KEDCO’s 7 positive years of empowering lives: The pathway to power sector growth- Sani Ibrahim Paki

Electricity is no doubt the backbone and driving force of every nation’s economy on which industries, businesses-big or small rely on to function and grow. It’s a fact that no country can achieve any level of development without its constant supply. Those countries that have made their marks in world ratings, know it that the first port of call is electricity if industrial revolutions is to be leveraged to grow their economies.

It is against this background that the Kano Electricity Distribution Company (KEDCO) is breaking new grounds in electricity distribution in Kano, Katsina and Jigawa states in the last seven years to meet the needs of the growing customer population.

For the records, KEDCO is the largest Distribution Company (DisCo) that feeds over 22 million people mainly Kano, Jigawa and Katsina states, obviously the largest in terms of franchise population in the entire country.

The company came into existence sometimes in 2013, when the Federal Government of Nigeria deregulated the country’s power sector from the then Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to the current structure where we have the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) regulating the entire sector as the Generation Companies (GenCos) generate the power, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) transmits it to various parts of the country while the 11 distribution companies (DisCos) are in charge of distributing it across the nation.

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This is the arrangement that brought KEDCO to Nigeria’s power sector seven years ago.

Over these years, the company has strived in spite of the challenges it has been facing to modernise and revolutionise power distribution in terms of service delivery and innovations. To ensure that customers get the needed satisfaction there is in power distribution franchise, KEDCO over the years, has invested over N8.1 billion in network expansion and infrastructural resuscitation. Today, KEDCO may not have arrived but the company is very much far from where it started from and certainly, the company is on course going forward.

As a customer-centric organisation, KEDCO has consistently been athletically committed to guaranteeing improved service delivery to customers in its franchise through creative strategies which many have recommended as a model for good organisation-customer relations. This is conspicuously the reason for the huge reduction in customers’ complaints and the constant improvement in relations between the company and its customers across Kano, Katsina and Jigawa States.

Peace is said to be a societal property when concerned bodies are always out to promote its course. As a company with a high sense of diplomacy and a believer in a peaceful environment for sustainable growth, KEDCO has always taken the lead through its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to promote conflict resolution in several communities in its franchise area, bringing in facilitators to educate and sensitize the people on how to handle conflicts before it becomes a crisis situation.

This is further complementing efforts by both the Federal and state governments of Kano, Katsina and Jigawa to promote peaceful co-existence with the sole aim of fast-tracking development for the franchise and for this, KEDCO has done well.

This is one of the reasons, it often very easy for KEDCO to get the buy-in of traditional and religious leaders on any of its initiatives because this group of leaders have seen the commitment of KEDCO in their communities in terms of positive engagement in the overall interest of the power sector.

In terms of supply hours, many will believe me that when compared with the past seven years, electricity supply hours has now recorded significant improvement. And, with the current construction project of the second Transmission Station in Kano situated in Rimin-Zakara of Ungogo Local Government, the area is on the verge of achieving another milestone in that regard. When completed, the 132/330 KVA transmission station will complement the only one in Kumbotso, established more than 40 years back.

Also, the construction project of another Transmission Substation in Walalanbe of Nasarawa Local Government Area of Kano state will go a long way in increasing the supply hours. Both the two projects are being carried out by the TCN and were supposed to be completed by December.

It has been argued that part of the reasons why the company can’t beat the demand from its franchise population is the inadequacy of the transmission stations and substations, to the extent that with the present machines available, KEDCO can only process and distribute about 470 megawatts of electricity in these three states.

In the area of improvement, however, today, courtesy of KEDCO’s innovations, the number of houses using prepaid meters in these states has increased tremendously. Today, the company has introduced different payment channels of paying electricity bills by its customers through digital channels such as post-paid, prepaid, scratch cards, agents, banks and cash offices.

With over 2,000 competent staff capacity, the company brought together best hands to ensure that it competes with any organisation, not only in Nigeria but globally in terms of operation as a 21st-century power firm.

Due to higher cases of electricity-related offences, the company, in collaboration with Ministry of Justice set up a special court known as Special Investigation and Prosecution Task Force on Electricity Offenses (SIPTEO) in its franchise states to tackle issues of energy thefts, vandalism and other related offences.

As a result of the activities of ‘unfriendly’ members of the public who perpetrate these offences, the company has recently said it has lost over N260 million to power theft and vandalism. This seriously affects the company’s effort towards providing uninterrupted hours of power supply in the three states.

But, to complement the company’s effort as well as that of the government, electricity consumers and other members of the community must play their parts in ensuring the safety of KEDCO’s installations. People must keep a close eye on the activities of vandalism and ensure prompt payment of their outstanding bills, including clearing the backlogs of what they consumed in the past.

On its part, the government must ensure enforcement of laws and make sure all those caught stealing, vandalising or sabotaging electricity, are punished accordingly. The Federal Government must also ensure speedy completion of electricity power stations in the states to enable the company to meet the demand of its ever-growing customers.

Paki can be reached via saniibrahimpaki@gmail.com