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The Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company (Kaduna Electric) will on Friday, commence the distribution of one million prepaid metres to electricity consumers in its franchise States of Kaduna, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Kaduna Electric, Engr Garba Haruna, said at an interactive session with journalists that customers would not have to pay upfront for the meters.
“We will not ask you to pay for metre upfront. We will just roll out the metres and sort out ourselves. It is an initiative with the Federal Government. We will do it in such a way that you don’t even know you are paying for the metre”, he said.
He explained that the project would be carried out in the next three years, while about 80,000 units of the metres would be installed between the end of October this year and January 2021.
“The scheduled timetable for the installation of the prepaid metres is being developed, quickly and the company would be forced to withdraw its services from any community or consumer that may reject the installation of the new metres,” he said. “We are ready to roll out mass metres starting from this Friday.
We are coming up with a scheduled timetable that will indicate when this will happen from one community to the other because we cannot metre communities in four states in a day.”
“Already, we have connected thousands of communities but we are not getting our money back. We are getting only 40 per cent payment in these already connected communities and that is not good for the business.”
“In the next few months of this mass metering project, we are targeting 80,000. We will increase the number to 500,000 and more in three years and at the end of the day, we may end up metering one million customers in three years because we have up to one million customers in our franchise states.”
“In agreement with the regulating agency, anybody that rejects metre, we shall withdraw our service and allow the person to use alternative power sources.” “Let me clarify here once again that, we don’t collect money from customers to buy equipment and people should stop contributing money at the community level under the guise of procuring electricity equipment.”
“When we identify a community where 70-80 per cent of customers are not paying, we will take our service away from them. So, when you see anyone not paying or bypassing the metre, you must report such things just the way you will report when you don’t have supply because it will affect you at the end of the day.”
“Our customers should get prepare for more power supply because we cannot withhold the energy once we have it. Energy being billed is the energy being consumed,” he said.
