1 Week Outage Hits Federal Secretariat

Activities in major parts of the Federal Secretariat in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have been crippled by a one-week power outage.

The development has rendered most of the civil servants dormant in their offices.

A visit to the secretariat revealed that some sections of all the blocks were without power supply, while others that could not stay completely blackout were using generators and solar power supply.

A senior official in Block C of the complex, told LEADERSHIP there has been an outage in the secretariat since last week Thursday, without anybody saying anything about it.

He said, “We have not been able to do anything in our offices since last Thursday when the power was cut off from the secretariat. We thought it was something that would be restored soonest, but today makes it a week. Nobody is talking about the cause of the power outage,“ he said.

However, in some parts of Block A and C which host the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, there was electricity supply, while other sections of the blocks did not have electricity supply.

Another civil servant in the maintenance department who preferred anonymity confirmed that the entire blocks in the secretariat have been on total blackout, except some parts of Block A and C which host the Office of the Head of Civil Service.

“The issue of electricity has always been a challenge in the secretariat, there was a time we experienced it before, because of accumulated electricity bills, and it was restored after certain actions were taken. I believe that it is the same thing that has happened again.

“Even in Block A, there has been no light, but some people are using generators. Some officers also have an inverter and solar power system. So, if there is light in some parts of Block A and C, I can assume that they are using a solar system.

“The truth is that this kind of thing should not be allowed to continue in a place like this. It is very wrong to render activities in a whole federal government secretariat inactive because of electricity failure for almost a week now,“ he said.