Electricity distribution companies must improve their services or be forced to quit, as the federal government will not hesitate to wield the big stick against them.
The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, who gave the stern warning on Monday said power firms must to deliver better services to electricity consumers or exit the industry.
Speaking in Lagos on Monday at the 11th Monthly Stakeholders’ Meeting held at the Ikeja West Transmission Station, Ipaja-Ayobo, Lagos, the minister said that it was the determination of the government to ensure that Nigerians enjoy steady power supply.
“We must use this year to tell our staff members that without our customers, they don’t have a job; and if you are not in a good mood, don’t pick the telephone.
“Without the customers and the consumers, there is no business; and I think that all of us in the public and private sectors must understand that. If you don’t have the skin and the patience to serve, leave.”
Though he admitted that there were challenges and obstacles the government was willing to ensure atmosphere conducive for their operation.
“My team and I are working as hard as we can to make the environment more responsive to you; and as I have said and will repeat that as pioneers, you will carry some burden.
“You will have to sacrifice perhaps more than what you have done, but I am optimistic that it will get better; I am optimistic that we can win together and we can win for the Nigerian people.”
Fashola said efforts were being made to facilitate adequate liquidity to enable the power firms to function assuring that the federal government had commenced work with development, local and international partners to resolve funding issues.
“We are trying to see what we can do together in order to bring the liquidity issues under some control and from there eventually solve it,” the minister added.
Further, he said, “We have listed and identified what the problems are; what we are trying to finalise is what comes first, what follows and what runs concurrently, because some of them have domino effects; if you solve one problem, you will solve three together.
“We will keep in constant touch with you as they evolve, to hear your side; we will use this meeting to continue to share the details of what we are seeing and to hear what you are experiencing.
“We need to do whatever is possible to do in our various distribution areas to improve the quality of service to continue to train personnel, to recognise that the customer is king and even if we cannot provide or solve the problem, we owe it a duty to explain what we are doing.”
