Our business is to provide light and not sell darkness- IKDC

By Amechi Obiakpu
Against the erroneous perception that electricity provider, Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (IKDC) derives pleasure in throwing its customers into darkness, the company has said that it sells light and not darkness.
The Group Managing Director of Sahara Power Group, owners and operators of Ikeja Electricity and Egbin power plc, Kola Adesina, made the assertion Monday, at the commissioning of the company’s PTC undertaking office in Ikeja.
“Our business is to provide light; our business is not to sell darkness. But, we can only do so, if the community well represented, live up to their responsibilities,”Adesina said.
Continuing he said: “If you have electricity we are better off, if you don’t switch off your light we are better off because we are going to collect revenue from you. The more you consume the more we will make available and the more revenue we will make. We as electricity suppliers does not in any way gain anything whatsoever from darkness”.
In his reaction to the issue of pricing, Adesina said that, there is a huge gap between the cost of power generation in the country and pricing, noting that, hypothetically, the cost of production of electricity from gas supply to the various homes is N10, meanwhile government by regulation says, “we should sell for N6, how possible is that? He queried.
“When people speak to the fact that, they want to be metered, whilst metering is important in the scheme of things among the relevant variables required for uninterrupted supply of electricity, the fact is, that component goes into a basket of cost that is presently not being financed by the price and tariff government says we should pay.
“As we speak today, the intention of government ultimately would be after politics then let’s get back to common sense of pricing the commodity correctly, but while that is going on, please note that the capacity and capability of the providers of these services will be limited. We wish we could do more, we want to do more,” he noted.
He however said that, if the armed forces pay their bills. If all the customers are living up to their expectations, and everybody be their brothers’ keepers by not stealing or by-passing the metres and connecting directly, “We are here to serve you better.
“In Sahara, we have a mantra: we want to bring energy to live. We want to be a provider of choice wherever electricity or energy is consumed. But, for those ambition or vision to be actualized, we need you. We need your support; we want you to back us up. When you back us up, we will succeed,” He observed.
On his part, the Chief Executive Officer of Ikeja Electricity, Dr. Anthony Youdeowei, averred that, the electricity distribution company has been able to achieve 95 percent metering deployment both on the distribution of transformers as well as for individual customers and hopes in a very short while, the company should be able to close the gap.
“Let me use this medium to debunk some of the misinformation in the public space that we sell meters for N100,000. Please note that meters from Ikeja Electric are free and you do not have to pay for them. Based on business considerations, our strategy to metering is based on feeders and once it is the turn of your feeder, all customers on that feeder will be metered at no cost,” he affirmed.