Kaduna Electric installs 11,000 prepaid meters, as vandals target facility
NAN-HE-24
Theft
Sadiq Shuaibu Adamu
Kaduna, Feb. 23, 2017 (NAN) The Kaduna Electric on Thursday said it had installed 11,000 smart metres in three states under its franchise within the last two months.
The power distribution firm, in a statement issued by its Head of Corporate Communications, AbdulAzeez Abdullahi in Kaduna said that the metres were installed in Kaduna, Kebbi and Sokoto States.
It said that the next phase of the installation of the pre-paid metres would be conducted in Zamfara.
The company, however, said in spite of the effort, there were still increasing cases of energy theft and vandalism of its equipment.
The statement said that the situation had resulted in the destruction of some of the smart meters already installed and warned to prosecute the perpetrators.
“Some unscrupulous elements are compromising the integrity of the meters by damaging the board and circuitry of the meters.
” The energy theft are done both externally by by-passing the new meters and internally by compromising or damaging the relays,” the statement said.
The statement debunked the claim that the smart meters had viruses, and urged customers to disregard the peddlers of such falsehood.
It would be recalled that the distribution company had on Feb. 1, retrenched 530 of its workers on allegations of non performance. (NAN)
SSA/MZA
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Edited by Maharazu Ahmed