PHCN takeover: New owners talk tough on prompt bill payment

History was made on November 1, 2013 across the
country as core investors in the power sector
successfully took over the physical asset of both
generation and distribution companies. The handover
according to them has ushered in a new dawn in the
sector as they outlined modalities in ensuring an
effective and efficient power delivery to the last man
in the electricity chain.
Chairman of the New Electricity Distribution
Company/KEMPCO consortium, Mr. Kola Adeshina
who took over from Ikeja Electricity Distribution
Company in an interview with SweetCrude's KUNLE
KALEJAYE, urged customers especially government
institutions to promptly pay their bills. He also bears
his mind on some other issues his company is
prepared to tackle in ensuring that they become the
best electricity distribution company in the country.
How do you feel about the successful takeover?
I feel very proud and great of being a Nigerian that at
least we've gotten something right for the very first
time and this is a process that was transparent, the
process that was not influenced by any selfish
interest, the process that brought about the very
best in terms of the performance that has been listed
for each and every one of us to apply with.
So we feel happy being a Nigerian, that yes,
Nigerians are can come together to make Nigeria
greater and better. Nobody could do it for us. We
have to do it ourselves. I feel very proud and great
being a Nigerian.
What are your plans for the inherited workers?
What we have for them is first and foremost, we are
going to do an assessment, an evaluation of each and
every one of them; their competence level; their
capacity and what they are likely to contribute. Base
on that, what we intend to do is to expose them to
new ways of doing things, that is new thinking, new
processes and then ultimately increase their welfare
because when you are motivated you will definitely
give your best. The motivational aspect is something
we are really going to deal with.
As a new owner, do you plan to end the CAPMI
scheme?
No! what we intend to do first really is not to pre-
judge the system. Part of what kills most system is
when people, before they get into the system, they
criticise it, they don't know it. So we want to
understand what is going on, understand how the
entire system works and then proffer solutions to
them. So we have the privilege of having an
organisation that is doing exactly same thing
elsewhere, generating, transmitting and distributing
82,000 megawatt, their experience will be brought to
bear.
The technicality of the Nigeria situation will equally
come in here. So these are issues we are putting into
consideration in developing our final strategy.
We will access what is on ground because if you are
going to improve you can only improve on something
that you understand; you don't improve on what you
don't understand. The entire process, the entire
chain and service being provided currently would be
evaluated by us. We have never had the privilege of
pre-shadow management so we didn't have the
access to this premises of this company. Everything
to the smallest would be evaluated against the global
bench mark and then the upgrade would be done
accordingly in those areas.
One of the things that you probably need to
recognise is this, we have made pledges which have
been embedded in the agreement that we sign.
Those pledges can only be done when we make
money. The more money we make in trying the best
possible way we can in curtailing energy theft, in
ensuring that those that use to get away with bills
that are lower than normal gets appropriate bills, in
ensuring that services are made available, reliability
is guarantee then we will make money, when we
make more money we will have to innovate the
system and improving on the services standard.
Going forward, what are your plans for the asset and
how you hope to finance your operations seeing as
CBN is set to enforce lending limits?
Part of the challenge of our system in part is that
everybody has a limited focus with regards to
sourcing for funds. There are too many sources for
funding, there are funding that you will get from
operational income, there are other sources that you
are going to look at, there are other strategy that you
can use to fund your operations without necessary
spending a dime.
I can tell the suppliers of services to me that I am not
going to pay you today but I will do defer payment on
the basis of the credibility that I bring to the table,
quite a lot of people will be able to support the
initiative knowing that I am in a service that is highly
required and it is done in more sufficient and
effective manner, they will support me. So there are
a lot of collective ways of funding without necessary
obtaining loans.
How do you intend to drive local content in the power
sector?
One of the things I said on the onset is that nobody
can come to our nation and develop us, we are the
ones that will develop ourselves. So the primary
requirement is for us to look at areas that have local
capability and support those initiatives with local
capability. Those areas that have local capability, if
we know that they can enhance services, enhance
benefits elsewhere, those benefit would be brought
in ultimately because it is a global thing, it is not a
Nigeria thing; electricity is global it is not Nigerian in
nature.
If there is way that there are doing things elsewhere
that we are not doing currently in Nigeria, some of
things that we are going to do is to improve on the
current standard by adding value elsewhere and
most importantly we want to be as innovative as
innovation permits.
One of the challenges in revenue loss is by-passed
lines in the network, how would you cope with that?
Interestingly, part of the things that you really need
to understand is this: whatever is happening
currently in Nigeria in the electricity sector, most
especially in the distribution aspect is synonymous
with what is happening elsewhere or what has
happened elsewhere before. Most of the nations that
has done so well in terms of generation, distribution
and transmission, they have had similar challenges
that Nigeria is going through.
Some of the strategies and technologies that they
adopted in resolving those challenges will be brought
to bear. Because we are Nigerians, we can find a way
of resolving some of those crisis we've had internally.
The critical factor is this, in Korea they've had similar
power theft and they were able to resolve that
challenge. We are going to definitely going to
replicate that and improve on whatever they did in
their country.
How much are you investing because your
counterpart in Eko is thinking of investing over $50
million
You see one of those things that we don't do as a
company is that we would not buy any fish in a river.
We are not just going to pick on a numbers; we are
not going to do that. Everything that is required to
make us the best electricity distribution company in
Nigeria would be done.
What about estimated billing?
The life span of estimated billing is coming to an end.
Once the services that you are rendering is
measurable, then payment should be determined, it
should be fixed. If you know that there is X quantum
of kilo watt of electricity that am consuming and
there is high rate attached to that electricity, X
multiply by Y will give me XY but if XY is giving me
XY race to power what ever then something is wrong.
I want to be a responsible organisation because
whatever services that am rendering I must receive
payment for those services that I have rendered. I'm
not going to receive any payment over and above the
services that I have rendered because that means am
stealing from the system. That is part of the things
we are going to be doing in this organisation, the
value system which is ultimately require as a nation
would be driven down to the last man in the chain of
this.