Lagos Assembly plans to criminalise illegal connection, power theft in Lagos
Indication has emerged that the Lagos State government is currently arranging a new bill that will be sent to the House of Assembly for enactment into law that will criminalise cases of illegal connection, by-passing meters and power theft in the state.
Former Stock market expert and current Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources Mr. Olawale Oluwo gave the hint during the annual ministerial briefing and warned that “if anyone vandalise power assets, by-pass meter under the Lagos State embedded power project, such person may likely go to jail.”
“We will have a draft bill by next month; the lawyers are already working on it, and the draft will be presented to the State House of Assembly. And when the house passes the bill and the governor signs it into law, we will begin enforcement immediately.”
He said it is determined to meet its electricity challenges by stimulating investment in the state through its embedded power scheme.
Continuing, Oluwo averred that “Beyond powering its own public facilities with the already established independent power plants delivering a combined 47.5MW, the state intends to stimulate investment through this initiative with the generation of 3000MW of power through accelerated deployment of embedded or distributed power plants in strategic locations within three to five years to drive our economy and bring additional electricity to millions of homes and businesses”.
Revealing that the state government was in partnership with major international and local industry key players in the power sector to provide a platform for uninterrupted power supply to its citizenry, he said with the collaboration, the state was using the strength of its balance sheet to guarantee the deployment of off-grid modular plants of between 20MW to 100MW strategically spread within clusters close to reliable sustainable sources of electricity and power evacuation substation for the exclusive benefit of Lagos residents.
