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Hundreds of frozen food business owners In Warri, Delta State have continued to count their loses as the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) has been unable to supply power for the past one month.
Investigations by BusinessDay showed that some frozen foods business owners have since closed shops as a result of the continued power outage in Warri and its environs.
Some of them who still manage to open shop complained they are losing money everyday because some of their products get spoilt as they cannot afford to buy big generating sets that can power their freezers.
Even those who manage to have big generating sets still complain that they cannot continue to power them because they spend so much money in buying fuel which have also resulted increasing the price of their product.
Mrs. Rebecca Odion, who deals on frozen fish and chicken in Igbudu Market, Warri, lamented that since BEDC took over distribution of electricity power in the region, power supply has been very bad, forcing some of them to increase the prices of the products, hence low patronage.
“I have been doing this business for so many years and we have never had it this bad. Since BEDC came we have been suffering everyday. Sometimes our products gets spoilt and we lose a lot of money when this happens.
“Everyday I spend over five thousand naira to buy fuel for my generating set to power my deep freezer at home. This has made it very difficult to carry on with the business. But of course I have to feed my family since my husband is no more. I want to Federal Government to remove BEDC and replace them with another company that knows what they are doing,” she said.
Mrs Ijioma Onoriode, Another frozen food business owner in Okere Market, Warri, said if nothing was done urgently to tackle the epileptic power supply experienced in the state, frozen food business in the state will be forced to go into extinction.
She said she can no longer cope with the business because it has became very expensive to run adding that a lot of them are losing money due to lack of power supply.
“Honestly speaking things are getting tougher for us frozen food business owners because we are spending so much to generate our own power. This would not have been happening if BEDC has been giving us power that would help us do our business with ease. I still don’t know why they they are still operating because it very obvious that they do not know their job.
“There are no jobs anywhere and this is how some of us survive. There are a lot of business that are folding up in Warri because of this issue of lack of power supply and something has to be done about this. If BEDC knows that they do not have the capacity to do the job, then let them allow those who have the capacity to do the job be allowed to do it,” Onoriode said.
Mrs Evelyn Obukata, on her part, lamented that crime is going to be on the increase if the issues of power is not resolved, saying that theclack of power supply was discouraging the youths from opening a Barbing Salon, welding shops, fashion design shops, etc whic they could use to help themselves.
“Let me tell you something you don’t know. Very soon the rate of crime in the state will increase because some youths who want to barb people’s hair, go into welding and other businesses, are afraid to do these businesses because they know that they could not afford to maintain such businesses because there is no power supply”.
