By Agatha Chitumu, Abuja

 

DAILY COURIER – The Abuja Electricity Distribution Plc (AEDC) has expressed concerns over increased incidents of vandalism of its electrical assets and installations across its franchise area.

The company has therefore seek collaboration with other stakeholders to curb the menace.

This was made known in a press release dated January 5, 2023 by the company.

The incidents according to the statement have impeded the company’s efforts to deliver stable and reliable power supply to its esteemed customers.

The company’s management explained that following its sincere desire to ensure improved power supply, it activated a rich basket of technical and commercial projects that would upon completion significantly improve power supply to customers.

Some elements of the various projects the statement noted involved the procurement and installation of various electrical equipment worth millions of naira.

The company however regretted that many of the installations are currently being vandalized across the network, causing very painful power supply disruptions, untold hardship and losses to its customers, and huge financial and reputation losses to the company.

Also condemning the acts in a statement, the Chief Marketing Officer, Donald Etim said: ‘‘The surge in cases of vandalism within our franchise area has become quite worrisome, especially so because these vandals lately; increasingly utilize unfathomable methods to perpetrate their criminal acts.

“This technique upgrade to their evil trade has emboldened the thieves to attack more of urban assets and installations of late, thereby affecting higher customer densities.

“Recently, One Hundred and Eighty-Five (185) meters of XLPE underground cable was carted away at the Central Business Area, Abuja FCT, valued at over 5 million naira at just one location out of several others that have been similarly affected across our franchise.

“The multiplier effect of these damages runs into billions of naira’’.

Speaking further, Etim noted that AEDC will never relent on its efforts to ensure provision of adequate uninterrupted power supply, hence its continued investments in network upgrades, refurbishment of faulty transformers, procurement of new transformers as well as the construction of new feeders and lines to relieve existing ones.

He further added: “On the Customer side of things we have gone mobile with our metering drive by physically taking meters out to customer cluster locations and getting them metered within 24 hours.

“There are at least 27 such locations currently operational within our franchise today, excluding our formal offices. We have launched multiple payment channels, including USSD short codes, that allow our customers vend power at zero commission.

“We have also launched a verify-staff platform that enables customers, for their safety, to quickly verify AEDC visitors to their premises by simply inputting the said staff’s ID card number into a link connected directly to our website.

“Also, as part of efforts to curb the menace of vandalism on its network, the management of AEDC has strengthened its collaboration with security agencies such as Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC), Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Community leaders, and even recently set up a Civilian JTF component.

“These collaborations have resulted in increased security patrol exercises, aggressive community sensitization, several arrests and successful prosecutions.

” The company is also working towards deploying a remote monitoring system for locations with high incidences of vandalism.

Going forward, the company has therefore on all its customers to be security conscious and immediately report all suspicious activities around electrical installations and any display of bad behaviour by AEDC Staff.