Nasarawa State Government and the traditional institution within the state have pledged to work with Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) to ensure seamless operations in electricity supply.

The Governor of the State, Engr. Abdullahi Sule who heads the executive arm of government and His Royal Majesty and Chairman of Nasarawa State Council of Chiefs – Justice Sidi Bage Mohammed I (JSC rtd) heading the traditional institution expressed their willingness to support the Company through massive customer education of electricity consumers in the State even as power supply is set to improve with the scheduled completion of a 330/132/33kV transmission station in December, 2019.

Both Governor Abdullahi Sule and Justice Sidi Bage Mohammed I (JSC rtd) made the pledge when AEDC’s Managing Director/CEO of AEDC – Engr. Ernest Mupwaya visited them as part of the Company’s activities marking the globally celebrated customer service week, whose theme for 2019 is magic of service.

In his address, Engr. Mupwaya informed the Nasarawa State Governor and the Emir of Lafia that the support of the State Government and the traditional institution were critical to the operations of the Company in the State.

This is even as AEDC continues to prepare the 33kV and 11kV DisCo networks for the evacuation of the load that will become available as soon as the TCN complete the 330/132/33kV transmission facility in the State December this year.

According to a statement by the AEDC General Manager, Corporate Communications, Oyebode Fadipe, Engr. Mupwaya assured that with the commissioning of the TCN facility, customers will see a sudden jump in the load that is available to them with a corresponding increase in bill.

He also said that it was necessary for a massive clean up exercise of power supply to homes and offices in order to ensure the safety of human lives and property. For this reason, Engr. Mupwaya called for the support of the State Government as well as the traditional institution on the need for massive enlightenment in order to achieve success. “Your Excellency, the type of clean up that we are embarking upon will require that some people are disconnected as their current connection is not in line with standard engineering practice; and to leave them like that will amount to indulging them in unsafe act. AEDC will immediately commence a massive customer education programme in order to educate the public.

Engr. Mupwaya was, however, quick to mention that customers without meter need not to nurse any fear over the issue of estimated billing since the Company has completed the metering of all distribution transformers, which will enable it have accurate record of the amount of energy consumed by customers on any transformer even as the metering of customers is also going on under the Meter Asset Provider programme.

According to him, “AEDC has metered the distribution transformers in the State and as such, it can determine the exact amount of energy consumed from each transformer. This, according to him, will assist the Company in the billing of customers.

“Not that alone, we have also improved our MAP metering program. At the last evaluation by the regulatory agency – NERC, AEDC’s performance was adjudged superlative and the best in the entire country. We hope to maintain this meal and even improve on it”, he said.

In their responses, the Nasarawa State Governor, Engr. Abdullahi Sule spoke of the efforts his administration to improve power supply through the generation of a 96MW of electricity for the sugar processing factory as well as the development of a 200MW solar solution.

The Emir of Lafia and Chairman of Nasarawa State Traditional Council declared that the responsibility of the traditional council is to help AEDC reach the people of the State with any kind of awareness.

According to the Governor, Nasarawa State will require on 48MW out of the 96MW it will generate for the sugar processing plant while it will sell the balance 48MW to AEDC.

On his own part, the Emir of Lafia who retired recently from the Supreme Court on account of his appointment as the Emir of Lafia, said the Emirate was prepared to support AEDC in its enlightenment campaign.

“Our people are very hard working. What they need for rapid social economic development is adequate power supply for their cottage businesses. If there is anything that is worrisome to our people, it is the low voltage and the inadequacy of power. We are going to work very hard with you in letting you achieve all that you want to achieve. Our job is to help you reach our people with any kind of awareness”, the Emir said.