By The Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Defence, Honourable Babajimi Benson, on Sunday afternoon while on a live programme on TVC news to discussed plans by the House of Representatives to engineer a free power supply as a palliative to COVID-19 lockdown in Nigeria.
Babajimi Benson, who is representing Ikorodu Federal Constituency of Lagos State assured that the House is trying to bring power to the people so as to enable them to have a more comfortable stay at home, and ensure that the proposed stimulus package allows the informal sector sustains itself during this COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking on the issue of security, Honourable Babajimi Benson said the Federal Government needs to cater for the welfare of the people, “We have had a welfare meeting with the DISCO, this is to ensure that the stay at home is comfortable and it reaches as many people as possible”.
He said the House is trying to ensure that the stimulus package gets to the nook and cranny of Nigerians because the feedback the House is getting is that a lot of people are not on the database being used to share the fund, ”So we need to find a way of easing this period and one of the measure is that the utility gets to 70% of people at the difficult time.”
The House is also trying to ensure that the Federal Government ”absorbs the bills for 2months, this is to allow the industries that are critical in fighting this COVID-19 be more efficient like the food processing industries, health care, water utility and telecoms, they need the power to work effectively. We want people to stay at home, we need to ensure the stay at home is comfortable, while we also continue the conditional cash transfer plan and also work on getting foods to their table, through the food supply stimulus that is ongoing.
”We want the government to absorb the cost and we have done preliminary cost on how much it will be to the government, ” he said during the interview.
Abass Latifat
