Gov. Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State has charged the management of Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) to exhibit change management in order to bring about the needed organisational transformation.
Sule gave the task when he received the AEDC team led by the Acting General Manager, Nasarawa region, Mr Chris Chime, in Lafia on Tuesday.
He said AEDC requires a change of direction, hence the need to encourage the distribution company to do more in ensuring power supply to the people especially at this time of lockdown caused by COVID-19 pandemic.
Sule said: “Power is one of the major areas of our discussion when the Governors met with the Presidency with regards to what is happening in the country.
“Since we are connected, Nasarawa is more to you as an organisation, as a distribution company then we have more to do with you.”
He noted that over time, generating companies say they have enough but the distribution companies are not utilising the available power and the investment by the distribution companies is said not to be efficient.
On vandalism of power equipment, the governor advised AEDC to liaise with security agencies and communities in order to stem the act, adding the state government has over the years supported the electricity company in repairing damaged equipment.
“It reached a point where I said who is doing the vandalisation, and you hear all kinds of theories. Nobody will go and find a life line and vandalise the cable except the line is not life otherwise many deaths would have been recorded,” Sule added.
The governor said the communities that are more interested in having power supply will be more than interested to catch and report vandals even if they are staff of the distribution companies, if their cooperation is sought.
According to him, state governors will submit their investments in the power to the Federal Government in order to possibly get some form of reimbursement as Governors are doing a lot in the area of power supply.
Earlier, Chime said they were at the Government House to pledge the company’s readiness to serve the people of Nasarawa and also support the state government in any possible way.
The acting general manager commended the pragmatic approach of the governor to entrench good governance.
He solicited the assistance of the state government to surmount the challenges faced by the company.
“Lafia especially used to have a very peculiar problem of low voltage, we are aware of that and we know that with the upcoming of the 330KVA station at Akurba, once that station begins work, all power issues in the state and even the FCT will be taken care of,” Chime assured.
He however called on the state government to come to the aid of AEDC in the area of providing security for its facilities across the state, as he maintained that in the last three months, over 25 per cent of the company’s facilities were vandalised.
Vandalism, according to Chime, has always been the bane of the challenges of efficient power supply to the customers, adding that presently, over 16 transmission facilities are out of function.
