The Management of North South Power Company Limited (NSP) has met with host communities downstream and upstream of Shiroro hydroelectric power station as well as stakeholders in disaster management to create awareness on impending floods.
Vice-Chairman of NSP, Mr Olubumi Peters, explained during the 2023 NSP annual stakeholders flood sensitisation forum, that the event was to create awareness among communities involved in water-based activities on flooding living around the dam.
Mr Peters, who was represented by Consultant on Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) to NSP, Alhaji Abdullahi Hassan added that the communities were those upstream and downstream of NSP on environmental hazard caused by flooding.
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“This is to come up with possible ways to reduce the devastating damages to lives and property, stakeholders are to identify most effective and remedies to flooding,” he said.
He appealed to the Federal Government to hasten the implementation of National Flood Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan to provide more resilience and effective response measures to mitigate impact of flooding.
The Chief Operating Officer of NSP, Mr Ugochukwu Chioke, while answering questions from host communities, said the company usually alerts communities before spilling water from its reservoir.
“Before we release water, we do send out letters, convey meeting and daily public announcements on radio and television stations and then sound warning sirens to alert communities.
“We do this to enable people living around river banks to vacate the area and we give them time to vacate river banks before releasing water,” he said.
Chioke, however, said that 52 percent of workforce in NSP was from Niger State, adding that the company would continue to execute meaningful projects in host communities as its Corporate Social Responsibility.
In his remarks, Prof. Mansur Matazu, Director General of Nigerian Metrological Agency (NiMET), Prof. Mansur Matazu revealed that there would be more violent convective activities due to higher temperatures resulting in occasional downpours.
Matazu, represented by the State Met Inspector in Niger State, Mr Pwajok Gysng said that settlements downstream and upstream of Kaduna River Basin are likely going to be affected.
He called on relevant disaster management agencies to take necessary steps to reduce to barest minimum the negative effects of flood.
Stakeholders from NEMA, NESREA, state and local government officials were also in attendance.
