The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) on Monday said it did not challenge the minister of power, Babatunde Fashola, over issues of alleged load rejection by the power distribution company.
AEDC, through Ahmed Shekarau, its head, public relations and media, was reacting to a story published by SweetCrude captioned “Power: Abuja Disco hits 800MW, refutes minister’s claim of inadequate capacity.”
“Our attention has been drawn to a news report with the above title which was published in the online and print editions of SweetCrude of Monday, August 28, 2017, in which you purported that our Company, through the Head of Public Relations & Media, Ahmed Shekarau, joined issues with the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, on matters relating to allocation and distribution of electricity by the Distribution Companies (Discos).
“We wish to state unequivocally that our Ahmed Shekarau did not at any time join issues with the Minister of Power, and neither did he refute the “minister’s claim of inadequate carrying capacity” as you claimed in your report,” the company said in a statement.
It further stressed that, for the avoidance of doubt, its head of public relations and media, who spoke exclusively to Leadership in response to allegations that AEDC was rejecting load allocation from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), stated emphatically that AEDC does not reject electricity allocated to it.
The statement also explained that even with its official quota of 11.5 percent of electricity allocated to it for distribution nationwide, the AEDC at no time received up to 600MW of power from the grid between June and July, 2017.
To buttress his point, Shekarau stated that “For instance, AEDC’s highest allocation from the grid in June, 2017 was 473.49MW, while the highest in July so far is 492.87MW”.
“It is therefore unacceptable that you attribute to our Company and to our official any statement(s) which did not emanate from us. We, therefore, demand for an immediate retraction of your report to correct the negative impression that it has created.”
