Sola Ojo, Kaduna
The operator of Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company, Kaduna Electric, on Wednesday expressed its readiness to metre one million targeted electricity consumers in its franchise States of Kaduna, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zanfara in the next their years.
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Kaduna Electric, Garba Haruna, who stated this during an interactive session with energy correspondents in the company’s headquarters in Kaduna added that about 80,000 units of prepaid metres would be installed between the end of October this year and January 2021.
According to him, the scheduled timetable for the installation of the prepaid metres is being developed, quickly added that the company would be forced to withdraw its services from any community or individuals that may reject the installation of the new metres.
He said, “we are ready to roll out mass metres starting from this Friday. We are coming up with a scheduled timetable that will indicate when this will happen from one community to the other because we cannot metre communities in four states in a day.
“Already, we have connected thousands of communities but we are not getting our money back. We are getting only 40 percent payment in these already connected communities and that is not good for the business.
“In the next few months of this mass metering project, we are targeting 80, 000. We will increase the number to 500,000 and more in three years and at the end of the day, we may end up metering one million customers in three years because we have up to one million customers in our franchise states.
“In agreement with the regulating agency, anybody that rejects metre, we shall withdraw our service and allow the person to use alternative power sources.
“Let me clarify here once again that, we don’t collect money from customers to buy equipment and people should stop contributing money at the community level under the guise of procuring electricity equipment.
“When we identify a community where 70-80 percent of customers are not paying, we will take our service away from them. So, when you see anyone not paying or bypassing the metre, you must report such things just the way you will report when you don’t have supply because it will affect you at the end of the day.
“Our customers should get prepare for more power supply because we cannot withhold the energy once we have it. Energy being billed is the energy being consumed.
“We will not ask you to pay for meter upfront. We will just roll out the metres and sort out ourselves. It is an initiative with the Federal Government. We will do it in such a way that you don’t even know you are paying for the metre”, he explained.