Katsina, Kano and Jigawa need 600 megawatts daily, get 180 megawatts —KEDCO

Management of the Kano Electricity Distribution Company (KEDCO) on Tuesday, attributed the poor supply of power in Kano, Jigawa and Katsina States to the reduction in power transmission to 180 megawatts as against the transmission of 600 megawatts expected every day, from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).

The Managing Director,  Malam Abubakar Yusuf, disclosed this during a press conference held at the company’s headquarters in Kano.

He stated that no fewer than six people, who engaged in vandalising the power equipment, have been arrested and will be subsequently prosecuted in court.

According to him, “We felt it is necessary to address you on the shortage of power supply being experienced in the states so that you can enlighten our customers on the current challenges.

“This is necessary because we are the last in the value chain because we can only distribute what we have. No businessman will deliberately deny his customers goods.

“We need 600 megawatts to adequately serve our customers the three states which are our franchise areas.”

He, therefore, called on customers in the three states to bear with the situation as the problem is not peculiar to Kano but the country at large.

He said noted that the fire outbreak at the Dan’agundi transmission station on Sunday had seriously affected the company’s operation.

On revenue generation, the Managing Director said the company would engage the services of religious leaders to sensitise customers to desist from electricity theft through illegal connections, and meter bypass among other illegal acts.

“We received N14 billion invoices monthly but the collection is 25 percent or N3.5 billion, which is far below what we are expected to collect as revenue due to refusal of our customers to pay their electricity bills.

“So, we believe by the time our religious leaders preach in their sermons how Islam and Christianity forbid electricity theft, it will go a long way in checking the illegal acts.”