Friday 15 October 2021

MEET THE STAFF SERIES

 

Safety Should Not Be An After Thought, but Our Culture - Abdulaziz S. Ahmad

 

CCD: Can you briefly tell us about yourself?

ASA:

Abdulazeez S Ahamad HSE Sokoto AO
My name is Abdulaziz Sanusi Ahmad, I am a graduate of Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Pure Chemistry. I have General HSE and HSE Competency Development Training (Level 3) Certificate, NNPC Kaduna Routing and Switching Cisco Networking Academy ABU Zaria. Presently I am the Safety Officer, Sokoto Area Office. I am happily married and blessed with one kid.

CCD: When did you join the service of the Company?

ASA: I joined the service of Kaduna Electric in September 2015.

CCD: What are your primary responsibility as a Safety Officer?

ASA: My responsibilities includes among others, preparing work plan of HSE activities for the Area Office and corresponding budget/ cost implication, monitoring and advising on the implementations of the Corporate Policy on Occupational Health, Safety and Environment, liaising with the Technical department to design job procedures base on job safety and hazard analysis (JSA/JHA), carrying out monthly safety inspection of plants/equipment within the Area Office, carrying out HSE enlightenment within the Area Office, ensuring that no work is permitted or allowed until it has met up with safety standard, ensuring regular maintenance of safety and firefighting equipment within the Area Office, reporting accidents within 12 hours to Area Manager and Head office Safety Department and carrying out preliminary technical investigation and maintain record, render monthly accident returns to Head office,  as well as monitor compliance to HSE policy, and NERC Health and Safety Code.

 CCD: What is the difficult part of being a safety officer?

ASA: One of the major challenges is inculcating safety culture in the workforce. There is this erroneous thought that safety provide no direct effect on the company financial gain. The only way we can contribute towards the Company profit is to lower liability.

Secondly, nobody likes the Safety Officer in response to his approach in field/ employee safety initiative compliance issues. 

CCD: Team work is one of the core values do you consider yourself a team player?

ASA: Yes of course, you see Teams succeed when members have commitment to common objective, when there is defined roles and responsibilities, effective decision system brings efficient work, procedures and skills such as communication skills, relationship skills and leadership skills I believe I am a team player with ability to work and influence a positive result in Sokoto Area Office.

CCD: Do you have any suggestion on how we can improve on safety measure?

ASA: Of course yes, one by creating a plan for improving Health and Safety: As an employer, you must identify hazards in your workplace and take steps to eliminate or minimize them, develop a safety plan, tell your employees what you will do to ensure their safety and what you expect from them. Proper training is necessary for all employees, especially if there is a risk for potential injury associated with a job. Meet regularly with your staff and discuss health and safety issues, encourage them to share their ideas and thoughts on how to improve safety in the workplace. Regularly check all equipment and tools to ensure that they are well maintained and safe to use. Investigate accidents and keep records of all first aid treatment, inspections, incident investigations, and training activities.

CCD: What advice would like to give to the Management?

ASA: Leading by example; the Management should ensure that all safety policies are adhered to and encouraging employees to do the same. If Management commits to safety, employee will follow suit. Workers won’t buy-in to safety if they don’t see policies and procedures being followed by their superiors. Safety is more than talking the talk; it’s walking the walk.

We work daily to improve our human effectiveness and strive to achieve happiness in our homes with our families, in our business and work, to achieve that we most arrange this basic key part of business. Safety shouldn’t be an after – thought; it’s just as important to a successful business as customer service, inventory control, and financial planning. A commitment to Health and Safety makes good business sense because it’s the one way to protect your greatest resource – your people.

 

 

Wednesday 13 October 2021

KADUNA ELECTRIC FRONTLINE OCTOBER EDITION

Effective End-To-End Metering Is One Of The Ways That We Can Actually Increase Our Revenue -Hussein


CCD: The office of Regional Coordinator is relatively a new position and unknown to most staff, what exactly are the duties and responsibilities of a Regional Coordinator?

Hussein: Thank you very much. It is true that the office is new and a cross section of the staff aren’t conversant with it.

The office of the Regional Operations Coordinator is basically meant to coordinate, guide, supervise the activities of the Area Offices & other units within the region to achieve the Company`s key strategic objectives of revenue generation, loss reduction, capacity enhancement and managerial skills for the Region.

Part of the key duties and responsibilities of the office are as listed below:

·        Oversee the development of all the various functional heads at the Region and monitors their performance in order to enhance their technical, commercial, accounting and managerial skills

·        Ensure that the technical services and distribution installations in the region are well-maintained to service all customers

·        Initiate development projects for capacity enhancement and system augmentation to cover previously un-served areas/customers

·        Ensure coordination between the HQ management and regional office and other business offices for implementation of company policies and management directives

 

CCD: A cross section of staffs are of the opinion that Regional Coordinators are not adding any value to the system because it is more less a one-man office, do you subscribe to this assertion, and how can the office of Regional Coordinators be made more effective?

