Energy Worth with Agency Report
Following a four-week ultimatum to among others, stop crazy or estimated bills, improve services or gets its main office shut down by civil society organisations in Kaduna recently, the management of Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company (KADECO), has said that the overbillings cannot be avoided in its operations.
It explained that the billing could either be plus or minus of 5% error which arises from the upward review of unit cost.
At an interactive session with Journalists in Kaduna, Nigeria, the Management team led by the Head of Engineering and Technical Services, Bello Musa, said it was not unmindful of its commitment to quality of life for a common man, Industrial and commercial growth as well as over-all betterment of community and the nation at large. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) has reported.
It listed some of the shortcomings experienced in the operations to include; consumers not paying in time, not paying at all or conniving with workers to under pay or go under cover. Others associated with what the Management team calls theft and corruption, are direct hooking, bypassing and tampering with meters.
As a result of these, it said 60% of the expected revenues were not coming to DISCOs thereby rendering them to lose about N20 billion monthly to collection gap.
“DISCOs don’t have enough revenue to effectively execute their business plans.
Money being realized to pay salary and run some essential operational expenses while capital is funded from other investments, it said.
The Management therefore called on the regulatory bodies, including Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and the Ministry of Power to strengthen the sector with better regulatory framework .
To this end, it suggested that government should sponsor investments and subsidy for lower income groups in the country. The Management team also stressed the need for all components in the power sector of their respective duties and “stop blame game “.
The components are; Generation, Transmission and Distribution companies saying that they should use the increased tariff towards the betterment of the sector.
It will be recalled that a coalition of civil societies in Kaduna State, Northwest of the country, gave the company a four-week ultimatum to stop crazy or estimated bills, improve services or gets its main office shut down.
There was also a blame game between the distribution company and Transmission Company of Nigeria over which the CSOs absolved the TCN of any shortcoming.
