The Plateau Government has said that plans are currently underway to resuscitate the Plateau Electricity Corporation to improve electricity distribution for the residents.

Mr David Wuyep, Plateau’s Commissioner for Water Resources and Energy, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Jos.

“The state government is putting in mechanisms to resuscitate the Plateau Electricity Corporation.

“However, this time around it wouldn’t just be an electricity corporation, but an energy corporation.

“Energy is in a way beyond electricity, electricity is just one of the forms of energy.”

Wuyep revealed that the bill for the resuscitation of the moribund corporation was in the State House of Assembly and that it would soon be passed so that the Plateau Energy Corporation could commence operations.

According to him, the state was blessed with three out of the four major sources of renewable energy.

“Plateau has over 20 hydro-points where we can generate hydro-electricity from.

“As a plateau it is a good shed for water and it drains into various river basins and streams where we can easily generate electricity because it is on a slope and that gives us natural kinetic energy with which we can generate electricity.

“Plateau is also the third highest solar radiation point in Nigeria after the North-East and the North-West so this puts us at a vantage position to generate solar energy.

“The state is also lying along three wind corridors that have the highest speed in the country almost on the index three and four meaning that we are well poised to generate electricity using wind.”

The commissioner further disclosed that the corporation would be engaged in the generation and distribution of such within and outside the state.

Wuyep told NAN that water meters would be given to the people soon to ensure they pay for only what they consume.

He said government would ensure that customers do not have to pay huge sums to get the meters.

Wuyep said the payment would be spread over a period of time even as the contractor had been directed to install some test meters in specific locations to test-run the project.

“The meters would be installed this week and it would be studied for awhile to ensure its efficacy and to ensure that it is working optimally.

“We do not want meters that wouldn’t function optimally and the people at the end of the day would be cheated.”

He further disclosed that the state government, as a means of reducing cases of cholera, especially in the rural areas, had adopted a number of strategies to provide potable water for the people.

Wuyep said one of such strategies was to provide mobile treatment plants and to have medium level treatment plants that would treat their water.

He said that the ministry was working with the Federal Government to extend reticulation from the central dams to reach more Local Government Areas around the dams.

“In this year’s budget we have made some funds available in the capital budget of the water board to reticulate water to the entire Local Government around every dam.” (NAN)

•Photo shows Gov. Lalong.

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