Communique of the Tripartite Meeting With CSOS, Transmission Company of Nigeria And Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company Held At Arewa House On 18/04/18

NewsRescue

Following the agitations of the people of Kaduna on the inadequacy of power supply despite the unprecedented increase in generation and transmission and its availability as noticed in Kebbi, Kano and other places, estimated billing system that does not consider whether or not costumers enjoy the power supply, suspicious hidden charges in the metering system, non provision of transformers, poles, wires and other installations needed to take power to homes while expecting people in the community to contribute money to buy, selling of prepaid meters to costumers which is suppose to be for free and the poor costumer services experienced. The Coalition of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) engaged the management of the Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company (KAEDCO) and seek answers to the above mentioned challenges faced by the people of Kaduna State but the bulk of the fault were hipped on the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN). That necessitated a meeting with the management of TCN who debunked all the allegations with facts and figures.

This allegations and counter allegations necessitated a tripartite meeting with KAEDCO, TCN and the people of Kaduna represented by stakeholders. This was proposed by at first by KAEDCO.

Seeing that it was imminent to hold such a meeting, the CSOs called a meeting and discussed, after which a date was agreed and letters were sent to KAEDCO, TCN and Stakeholders. At the tripartite meeting, TCN, Stakeholders, CSOs, media were all present except KAEDCO. Right at the floor of the meeting and to the ears of everybody present , KAEDCO was called to remind them that they were the only party every other party was waiting for. They responded to the ears of everyone present that they have an already scheduled program for that day, as such can not participate in the meeting. We insisted that they should send in representatives even if it is one or two people that will clarify issues, for it is impossible for a big organization of such to say it can not attend to multiple programs simultaneously. But they insisted that they will not come.

TCN which was represented by its top management team led by the General Manager Engr. I. L. Alim then resolved that they can not discuss anything since the other party that was alleging them of serious sabotage was not there to affirm their allegations, therefore they will take their leave. But after series of persuasion and obvous plea, they accepted to speak from their own angle of the issue.

After all, the participants unanimously absolved TCN of all allegations leveled against her by KAEDCO and resolved as follows:

1) Refusal of KAEDCO to participate in the very important tripartite meeting and choose to instead participate in a football match at the Ahmadu Bello Stadium same day was a clear indication that costumers are less important and they are running away from been exposed, therefore are responsible for short changing the people and the acute shortage of power supply to homes despite its availability.

2) KAEDCO should hence forth evacuate all of the 8% power allotted to it to service the people of Kaduna.

3) Transformers, poles, cables and all other installations needed to give adequate, safe and reliable power to home must be provided by KAEDCO as a mandate not consumers or government as it is made to look like.

4) All homes should be metered and charged appropriately, to avoid people paying for power they did not consume, which has been the trend.

5) Community Associations should encourage people to pay their light bills, guide electricity installations like transformers against vandalism and expose neighbours who bypass their meters.

6) KAEDCO should adhere strictly to the NERC guidelines, the law that established them and business ethics.

7) KAEDCO should improve on its costumer services and its poor public relations.

We give 4 weeks to the Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company to comply with the above demands of the people to avoid a shutdown of their head office.

Thank you,

Yusuf Amoke
Convener.
18/04/18