By Chijioke Kingsley
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – Post paid customers across our franchise States are indebted to the company to the tune of over N115 billion, says the Managing Director, Jos Electricity Distribution Company (JED), Engr. Hashim Bakori.
Bakori said the debt owned is different from the cost of energy losses as a result of energy theft.
He said this was discovered after 16 months of hard-work after resuming office with his team as the new management of JED.
Bakori disclosed this Thursday in Jos, during the Launch of the Company’s 5-years Corporate Strategic Plan to kick start a new goal to be achieved by the company.
‘If nothing is done to bridge the gap, a lot will go wrong and that is why we are lunching the Corporate Strategic Plan and by the time we are done, people will start seeing improvement of energy supply across our franchise States.
“We have consulted reputable company in the world to come and partner with us in moving the company forward.
“From today you will see a very new Jos DisCo”, he said.
Bakori however pointed out that with so much efforts put in by the new management of JED, vandals and energy thieves still remain a challenge to the company.
“Despite these efforts, the company is currently bedeviled by some man-made challenges. These challenges range from vandalism and theft of our installations, energy theft to customers huge indebtedness to the company.
“In 2021 alone, Vandals and thieves have torched about 200 Distribution Transformers, armored cables, copper earth wires, transformer oil, feeder pillar copper bars, several spans of aluminum conductors, line insulators etc”, he said.
Also speaking at the new plan for JED service delivery, the Chief Commercial Officer, Engr. Mansir Nakande, said to achieve the desired level of reliable power supply, each of the 11 DisCos developed a 5-year Performance Improvement Plan (PIP), which was reviewed and approved by Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), on 29th April 2021.
Nakande said the PIP plan for 5 years is put at N47.23 billion excluding the investment in customers metering.
Earlier, the Chairman, JED PLC, Alhaji Babanginda Inuwa, in his welcome address, said the new vision of the power company will become the backbone of JED’s growth moving forward.
According to him: “The purpose of the new 5-years strategic plan is to help demonstrate how JED intend to break away from inefficiencies and inadequacies”, Inuwa said.
Our correspondent reports that in the quest to meet the customers satisfaction, JED had installed and commissioned not less than 88,500 prepaid meters from January to date at the cost of N5.6 billion naira.
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