NEA nears 13 million household connection goal

MANILA, Philippines — State-run National Electrification Administration (NEA) aims to meet its electricity consumer connections target of 13 million this year ahead of its anniversary in August.

NEA said latest official figures showed that the total electricity consumer connections within the coverage areas of 121 electric cooperatives (ECs) nationwide have already reached 12.88 million as of Jan. 31, 2019, which is already 99 percent of the 13-million target.

According to the NEA Information Technology and Communication Services department, majority of these are in Luzon with 6.07 million  consumer connections, followed by Visayas with 3.45 million, and Mindanao with 3.36 million connections.

NEA administrator Edgardo Masongsong said the agency, in close coordination with the ECs, is exploring all avenues to fasttrack the consumer connection in time for the agency’s 50th anniversary celebration in August.

“More than the goal of reaching this milestone, we want to be instrumental in achieving the government’s long-term vision to eliminate poverty in the country as enshrined in the AmBisyon Natin 2040 program,” Masongsong said.

The Duterte government’s AmBisyon Natin 2040 aims to transform the country into a prosperous middle-class society free of poverty by 2040.

Since 1969, the NEA, together with the ECs being the implementing arm of the government, has been at the forefront of bringing electricity to rural and remote areas through the implementation of the rural electrification program, thereby promoting economic growth and social development in the countryside.

When Masongsong assumed the NEA leadership, he came out with the seven-point electrification agenda, which includes, among others, the completion of the rural electrification program.

For the past 50 years, all the 78 provinces covering 90 cities and 1,385 municipalities in the country had been successfully electrified by NEA and 121 ECs.

Moreover, a total of 36,057 of the 36,065 barangays nationwide have attained 100 percent energization.