Hussein: This is truly a result of misunderstanding and I don’t subscribe to it. The office of the ROC is a well thought out plan and all-encompassing in the sense that it involves all entire staff in the region and not a one-man show as some staffs are inclined to believe. The Company is expanding/growing & plans to increase our customer base is in top gear and for us to be the best electricity distribution company in Nigeria within the next ten years (as stated in our mission statement), there is need to decentralize our operations moreover the responsibility of one Manager (HOP) to run the entire Company can become overwhelming as the number of the Area offices increases, thus, the need for the office of the Regional Operations Coordinator. This is so for us to be more efficient and highly effective in maximizing the enormous potential in the business.

CCD: The Doka, Kawo, Barnawa & Kafanchan Area Offices which you superintend are the revenue base of the Company, what are you doing to ensure that there is sustainable growth in the monthly revenue of these Area Offices?

Hussein: Some of the measures deployed in order to sustain growth in spite of the obvious challenges are: 

a.     Sustained and Aggressive Collections drive to ensure 80% collection efficiency on current bills.

b.     Increased customer base through new set up and separation (Minimum of 30 Nos newly captured per SR)

c.      Sustained recovery drive of at least a minimum of 5% from HCB & 15% from HRB customers out of the outstanding.

d.     Leveraging on the continued CCG Promo Program

e.      Effective PPM monitoring to block revenue leakages.

f.       Constant Community engagement to enlighten our customers on happenings in the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry (NESI)

But above all, staff have been enjoined to show more dedication to duty, have a change of attitude towards the job and also be of high integrity as these are the fulcrum upon which all the above strategies revolve if we intend to have a continuous and sustainable growth.

CCD: What is the performance of your Region Vis-a-Vis the target?

Hussein: The performance of the Region vis-à-vis target is estimated to be 40% from the 4 AOs in the Region in spite of all the challenges. This is not where we want to be as a Region and there is a lot of room for improvement. We strongly believe with the right mindset, focus and determination, we can increase this to achieve at the minimum, 60% before the end of the year.

CCD: The commercial and collection losses in the HCB (High Customer Base) subsector is much high than the accepted threshold, how do we curtail the high commercial and collection losses especially on the HCB category?

Hussein: One of the most effective ways to curtail the high commercial and collection losses is by intensifying end-to-end metering of all the customers. Additionally, we also need to refine and further automate our collection processes so as to reduce to the barest minimum the direct cash handling by our Sales Representatives and field staff.

There is also the urgent need for a re-training of our SRs to be able to understand and appreciate the value chain of the electricity sector so that they can speak from an informed view point and also impress it upon them the spirit of ownership. This will surely go a long way in partly addressing this issue.

Punitive measures must also be applied to both staff and customers found to be aiding or abetting any unethical practice(s) in the field so as to serve as a deterrent to others nursing that ambition.

CCD: The three Area Offices under you are largely metropolitan in nature, how are you contending with the menace of meter bypass and tampering as well as other forms of energy theft?

Hussein: Meter tampering, bypass and other forms of energy theft are major leakages in revenue realization in the distribution chain of the electricity sector. As a Regional Operations Coordinator overseeing the affairs of these Area Offices, we have been working hand in hand with the Enforcement Unit at each of the Area Offices and the HQ especially in locations with high PPM concentration for visits and report of infraction on a daily basis. This has yielded positive result. For instance, during the Doka Pilot, over 100Nos supposed PPM meter boxes were found empty. Those found wanting were charged accordingly and followed up to ensure payments are made.

CCD: The National Mass Metering programme is steadily gaining momentum, how do you think the program will affect the revenue generation in your Region?

Hussein: The import of this exercise cannot be overemphasized. Effective end-to-end metering is one of the ways that we can actually increase our revenue, positively impact the bottom-line and ensure every kilowatt counts. This is evident in the recent metering exercise of MD Abubakar Estate whose total collection prior to the exercise was estimated to be N1.1m but now in the region of N4m.

We are also suggesting similar exercise to be carried out at Millennium City and Urban Shelter areas.

CCD: Who is Hussein Kangiwa and what brings out the best in him?

Hussein: I am a very simple and easy going fellow, disciplined, accommodating and above all an ardent team player. With over 2 decades of Banking experience, a Masters of Banking and Finance from Usman Dan Fodio University and a professional membership of both Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria(CIBN) and Risk Managers Association of Nigeria(RIMAN). I am always ready and willing to learn new things, processes that will add value to the team and by extension the Company in general.