By Adedapo Adesanya
The management of Kano Electricity Distribution Company (KEDCO) has lamented the loss of over N260 million to vandalisation and theft of its installations in its operational states of Kano, Katsina and Jigawa in North West, Nigeria.
The DisCo made the disclosure in a press statement signed by KEDCO’s Head of Corporate Communications, Mr Ibrahim Sani Shawai, who urged perpetrators of this act to stop the trend in the states, calling on customers to protect KEDCO’S installations.
The statement stated that “there have been rampant cases of transformer and transformer oil vandalism and theft which are worrying across its franchise areas.
“We are working tirelessly to secure our network through massive infrastructural investment as well as maintenance, in order to serve our numerous customers better, but vandals are sabotaging these efforts.
“This has been responsible for the recent lack of supply in some locations and we won’t take that anymore. In this regard, we are calling for communal vigilance to help protect KEDCO’s installations against these economic saboteurs.”
“We are making the appeal to the general public because the vandals are taking advantage of the weather to commit these economic crimes and that’s why we are calling on the public to help us serve them better by protecting and reporting suspected attempts to security personnel.
“In this light, we wish to issue a stern warning to anyone still vandalizing our transformers and stealing the oil to desist from it as KEDCO will no longer tolerate such lawless acts. Anyone caught will be prosecuted accordingly,” he added.
Recently, it had also lamented the low response to payment of electricity bills by customers appealing to its customers on the need for them to pay in full all outstanding and current bills so it can improve its investments in network capacity and acquire and maintain equipment to improve power distribution.
KEDCO is one of the 11 licensed distribution companies in the country and is responsible for distributing electricity to Kano, Katsina and Jigawa States.