History was made on November 1, 2013 across the country as core investors in the power sector successfully took over the physical asset of both generation and distribution companies. The handover according to them has ushered in a new dawn in the sector as they outlined modalities in ensuring an effective and efficient power delivery to the last man in the electricity chain. Chairman of the New Electricity Distribution Company/KEMPCO consortium, Mr. Kola Adeshina who took over from Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company in an interview with SweetCrude’s KUNLE KALEJAYE, urged customers especially government institutions to promptly pay their bills. He also bears his mind on some other issues his company is prepared to tackle in ensuring that they become the best electricity distribution company in the country. How do you feel about the successful takeover? I feel very proud and great of being a Nigerian that at least we’ve gotten something right for the very first time and this is a process that was transparent, the process that was not influenced by any selfish interest, the process that brought about the very best in terms of the performance that has been listed for each and every one of us to apply with. So we feel happy being a Nigerian, that yes, Nigerians are can come together to make Nigeria greater and better. Nobody could do it for us. We have to do it ourselves. I feel very proud and great being a Nigerian. What are your plans for the inherited workers? What we have for them is first and foremost, we are going to do an assessment, an evaluation of each and every one of them; their competence level; their capacity and what they are likely to contribute. Base on that, what we intend to do is to expose them to new ways of doing things, that is new thinking, new processes and then ultimately increase their welfare because when you are motivated you will definitely give your best. The motivational aspect is something we are really going to deal with. As a new owner, do you plan to end the CAPMI scheme? No! what we intend to do first really is not to pre-judge the system. Part of what kills most system is when people, before they get into the system, they criticise it, they don’t know it. So we want to understand what is going on, understand how the entire system works and then proffer solutions to them. So we have the privilege of having an organisation that is doing exactly same thing elsewhere, generating, transmitting and distributing 82,000 megawatt, their experience will be brought to bear. The technicality of the Nigeria situation will equally come in here. So these are issues we are putting into consideration in developing our final strategy. We will access what is on ground because if you are going to improve you can only improve on something that you understand; you don’t improve on what you don’t understand. The entire process, the entire chain and service being provided currently would be evaluated by us. We have never had the privilege of pre- shadow management so we didn’t have the access to this premises of this company. Everything to the smallest would be evaluated against the global bench mark and then the upgrade would be done accordingly in those areas. One of the things that you probably need to recognise is this, we have made pledges which have been embedded in the agreement that we sign. Those pledges can only be done when we make money. The more money we make in trying the best possible way we can in curtailing energy theft, in ensuring that those that use to get away with bills that are lower than normal gets appropriate bills, in ensuring that services are made available, reliability is guarantee then we will make money, when we make more money we will have to innovate the system and improving on the services standard. Going forward, what are your plans for the asset and how you hope to finance your operations seeing as CBN is set to enforce lending limits? Part of the challenge of our system in part is that everybody has a limited focus with regards to sourcing for funds. There are too many sources for funding, there are funding that you will get from operational income, there are other sources that you are going to look at, there are other strategy that you can use to fund your operations without necessary spending a dime. I can tell the suppliers of services to me that I am not going to pay you today but I will do defer payment on the basis of the credibility that I bring to the table, quite a lot of people will be able to support the initiative knowing that I am in a service that is highly required and it is done in more sufficient and effective manner, they will support me. So there are a lot of collective ways of funding without necessary obtaining loans. How do you intend to drive local content in the power sector? One of the things I said on the onset is that nobody can come to our nation and develop us, we are the ones that will develop ourselves. So the primary requirement is for us to look at areas that have local capability and support those initiatives with local capability. Those areas that have local capability, if we know that they can enhance services, enhance benefits elsewhere, those benefit would be brought in ultimately because it is a global thing, it is not a Nigeria thing; electricity is global it is not Nigerian in nature. If there is way that there are doing things elsewhere that we are not doing currently in Nigeria, some of things that we are going to do is to improve on the current standard by adding value elsewhere and most importantly we want to be as innovative as innovation permits. One of the challenges in revenue loss is by- passed lines in the network, how would you cope with that? Interestingly, part of the things that you really need to understand is this: whatever is happening currently in Nigeria in the electricity sector, most especially in the distribution aspect is synonymous with what is happening elsewhere or what has happened elsewhere before. Most of the nations that has done so well in terms of generation, distribution and transmission, they have had similar challenges that Nigeria is going through. Some of the strategies and technologies that they adopted in resolving those challenges will be brought to bear. Because we are Nigerians, we can find a way of resolving some of those crisis we’ve had internally. The critical factor is this, in Korea they’ve had similar power theft and they were able to resolve that challenge. We are going to definitely going to replicate that and improve on whatever they did in their country. How much are you investing because your counterpart in Eko is thinking of investing over $50 million You see one of those things that we don’t do as a company is that we would not buy any fish in a river. We are not just going to pick on a numbers; we are not going to do that. Everything that is required to make us the best electricity distribution company in Nigeria would be done. What about estimated billing? The life span of estimated billing is coming to an end. Once the services that you are rendering is measurable, then payment should be determined, it should be fixed. If you know that there is X quantum of kilo watt of electricity that am consuming and there is high rate attached to that electricity, X multiply by Y will give me XY but if XY is giving me XY race to power what ever then something is wrong. I want to be a responsible organisation because whatever services that am rendering I must receive payment for those services that I have rendered. I’m not going to receive any payment over and above the services that I have rendered because that means am stealing from the system. That is part of the things we are going to be doing in this organisation, the value system which is ultimately require as a nation would be driven down to the last man in the chain of this.
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