THE management of Eko Electricity Distribution Plc (EKEDP) has called for a more stringent legislation against energy theft and power infrastructure vandalism.
Speaking during an oversight function by the Senate Committee on Power, Steel Development and Metallurgy at the weekend, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Mr Adeoye Fadeyibi, commended the legislature for its support towards educating the general public on the efforts EKEDC is doing in ensuring adequate supply.
Fadeyibi, however, called for legislation of stringent punishment and prosecution of offenders involved in the act of vandalism, energy theft and meter tampering, stressing that such legislation should also cover those tempering with other power infrastructure and building on right of way.
He also appealed to the committee to assist in facilitating the payment of the MDAs’ debt as and when due and also sought the approval of special exchange rate for power industry.
According him, “We have installed over 100,000 prepaid meters in the last five years. We are also working towards ensuring 100 per cent metering of customers within our network in the next five years. We are also putting up the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) in first quarter of 2019 in our network for effective monitoring of distribution and faults.
“We are in this together, and we must solve these issues because there are contractual obligations to be fulfilled by both the government and the private investors. For us, we are encouraged with the fact that the chairman of the Senate Committee commended us for the improvement that he saw.”
“I am obviously impressed by what we have done and I assure you that we will continue to do more of what we are doing well. And in doing that, I think what the people should expect is that, as we always say, safety is number one for us but right after that is to ensure we do improve power supply and customer communication is also critical.
“It is to ensure that we continue pursuing the goal of 24/7 power supply; so in doing reliable supply, we will continue to provide meters and enumerate our customers, while hoping that the government,
on its side, continue to work with us.”
On his part, the Chairman of the committee, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, said the committee will work to harmonise all laws relating to energy theft and vandalism that are scattered in different laws into single bill.
According to him, “Our visit is also going to help us in policy formulation because we are also going to interact with the Ministry of power, Works and Housing, the Nigerian Electricity RegulatoryCommission (NERC) and with other relevant agencies.
“Clarification of issues is very necessary for us to understand exactly what is going on. Like I indicated during our meeting with the management of Eko Disco, there has been a counter-narrative that
privatisation is a failure and there have even been an attempt by some persons that we should go back and take over the assets.
“Now, why we are here is to be sure; if it is not working, why is it not working? Who is at fault? What are the things that are supposed to be done, and those are the answers that we have come to seek, and, of course, Nigerians will get everything that will help them in making a good decision about whether it was a very good decision or not.
“What we are doing is that as of now, the response to energy theft,vandalism and others is scattered all over different laws and different areas in our laws, and so we want to see whether we can consolidate them into one bill and that will help everybody in the sector.
“It will also help Nigerians to know that if you, in any way, tamperwith light or vandalise power equipment, that the penalties are very clear and cannot be applied at random.
“The reason why we are here is to interact with the power providers and make sure that whatever they see as problems, we can help them resolve them for the interest of Nigerian public.
“We are quite satisfied with what we have heard; we know that they are operating under tremendous difficulties. And like we said, anybody who starts a business and the business starts at a loss, the cost of what you are giving is not what you are told to sell.
“It is a regulated industry, which means that you cannot charge more than what the government says you should charge. And so, if government is selling to you at N100, and now tells you to charge at N50, you are already at a loss. That is what we want to let Nigerians know; that there are some things that are in this regulated industry, which we need to resolve and it is the resolution that has brought us here.”
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