JED: tasks Katagum Community on protection of power installations against vandals.

By Mohammed Kaka Misau, Bauchi

The Regional Manager, Task Force for Azare Region of the Jos Electricity Distribution Company (JED), Hafiz Saleh Hassan has appealed to community members to jealously guard electricity installations around them against the activities of vandals.

Hafiz who was speaking to our Corresspondent in an exclusive interview on Wednesday decried the I don’t care attitude of some communities towards power installations within their reach.

“We are actually getting worried as far as the issue of vandalization is concerned, we are terribly worried, just about an hour ago, I sent my security officer to Shira local government area because we had a case of vandalism there in one of the villages”, he said.

Hafiz who lamented increase in vandalism on power installations in some communities, said members of the Communities are the best people to guarantee the safety of those installations.

“One funny thing is that the issue of vandalization is going on the increase and I keep saying it whenever I have the opportunity, that communities are the best people to protect our property that is within their environment, no body can do it better than them”, he pointed out.

According to him, “but sometimes when you look at locations like the one that happened in Shira, this is a transformer that is very close to the people, it is within a community, very close to the road, if people are vigilant and they keep their eyes on those assets nobody dare temper with it”.

Hafiz who commended some communities for not allowing people to access or come near their transformer, urged others to emulate them.

“In some communities, you have to show your identity card to prove to them that yes you are a staff of JED and even if you do that, you have to tell them your mission of coming there”, he said.

“Sometimes they even locked up the transformer and keep the key in the house of the Imam or the Mai unguwa who is always available, so if any body is coming there to do any repairs the community has to know and go and get the key for him before they give access to the transformer”, he said.

He pointed out that in such communities, the vandals are aware that the people are watching and they only go to where they know that the people are not mindful of the installations.

“They only go to locations where people are careless, who don’t bother. If people can actually take care of these things, there will be no way for vandals to succeed”, he said.

While shedding more light on how consumers are been billed, Hafiz said billing is done based on the power consumed monthly by customers.

“We have regions in the company and every region has a meter that capture the quantum of energy that goes to each region on a monthly basis, that is routine”, he explained.

He said “on the last day of every month we go to the meter and take the actual reading for energy consumed from the meter during the month. And it is based on that reading of the meter that we are going to establish a frame work for the billing for the month”.

“For example, in Azare, in the month of January we consumed energy for about N145 million, in Azare alone and when we say Azare, it comprises of Misau, Jama’are, Dambam and Gamawa”, the regional manager said.

He lamented that from the total billing of the about N145million for the entire month under consideration JED was only able to collect about N69 million which is lest than 50 percent of the energy taken by Azare Region.

“So, that is exactly where our major problem is because we have serious shortage of inflow, we have challenge of liquidity, there are a lot of things that will require finances to take care of”, Hafiz said.

Hafiz who said there are locations with overloaded transformers that requires a relief transformer to be able to stabilize electricity in those locations, said lack of funds has been the major challenge among others.

“There are communities requesting for extension of electricity service and it takes a cost, because sometimes when you do a viability study in that particular location, in terms of cost and benefits it will take a long period of time before we even break even in some locations”, he noted.

The Regional Manager who said electricity is a kind of necessity that is needed by everybody, both those who can afford it and those who cannot afford the cost said that is what informed the JED decision to establish a kind of modalities based on service bands to balance their operations accordingly.

“For this month, today is already 16th which means we have done business for 15 days already in this month, we have taken energy for about N135 million, as at yesterday, our total collection from the energy we billed is just about N30 million. So, that is to tell you that we have over a hundred million naira to collect between now and the 31st day of March”, he revealed.
He finally called on the esteemed customers of the company to prioritize settlement of their electricity bills among other competing demands and called on customers who are yet to make payment to do so accordingly and those who made payment short of their current billing should endeavour to make up the balance before the end of the month in order to guarantee continuous supply of electricity to them. He finally called on the esteemed customers of the company to prioritize settlement of their electricity bills among other competing demands and called on customers who are yet to make payment to do so accordingly and those who made payment short of their current billing should endeavour to make up the balance before the end of the month in order to guarantee continuous supply of electricity to them.