The Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company says engaging 300 communities will enable it to get feedback that will improve service delivery 

THE Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company, IBEDC, is to improve service deliver by engaging 300 communities this year to boost feedback mechanism to ensure a better mutual relationship between service provider and consumers.

Angela Olanrewaju, head, Branding and Corporate Communication, IBEDC, said in a statement that the power firm engaged over 200 communities last year within its franchise area of Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Kwara and parts of Kogi, Ekiti and Niger states as part of its commitment to customer satisfaction. According to her, IBEDC identifies the need for regular engagement with communities to foster mutual relationship with customers.

“The engagement also creates avenue to educate our customers on the challenges hindering efficiency. This will also create the opportunity to address most complaints from customers on the misconceptions about our services. IBEDC is a customer-focused service provider that listens to the grievances of its customers. We know without the support of our customer base, we will not be able to function. Therefore, we are ready to go the extra mile to discuss with customers freely on pertinent concerns that will improve power supply,” she said.

Olanrewaju said part of the problem is that some consumers are still misinformed about how the electricity business value-chain works in Nigeria. She said a lot of customers still believed that Discos were responsible for the generation, transmission and distribution of power.

“It became imperative for us as an effective service provider to educate consumers as one of our top priorities for the progress of the electricity distribution sector. Thus, our community engagements afford us the good opportunity for direct re-education, reorientation and sensitisation of consumer.”

According to her, the firm had designed a model of effective interaction with communities, which had so far impacted positively on general awareness of its operation. She noted that various communities had met with the employees of the firm in open forums to discuss issues affecting their communities such as power supply, metering, estimated billing, energy theft, vandalism, safety, fault clearing and replacement of transformers.

“As a result of constant engagements, more communities are being connected to our network and more consumers are being captured for billing through our enumeration exercise,” Olarenwaju said.

– Feb. 8, 2019 @ 12:13 GMT |