Energy theft our worst challenge – Jos DisCo laments

By Kingsley Chukwuka

The Jos Electricity Distribution Company (JED), has lamented the frequent rate of energy theft in the four franchise States of Plateau, Gombe, Bauchi and Benue, appealing to customers to help the company protect it’s facilities and report anyone bypassing it’s meter.

“Energy theft remains the worst challenge bedeviling the company”, the Spokesman for JED, Dr. Adakole Elijah said Sunday in a statement sent to our correspondent in Jos.

Arising from a stakeholders meeting tagged Electricity Consumer Forum, held in Bauchi State at the weekend, JED through it’s Regional Manager, Alhaji Auwalu Banajada, called on consumers to partner with the company to better safeguard electricity installations in their area.

“We are partners in progress if we lose any facility in your area, you can be out of energy supply for months, so help and help yourself.

“Meter bypass is a criminal and a capital offense, we are losing billions of naira because of this menace and will not take it lightly with defaulters”, he said.

Banajada who also included the activities of vandals as worrisome, warned that if the urgly trend is not controlled, output of the company will remain a challenge.

“Energy theft has been a major problem in this business. You see someone in a community tampering with elevator installations and no one bothered to challenge or ask him questions. It should not be so.

“Do not allow unauthorised access to electricity facilities located in your areas. If you see any suspicious movement, kindly ask to know the identity of the person and if you are not satisfied, arrest the person and hand him or her over to security agents and let us know. We should not fold our hands and allow unscrupulous elements in the society destroyed what collectively belongs to us”, he counselled.

Babajada who also lamented that a lot of customers were indebted to the company to the tune of several billions of naira urged customers to endeavour to pay for their consumed energies as according to him their  non payment was negatively affecting the operations of the company.

According to him, “Since the introduction of the Service Reflective Tariff, JED Plc has tremendously improved on it services to her customers. We have been supplying electricity faithfully to our customers based on the category of Bands they belong to and it is therefore expected that customers should reciprocate our efforts by timeously paying for the energy that they consumed. If you don’t pay for energy consumed, how do we pay those in the value chain”, he said

Answering questions on the ongoing mass metering, he charged customers to report anybody demanding money from them for the purpose of metering, adding that customers with complaints about over billings should channel their complaints through any of the company offices or it social media handles assuring that that complaints would be expeditiously attended to.