Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company says it received from bill collection, the sum of N5.2billion out of the N7.4billion targeted in the month of August 2022, in the four states of its operation.
The new Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of PHED, Dr Benson Uwheru, said the amount was higher than the N4.3billion collection he met on the ground upon resumption in July 2023.
Uwheru speaking during an interactive session with journalists in Port Harcourt, explained that in terms of quality of leadership and people, PHED has been repositioned towards transformation.
The transformation according to him, was predicated on three pillars, namely standardization of process and quality control; people and performance management; and aggressive revenue growth through reduction of both technical and commercial losses, as well as bill collection losses.
“Upon resumption we have hit the ground running and we have achieved quite a few milestones. We met the business at N4.3billion bill collection when we took over and by the end of August 31st, 2022.
“We are hitting new milestone in the history of our collection in PHED. A N5.2billion collection history was achieved through the help and support of our people and that is in line with our transformation agenda.”
The PHED boss further announced that 60percent of customers in its franchise area, namely Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa and Cross River States have been metered, while plans were underway to increase the percentage by December.
“About 60percent of our customers are metered. What this means is that about 40percent of our customers are un-metered.
“Our plans is to ensure that we meter all the customers in our database. We are in talks with various financial institutions for asset financing programs to procure meters for our customers, where the payment plan will be spread over a period.
“I can say that between now and December, we are going to push aggressively and reduce the 40percent to another 10 to 20percent, which is possible.”
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