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MD of Jos electricity company vows to recover N15bn debts

By on September 18, 2013

Mr Fidelis Obisahi, the Acting Managing Director, Jos Electricity Distribution Company (JEDC), on Wednesday announced that customers owed the company about N15 billion and vowed to “aggressively go after the debtors’’.

“Customers owe JEDC more than N15 billion; this is a very huge figure capable of stimulating our growth and we must do everything to recover every genuine debt,’’ Obishai told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Jos.

The company distributes electricity to Gombe, Benue, Plateau and Bauchi states.

Obisahi noted that the heavy debtors were mostly government organisations, reiterating that the company would fashion out a way to collect current and outstanding debts simultaneously.

He, however, said that customer relations officers had embarked on an “aggressive appeal to the conscience of customers’’, stressing that debtors would be forced to pay the monies they owed so as to help JEDC to meet the people’s demand for electricity.

Obishai, who pledged that the company would render quality service delivery to customers, said that new transformers and more load dispatch centres were being acquired to ensure the fulfilment of that goal.

“At our stage here, we cannot guarantee uninterrupted power supply because generation is below demand but if we arrange to provide electricity for 10 hours in a day for a particular community, we shall be very faithful to that pledge,’’ he said.

He promised a “very fair billing of customers’’ and appealed to the customers to make their meters accessible to JEDC staff.

“We particularly want to appeal to them not to lock their meters because that could impede our access to the gadgets and frustrate our efforts to have accurate reading,’’ he said.

Obisahi, however, said that all customers would soon be able to get pre-paid meters via the CAPMIR scheme, which was designed by the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).

He said that the scheme would enable customers to acquire pre-paid meters “within in 48 hours after payment’’.

He, however, advised the workers not to be unduly worried over the privatisation programme in the power sector, assuring them that their welfare was a priority concern that could never be compromised.

Speaking on the security situation in the four states covered by JEDC, Obisahi assured the staff that everything was being done to ensure a secured environment for them so as to promote their efficiency.

He pledged to work closely with electricity union members in efforts to protect the interests of the company’s staff, soliciting the unionists’ assistance, suggestions and opinions in efforts to move the company forward.

NAN reports that Obishai, who was the Assistant General Manager (Marketing and Customer Services), took over from Mrs Vera Osuhor as the company’s chief executive officer. (NAN)