Yes, but as I am talking now, we have so many of these meters in stock. Around July and August we exhausted all the ones we had and since then, so many of our customers have been demanding for them. Then we did not have them but now we have them in large quantity and our consumers can now come for them. The contractor handling the installation is also very near us now.

What is the latest development on pre-paid electric meters?

I must emphasise here that the issue of pre-paid meters has been made location-specific because we don.t put them in areas that we cannot judiciously monitor. We are putting the meters in highbrow areas, or organised or adequately planned settlements, which are easily accessible for thorough monitoring.

The new system is going on well, people are happy about the new system. At the moment we have been able to install about 2,000 of them in our network.

The major problem we have discovered about the new pre-paid metering system is that of meter bypass. So many people are guilty of bypassing these meters and we find it difficult to handle this situation.

In most of the time when we establish a case of meter bypass against a customer, he is forced to pay a penalty. There is too much theft or illegal use of electricity or illegal connections in many rural and urban areas of the country.

Our debt profile is very high. It stands at N1.5 billion. We have tried measures to see how we can reduce these debts. In fact, we have even had to ask our customers to avail themselves of the bonanza we have on ground.

They can come and pay 80 per cent of the debt they owe us and we will write off 20 per cent of it. The exercise is still ongoing. We even wrote to our head office that if they have a special request or special concession, we would make that possible for them once we get approval.

What is your target revenue, and what problems have you encountered in trying to achieve it?

The head office has set for us a target. My target is N31 million for the month of September. But my target includes achievement of other goals of PHCN. I also have the great responsibility to see how we can cancel our debts.

I have already prepared all the list of cases I have such as demolished premises and accounts we cannot trace such as duplicated accounts. Because of the efforts of the state government to construct roads, some houses gave way and most of them have accounts with us. So we are trying to see how we can recover the debts.

I am working in partnership with the auditors in order to get genuine cases of outstanding debts, which are not correct so that we can cancel them once and for all.

Very soon we are going into a gift issue whereby we give our customers gifts especially these ember months with a view to encouraging our customers who are indebted to us to pay up so that we can reduce this debt profile.

So many towns are coming up and they are also being electrified. Some people are coming into the system and the state government is making a lot of efforts in trying to construct roads and so many houses are giving way. So, most of these houses, when they are demolished, there will be an account and this account is still outstanding unless we are able to sieve this account.

A consumer may be owing debt of N10, 000 but whenever he comes to pay, he pays as low as N2,000 and for others when their monthly bills are about N30,000 and when they come to pay, they pay N10,000 leaving the remaining N20,000 to be accumulating over a long period, hence the reason why the bills are not going down.

They should endeavour to pay their bills so that they can be served better. They have been commending us for improved power supply and I call on them to co-operate and support us in all areas so that our covenant to serve them effectively and efficiently will be consummated. It takes two to tango. We are in a market where the seller is willing to sell as long as the buyer is able to pay. We commend those who have been paying. They should encourage other customers to emulate them.