IBEDC Sets Up Team To Curb Commercial Losses
Financial losses arising from commercial and technical losses have been a major challenge to electricity distribution companies (DisCos). To stem this trend and improve power supply to consumers, Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) has set up a prepaid meter team to ensure that customers are metered.
The team will ensure that energy theft and bypass of meters are stopped or reduced to the barest minimum to boost the company’s revenue and enable it discharge its financial responsibilities to industry appropriately.
Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) has begun a major revenue protection campaign with a crack team of over 60 executives and officers to curb aggregate, technical and commercial losses.
The team will not only ensure that all the loopholes through which the company loses money are plugged but will endeavour to make collections improve substantially to enable the company pay its dues to the concerned agencies in the power sector promptly and have enough to smoothly run its operations.
Inaugurating the team in Ibadan, the Chief Operating Officer, John Ayodele, said revenue protection is needed to block leakages that could make the Company go under, and that this trend has made many electricity distribution companies (DisCos) unable to pay their bills to the Market Operators and the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trader (NBET).
He said lack of efficient revenue protection measures has been a major challenge as it deals with illegal consumption of power, prepaid meter bypass, under-billing, wrong tariff classification of customers and energy theft.
IBEDC discovered that energy theft and meter tampering accounts for about 60 per cent of revenue losses across its franchise, between January and October 2019, and the company has dealt with about 1,333 cases of meter bypass.
The establishment of the IBEDC prepaid meter (PPM) team is another initiative taken by the company to curb revenue leakages, other measures include “the use of advance metering infrastructure – this allows for two-way communication between the meter and the utility provider; whistleblowing initiative – to get and investigate reports and tip offs on corruption for prosecution.
Ayodele, while receiving a delegation of the Management of the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) in Ibadan, said the losses and financial challenges in the sector is worsened by multiple taxation and huge debt by government agencies and parastatals. Mr. Ajani Adeleke, the Zonal Director Southwest, who led the delegation charged every Nigerian to be environment safety-conscious, especially the environmental regulations.
In a similar development, IBEDC pledged its support to the rescue operations of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) in Oyo State. The Chief Operating Officer, who also received the Road Safety Commandant, Uche Winifred Chukwurah, spoke on the need for proper earthing of houses to avoid loss of property, accidents and deaths.
Chukwurah promised to continue the job of keeping the roads free of accidents.
