Agency (REA) is my star agency becauase it’s directly under my supervision and purview. I want to assure you that in all the six geopolitical zones of this country, we have had two projects each in any of the states, there’s no community where we don’t have rural solar light intervention. We’ve had solar panels, we have mini-grids and all of that in all the zones.
“For me, that agency is a star agency; it is a high performing agency. I don’t talk about individuals but about the agency itself and the outputs.
All of us in this room today come from communities, we are from different states, but if you name your state, I will tell you which local government and which community we have projects in.
“We have the continuing education project, we have the Primary Healthcare Schemes; the Market Improvement Projects, we have all of the schemes to do with rural electrification in the communities, we didn’t do anything in cities, it’s all rural. So if we have done these well, I think the agency needs commendation.”
“We should work on it, we should look at it. We need to find out what has been done and what is yet to be done. And I tell you there’s more to be done in the coming administration. But I assure you the agency itself has performed satisfactorily by my judgment.”
Asked how much had been expended on the projects so far, Agba said “I cannot tell you offhand how much has been spent because there are different funding.
There’s funding from the World Bank, there’s funding from the federal government, there’s funding from agencies that have to do with these things.”
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