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Officials of the Lagos State Electricity Board and stakeholders during the town hall meeting. Photo: LSEB
The Lagos State Electricity Board has lamented that about N1.7bn is lost to vandalisation and theft of streetlight infrastructure and other electrical installations annually.
The Public Lighting Representative of the board, Omotayo Halid, made this known on Wednesday during a Stakeholders Town Hall Engagement for the Protection of Streetlights Infrastructure, held at Y Arena, Ikoyi, Lagos.
The electricity board sought the support of community stakeholders, including community development associations and community development committees, in safeguarding streetlight infrastructures needed to keep the environments lit at night.
Halid said, “Let me begin by sharing a certain statistic with you. The Lagos State Electricity Board alone loses N1.7bn every year to theft and vandalisation of electrical installations across the state. You can imagine if this was used to address other infrastructures across the state like education, and healthcare.”
According to him, most of the targets of the vandals are electrical installations, transformers, underground cables, and generators.
He explained that the theft of electrical equipment could put an entire road in total darkness, thereby causing accidents, adding that other consequences include pressure and unnecessary workload on health workers who have to struggle with the darkness.
While speaking, the Chairman of the LSEB, K.A.T. Balogun, said it is the responsibility of both the government and the communities to take care of electrical infrastructures put in place by the state.
Balogun said, “The streetlight infrastructures constructed by the state government is a joint responsibility between the Lagos State and all the communities. It is important that we think that way, so that if we see any person around these infrastructures and acting suspiciously, you can always call on us. The government has spent a lot of money putting these things in place.”
The meeting brought together major stakeholders, including police officers and local vigilantes, CDC/CDA representatives, transport unions and others, who brainstormed on the possible ways to protect the electrical infrastructures.
In his remarks, the Divisional Police Officer, Lion Building, Ikoyi, CSP Ishola Olugboye, said some residents were conniving with vandals to carry out criminal operations. He pledged more effective policing to end the menace.
