By SUNDAY ABBA, Abuja
Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, AEDC, has lamented surge in vandalisation of its electrical assets and installations.
The Chief Marketing Officer of the company, Donald Etim, in a statement signed by the management said that the development has seriously impeded the company’s efforts to deliver stable and reliable power supply to its customers.
The company’s Management explained that following its sincere desire to ensure improved power supply, it last year activated a rich basket of technical and commercial projects that would upon completion significantly improve power supply to customers and thereby enrich customer experience.
“Unfortunately, many of these installations are currently being vandalized across the network, causing very painful power supply disruptions, untold hardship and losses to its customers, and huge financial and reputation losses to the company,_ the statement said.
Etim in the statement condemned the acts of the plunderers stating that ‘‘The surge in cases of vandalism within our franchise area has become quite worrisome, especially so because these vandals lately utilise unfathomable methods to perpetrate their criminal acts.
“This technique upgrade in their evil trade has emboldened the thieves to attack more of urban assets and installations of late, thereby affecting higher customer densities.
He lamented that recently185 meters of XLPE underground cable were carted away at the Central Business Area of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja, valued at over 5 million Naira at just one location out of several others that have been similarly affected across our franchise. The multiplier effect of these damages runs into billions of naira’’.
While assuring that the company would not relent on its efforts to ensure it provides adequate uninterrupted power supply by continuing with more investments to upgrade its facilities, the chief marketing officer enlightened customers on how to go about their transactions with the company electronically.
He said, “On the Customer side of things we have gone mobile with our metering drive by physically taking meters out to customer cluster locations and getting them metered within 24 hours. There are at least 27 such locations currently operational within our franchise area today, excluding our formal offices. We have launched multiple payment channels, including USSD short codes, that allow our customers vend power at zero commission.
“We have also launched a verify-staff platform that enables customers, for their safety, to quickly verify AEDC visitors to their premises by simply inputting the said staff’s ID card number into a link connected directly to our website. Detailed information on how these innovations work can be found on our AEDC website, kindly visit www.abujaelectricity.com for these and other goodies.”
While calling on all to be vigilante and report any incident of vandalism as soon as possible, the company said it had strengthened ties with security agencies to curb the menace on its network and vowed to prosecute anyone found wanting.