Fashola charges DisCos to improve electricity supply

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola yesterday allayed the fears of the 11 Distribution Companies (DisCos) on the Eligible Customer regulation, charging them to redefine relationships with their customers to woo them.

The minister at the 27th monthly power sector meeting in Yola, Adamawa State said the regulation was about delivering improved power supply to Nigerians and not about taking the DisCos’ customers.

He noted that Yola Electricity Distribution Company (YEDC) is the first to have engaged an eligible customer - Adama Beverage, showing a practical example that DisCos can benefit from it.

The regulation was launched in November 2017 after Fashola had in May declared some categories of electricity customers who consume from 2 megawatts (MW) monthly as ‘Eligible’.

Fashola said, “For the DisCos who still doubt the possibility of eligible customer policy, Yola DisCo and Adama Beverage now show you that it is not about anybody trying to take the big customers, it is about you having a redefined relationship with your big customers.”

The Managing Director of YEDC, Mustapha Baba Umara said the public firm has improved it’s revenue collection by over 200 per cent and is the first DisCo to actualise the Eligible Customer regulation.

He said it has fixed 80 per cent of the lines destroyed by the insurgency to supply more power to the northeast adding that it has keyed into the Meter Assets Provider (MAP) regulation to install meters for more of its customers.