Kaduna Electric Frontline March Edition

We Target 800,000 Customers Increase in Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara States - Regional Chief, Sokoto.

CCD: Good day Sir, you were recently elevated to the position of Regional Chief assigned to head the operations department in Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara States, how do you see your role as the Regional Chief in that axis?

MR. Sunday: Thank you very much. Sokoto as a Zone is headed by a Regional Chief and is made up of Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara Regions in these three States.  The first thing I want to say about these locations is that they have huge untapped opportunity for Kaduna Electric business. The three States have a total of 58 Local Governments and a combined population of over 16 million people according to the projected census figures of 2019. If you assume 10 people per household and 50% access to our service, you are looking at a potential customer population of about 800,000. In our database for the three States, we barely have 200,000. This represents a huge potential in terms of business growth of about 4 times of what we have now.

The Zone also consumes between 35-38% of Kaduna Electric power monthly, collecting this money represents another area of opportunity for Kaduna Electric. This is so that we can meet our obligations to the Nigerian Electricity Market and contribute our quota to market stability.  Our area is also vast and is expanding and more and more people are requesting access to our services, which also represents another area of opportunity. We also have to look at a place like Kebbi State where a lot of rice mills with potential for large energy off take are springing up as a result of the nearness to the raw material. This also represents another opportunity for Kaduna Electric to maximize it revenue.

Right now, we are having loss levels of up to 80% and sometimes above that, that’s another potential area for growth by way of loss reduction.

So, to directly answer your question, my role as Regional Chief in a nutshell is to harness all of Kaduna Electric’s human and material resources for greater operational productivity, reduction in aggregate technical, commercial and collection (ATC&C) losses as well as greater customer satisfaction.

CCD: You are not new to Sokoto axis just as you are not new to operations activities of the Company, what shall be your priority?

MR. Sunday: My biggest priority is ATC&C loss reduction, especially the commercial and collection losses that we have direct control over. The kind of losses we experience here are unheard of in this industry, so we will be working together with the team to achieve greater operational efficiency.

CCD: Commercial and collection losses have been a serious challenge to the Company; leveraging on your experiences, why has the problem remained an unsurmountable challenge, what do we need to do to address these teething problems?

MR. Sunday: Thank you very much, for commercial losses our approach will be two-fold, the first is reduction in energy theft through vigorous and thorough enforcement activities. By energy theft, we mean those who connect directly to our line without any bill or record on our billing system. We also mean those who have prepaid meters and have abandoned or bypass the prepaid meters. In other cases, we have those who have tampered with the meters, in all of these, we intend to strengthen our enforcement and disconnection activities to be able to match these vices. The second approach is metering. Metering is a capital-intensive venture and considering the finances of the Company, we will do it in such a way as to optimize the benefit to the Company. We want to ensure that customers are metered and are vending as at when due to protect the Company’s revenue.

For the collection losses, we are closely monitoring the activities of our SR’s, SCM and AMs to ensure that they meet their daily collection targets as well as deploying technology through third party vendors with mobile payment devices as collection agents to provide greater convenience to our teeming customers.

CCD: The National Mass Metering Programme and Meter Asset Providers Scheme have led to the deployment of reasonable number of meters into our network, this include Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara States, how or what are the effects these programmes have on our business?

MR. Sunday: For the National Mass Metering Programme, that was Government’s intervention in the sector to ensure that customers are metered. In the concluded phase zero, Kaduna Electric was not allocated a lot of meters. As a result of the little allocation to Kaduna Electric, what came to this Zone was not much. However, we have been able to deploy them in such a way that it gives us maximum benefits as well as customer satisfaction

For MAP, we are still facing a lot of push back by customers who believe they can wait for the free government meters. However, we are pushing for greater adoption and penetration into our areas. Right now, we have carried out a lot of road shows and sensitization programmes on the benefits of customers being metered through MAP. We also encourage those who are building their houses, to get metered through MAP. I mean, why would someone spend 20-30 million to build a house and tell you they cannot afford 120 thousand for a meter?

CCD: How can we further improve our performance in this regard?

MR. Sunday: We need to do a lot of enlightenment on the need for customers to take advantage of these two schemes to get themselves metered.  We also want to ensure that the timelines set of these projects are met by our team to give it more credibility and further enhanced our esteemed customers’ confidence on the process.

CCD: Let look at energy theft and meter tampering, how bad are the situations in your axis and what strategy do you have in place to checkmate it?

MR. Sunday: The situation is really bad around here. We have over 3,000 meters that have been abandoned and the customers converted to billing on capping.  We see cases of people actually going inside meters to tamper with the circuitry, we also have cases of customers with prepaid meters who abandon their meters at night and hook the line to enjoy energy they will not pay for. So, we want to use this opportunity to appeal to members of the public to desist from such unholy and criminal acts. Electricity is now a commodity that needs to be paid for and people should ensure that they are paying for their electricity to enable us serve them better. We also have some unscrupulous elements going round telling our customers that they can help ‘reduce the speed’ of the meters. We are working with law enforcement agents to track them down and have them face the law.

CCD: We believe that part of your KPIs is to improve the operational efficiency of the Company in the 3 states, what specific tasks, directive or instructions do you have for the Regional and Area Managers to drive home the Managements vision and mission?

MR. Sunday: We have a lot of things lined up towards improvement of operational efficiency; one of them is training and re-training of our staff. The need to build the capacity of our staff to deliver cannot be overemphasized. In this light, we held our first ever Zonal retreat for all management staff across the three States earlier in the year in Sokoto. Another thing is that we are doing our best to ensure they have the tools to do their job. In this regard, we must commend the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Company, Engr. Yusuf Usman Yahaya and his Management team for their support at all times. Another thing we will be doing is constant community engagements to let people know the changes going on in NESI. We are also working aimed at putting a robust reward system that recognizes hard work and result. We are working towards becoming a merit driven organization.

CCD: The importance of synergy and inter-departmental collaborations cannot be over emphasized, how can we ensure that all Departments and Units in the company supports each other and work towards a common goal?

MR. Sunday: In Operations, we interface directly with Technical Service, Commercial as well as Finance. In all of these, we have tried to put structures in place to engender seamless operations. There is only one Kaduna Electric and we encourage a lot of cross departmental collaborations to enable us work towards a common goal.

CCD: Assuming your given an opportunity to talk to the staff in Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara Axis, what will be your message to them?

MR. Sunday: My message to them is to quickly board the change train that is driving the new Kaduna Electric. We cannot be doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different set of results. My message to them is to put in the hard work that is required to turn around the fortunes of this Company; to be honest and dedicated and innovative as we move into the next phase of our existence as a Company.

CCD: Who is Mr. Sunday O. Yahaya and what brings out the best in him?

MR. Sunday: Sunday Yahaya is just a simple man who wants to contribute his own quota to the resolution of the long-standing electricity issue plaguing us. Challenges brings out the best in me. I’m never want to run away from a challenge, I tend to face it head on and expect nothing but victory.