BEVERLY HILLS, SEPTEMBER 09, (THEWILL) – The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola SAN has warned households, communities and corporate organisations to desist from buying transformers and other electricity equipment for use in their areas.
A statement issued by the ministry’s Deputy Director of Press, Ibrahim Haruna reports that he gave this warning when the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, AEDC, Mr. Ernest Mupwaya, paid him a visit in Abuja.
The statement quoted Fashola as disclosing that most of the challenges facing the sector were not technical issues alone, but human.
While warning individuals and other corporate organisations to desist from purchasing transformers, he disclosed that only distribution companies were authorised to buy and install transformers and other power equipment in their areas of operation.
The minister disclosed that the warning had become expedient as government intended to totally eradicate the proliferation of fake and substandard transformers coming into the country without appropriate certification.
Addressing some of the issues raised by the AEDC including non-payment of electricity bills by Ministries, Departments and Agencies, he said the government was fully committed to the payment of the backlog of bills after thorough verification to ascertain those claims before payments could be effected.
On the energy conservation drive, Fashola charged distribution companies to focus their strengths on sensitising consumers to the need to save energy by habitually putting off electrical gadgets and appliances, when not in use as well as improving on their customer relations and building customers’ confidence through quality service delivery strategy.
He stated that the government was fully ready to deal with vandals in the electricity sector through the imposition of stringent measures, which could be punitive, stressing that this would serve as deterrent to other perpetrators.
Speaking earlier, Mupwaya said his company was fully committed to making its customers happy through regular supply of electricity to their homes and business places in a safe and affordable manner.
He stated that the company now has installed network capacity of about 870 megawatts, above 650MW peak power received across its franchise area.
The AEDC boss explained that over 359,969 customers had been metered out of 876,520 customers in its operation, promising that all commercial customers would be metered by December 2016, while residential customers would all be metered shortly after.
