Federal Secretariat in darkness over N120m electricity debt On February 21,
20179:00 Abuja Bureau Chief & Chris Ochayi ABUJA—Government activities at
the Federal Secretariat complex, Abuja have been grounded for nearly a week due
to power outage over electricity bill in excess of N120 million When Vanguard
visited the complex, yesterday, Phase I of the complex, which is popularly
known as SGF’s Building, was in darkness.
It was
learned that civil servants and other public officers have abandoned their
offices as a result of the blackout. In fact, the situation is so bad that even
ministers whose offices are located within the edifices now avoid their offices
like plague.
The
lack of electricity at the secretariat complex has negatively affected several
government activities, with some either postponed or cancelled out rightly.
The
affected phase provides accommodation for the Ministries of Women Affairs,
Niger Delta Affairs; Labour and Productivity; part of Health as well as several
other Federal Government Departments and Agencies.
Mostly
affected are workers and Ministers in the Secretary to the Government of the
Federation (SGF) wing of the Secretariat, who rarely turned up for work but
when they do, they quickly left the offices due to darkness.
It was learnt that the staff of the affected
MDAs only report for duty for the purposes of signing their attendance
register, as no work can be done without electricity.
They
were mostly at the foyers and verandas of their offices while using either
reachable lamps or torchlight from their handsets, when they had to enter the
offices.
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