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| Engr. Umar Faruk BDRO Doka |
CCD: You are one of the BDROs appointed recently after a rigorous selection process, how do you feel being among the two selected?
UF: Well, I feel delighted and I believe the right thing was done and I really appreciate the process; I believe if such a standard is maintained, surely the best hands are going to emerge in the right place.
CCD: Doka Regional Office is one of the money-spinning region in the company, how have you been coping with the challenges of this assignment?
UF: (laughs...) challenges. Just like you just mentioned, Daka Area Office is the cash cow of the company. When we came we actually met so many challenges which we have been tackling, these challenges ranges from customers response, the network itself and the issue of energy theft; these are issues that we are focusing on and even the staff attitude to work is one of the things we tackled. The truth is that there are challenges and we are doing our best to address them. As somebody that feels he his capable and has the experience, when you have challenges normally you prioritized them in the sense that this is the business environment, the first thing you need to focus on is how to move the business forward so, we have been tackling them based on priority and God have been helping us.
CCD: What is the performance of your office Vis-à-vis the energy received and the collections?
UF: When we talk about the energy received in relation to the collection, the Region is not fairing well. We have twenty-three feeders, out of this, eight are priority feeders. As you know, our feeders are categorized into three; first one we call it a Green Feeder, that is our priority feeder; then Amber, which is the Yellow Feeder, and then the Red Feeder. Now with nine Green feeders in Doka supplying almost twenty hours a day, you should know that huge energy is being dispatched and if you are to convert it to Naira, to be honest with you, the collection is just 32-33% so far. When we came on board, it was around 22%, so we are hopping to take it to 75% before end of the year, God willing.
CCD: Record has shown that total customer population of Doka Area Office is 101,000, don’t you think that there are still many electricity consumers out there yet to be brought into the system, and if you agree with narrative, what are you doing to bring such unregistered customers into the system?
UF: Yes, I concur that the total customers’ population of the Company on record does represent the actual number of electricity users in our franchise area. Doka Region is not an exception. It is in response to this challenge that the Management initiated a customers and assets enumeration programme called Project 415 in the past. This project has produced almost twenty five thousand bills, largely due to separation. There is actually some customers that need to be separated, like you meet a compound with ten or twenty tenants and they are using a single supply and that really affect our collections. Another strategy adopted to fish out those illegal consumers is through the newly created Enforcement teams. Henceforth, any customer that we are not able to capture and he is enjoying our energy out there, we called him or her an energy thief and the enforcement teams are basically saddled with the responsibility of these energy thefts. I can tell you this year alone, we have arrested more than three hundred of such energy thieves in Doka, some are registered while some are unregistered, some are using meters and decided to abundant the meter; these are the energy issues we are talking about.
Then when you are talking about those that are not captured, I believe this project 415 has done enough to capture them, it is just that there are some irregularities and human errors; some maybe due to poor understanding of the terms of reference given to those that undertook the project or they were not clear with what is the project was expected to achieve. For example, there are instances where an empty plot of land was allocated an account and billed, these are some of the challenges I met as regard that project, but honestly speaking, the project succeeded in getting so many customers but there could be a few unidentified ones left in some scattered areas and those are the people that I am telling you are stealing our energy, they are not ready to be part of us and like I mentioned earlier, the Enforcement unit taking care of such issues and they are doing their best.
CCD: Our investigation also reveals that only 34-35% of customers billed response to payment, what do you think is the course of this poor customers response and what are you doing to reverse the trend?
UF: Before my assumption here, the customers’ response is not even up to that, it was just 22-27%. This is largely due to the mindset of the customers, the customers still believes that it is business as usual, it is a government thing and we own it, so we should enjoy it for free. This is one thing we are working to change.
“ Now with nine Green feeders in Doka supplying almost twenty hours a day, you should know that huge energy is being dispatched and if you are to convert it to Naira, to be honest with you, the collection is just 32-33% so far. When we came on board, it was around 22%, so we are hopping to take it to 75% before end of the year, God willing”.
I have set a six months time frame to see how we can change the mindset of these customers, let them believe that this is a business, somebody uses his own money to get this thing done, so, it has to be paid for, people should pay for the service is one of the things we are doing to increase our customers response toward the payment of energy consumed and that is why within the period of three to four months, we have succeeded in attaining 34% customers’ response. Like I said earlier, within the period of six months, we shall review the strategy to see how far have gone in changing the customers mindset.
CCD: You are a qualified engineer, and now you are largely a business manager, how do you manage the demand of these two callings?
UF: I would say at this point that I am lucky to have a good taste of the two callings; I am an electrical engineer by training and have also gained experience in business management during my eight years sojourn in the banking industry. If you look at the business here, a Distribution Company is the combination of engineering and marketing. So, that is why I said I am very lucky, this is what I read as a discipline and this is what I am practicing, a perfect balance of the two. Therefore, finding myself in an industry like this is like home coming, it is an definitely an advantage to me and I am not finding much difficulties managing the two callings.
CCD: It is being canvassed in some quarters that the present regional offices as they are, are too wide for one BDRO to effectively manage, what is your take on this?
UF: You know this is a personal opinion, but to my understanding and the time I have been in to this company for the past three years, to me, it is not much. When I was in the bank, I covered more than four states under my own supervision and is slightly more than what I’m having here, so if somebody said the Regional Office is too big for one person to manage, I don’t really know on what basis he/she is talking about; is it the human management, the monitoring aspect or what? But to me and to my own personal understanding and experience, Regional Office is not much for one person to manage, especially with the reform and having so many teams to work with, you have the HRB, HCB, and the CM that is a commercial manager all in your team, what do you need again, there should be delegation of powers and duties; before you know it, everything will move fine, that is my own understanding. I believe in Kaduna Electric, I can fit in everywhere.
CCD: Sir, do you have call to the staff?
UF: We should believe in ourselves and in the Company, Kaduna Electric. Some of the staff have this mindset of, you know this company is not serious, it is that, it is not doing this and so on, we take that mindset out of our plans, We should have the belief that this is a baby company that is trying to grow up and if you put your best and be part of it, you grow up together; that is my belief, so everybody should work towards achieving the goals of the Company.
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