We Are Winning the Battle Against Energy Theft ..Head Enforcement Unit.
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| Ibrahim Muhammed |
IM: Alhamdulillah! It has been a rewarding experience having worked in various depts now, transiting from being a BDRO in former Rigasa AO in 2015 to Zaria AO in 2018 down to CCG Unit and lately, the Enforcement and Assessment Unit.
Being an industry with multifaceted problems, one uses the experiences garnered over the years through interaction with stakeholders and also engagement with colleagues to help address them as they come.
CCD: With the benefits of your experiences, what do you think constitute the major challenges confronting the company today and how do we address them?
IM: Major challenges confronting the Unit is the alarming rate of energy theft and meter infractions which constitutes the major impediment confronting the Company; these infractions are in form of both internal and external bypasses and they cut across both MD and NON-MD customers.
Unpatriotic customers devise various means of tampering with energy meters and direct theft of energy, thereby denying the Company of the much needed revenue to settle our market obligations. As a Unit, our core function is to stop these nefarious acts by fishing out the culprits by disconnecting and booking them according to their various load assessment in line with NERC regulations.
CCD: The Enforcement Unit is constituted mainly to fight energy theft; can we say the Company is winning this battle?
IM: The Company is really wining this battle through the various team in the AOs daily combing feeder by feeder fishing out offenders. With our ready on demand database and vending history data from the PPM Unit, we are able to study various vending trends of customers helping us make analysis vis-à-vis the energy consumption of the feeder band against the unit vended this help us to track and monitor our meters in our database. The use of this MIS report has really help us in tracking and monitoring these meters.
CCD: What other measures do you think the Company should take to bring to an end the menace of energy theft, meter tampering and by-pass?
IM: Prosecution of offenders will help curbing and stopping this energy theft; it is also pertinent to push and lobby, where necessary, the government to legislate an enabling law that will put offenders behind bars; severe punitive measures like various jail terms will greatly bring an end to this menace of energy theft meter tampering and bypass. Then setting up of more teams in each AO like five teams in each of the AOs will greatly help to assist the Unit to enable us cover our ever-increasing customers in view of the National Mass Metering Program of Federal Government.
CCD: The ongoing National Mass Metering Programme will undoubtedly place additional burden on your Unit, how prepare are you to take up the challenge?
IM: The ongoing National Mass Metering Program is a step in a right direction to help toward helping us reduce ATC&C losses. As a Unit, we are up to the challenge of ensuring end to end tracking and monitoring all the meters in our networks across the franchise states.
We have a daily work plan which consist of daily visit and also recovery of those with outstanding payments in the reporting module which help us effectively and efficiently discharge our duties.
CCD: Meters deployment is also going on in distant stations like Kebbi and Sokoto States, how can we ensure effectiveness of the Enforcement Unit in these stations?
IM: It has been quite effective with our various team across the three states of Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara. We have designed an SOP (Standard Operation Procedure) and a daily reporting module in form of an EIR (Electricity Inspection Report) in addition to a video recording which forms basis of our overall activities as designed by the regulators. This helps us to document any of our activity.
CCD: How is your Unit partnering or synergizing with Units assigned with similar or complimentary functions such as PPM Unit & Corporate Intelligence for better results?
IM: Our Unit is always interfacing and collaborating with other sister Units like the Metering Unit, PPM Unit, MAP, MD Unit and the Corporate Intelligence unit. We owe most of our achievement from the intelligence report we get from the Units mentioned, I can say the hand shake is excellent and yielding result.
CCD: How do we avoid duplication of responsibilities or functional overlap among these units?
IM: There is no duplication of responsibility or functional overlap because the JDs and KPIs are all clearly spelt out which all units adhere to in line with Company’s corporate objective. As a Unit, we professionally discharge our duties and obligations in line with the over roll corporate objectives setting up of the unit in order to achieved the desire reduction of our ATC&C losses.
CCD: What is your call or appeal to our customers especially those with the tendency to or are contemplating engaging in meter tampering?
IM: The catch phrase there is a new sheriff is in town, our appeal to our esteemed customers is to refrain from tampering with our meters and direct energy theft; they should ensure that when ever they have issues, they should report it to our various offices so that their problem will be attended to.
CCD: What brings out Ibrahim Muhammed?
IM: He is that Kaduna Electric committed team player ever willing to take responsibility.
