MEET THE STAFF SERIES

Enforcement Team Already Getting Positive Result

CCD: May we meet you?

DH: My name is Danladi Habila. I was a staff of erstwhile PHCN and after the privatization I was retained as a staff of Kaduna Electric.

I was deployed from Technical Department to Admin and Security to work as an Assistant Security Officer for Barnawa Area Office. And recently I have just been asked to join the Enforcement Team even though I am yet to receive a letter to that effect.

CCD: What is the Enforcement Team set up to achieve?

DH: As an Enforcement team, we start out by identifying the places to go based on the information we have.

When we visit such locations, we observe, we inspect and after the inspection we comment on what changes/corrections that need to be done and if there are any irregularity concerning losses found, they are stated in the report.

CD: What is the difficult part of being in an enforcement team?

DH:  I will say that the most difficult part of the job is logistics. Example, movement from here to a place like Kafanchan is a difficult one.

But with time, hopefully,  things will begin to get better because the prospects are there, and we are going to achieve what we are set up to achieve.

There is also vandalism.  In most of the rural areas, our installations are not safe and therefore prone to vandalism. Our network and equipment are spread across a large area of coverage and vandals take advantage of this situation.

CCD: Has there been any improvement in collections since setting up of the team?

CCD: Yes. The assignment was mainly made for Maximum Demand customers in the first place. The task was to look at MD collection for a particular area that was considered very low. In the last two months we were able to get up to six million from few customers we visited as against two million Naira that area was generating.

CCD: What do you think the company can do to reduce the incidence of electrocution and vandalism?

DH: We can employ both short and long-term strategies.

As a long-term strategy, we should aim at achieving uninterrupted supply in order to discourage the activities of vandals that hide under the cover of the night.

With constant supply, communities can be alerted if there is an interruption at an odd hour. As a short-term approach, there should be more of community engagement by involving them in securing the power infrastructure.

CCD: Do you consider yourself a team player?

DH: Yes. We always work as a team because working as a team help to yield a positive result and as the saying goes: "two heads are better than one".

CCD: Some people have argued that working in team can slow them down, do you share this sentiment?

DH: Yes, to some extent because we have had cases where an information is supposed to be kept secret and we suddenly find out that it has been leaked by a member of team. Situations like this tend to cause misunderstandings.

CCD: In your opinion, what do you think the company can do differently to improve its performance?

DH: One major area I think they should look at is staff training. Staff should be made to believe in the Kaduna Electric brand such that they will be willing to be ambassadors of the company.

I have heard people say unflattering things about the company they work for, so there is need to give them a sense of belonging.

Also, building a strong line of communication from bottom to the top management is key; that  communication line is currently missing.