The Jos Electricity Distribution Plc (JED) has appealed to residents of Gombe State to protect power installations from suspected vandals.

Abdu Mohammed, the managing director of JED, made the call while speaking at a customer forum on Thursday in Gombe.

He said the call was imperative, given the negative impact of vandalism on both the company and its customers.

Represented by Saad Abubakar, the manager of Gombe regional office, Mr Mohammed said the call was in the interest of customers and residents to ensure that power installations were well protected.

Mr Mohammed said JEDC could only render services if installations were intact, adding, “This is why we are saying help us to serve you”.

He said protecting such equipment from suspected vandals remained a shared responsibility, hence the engagement with residents and stakeholders to ensure that installations are protected to render services.

“So, we seek all stakeholders’ support to fight against vandalism in any forms and other acts that are inimical to our collective progress,” he said.

Mr Mohammed further urged residents not to tamper with metres installed in their houses and not to engage in energy theft.

He urged customers to settle their outstanding debts as JED continued to install free meters for more households in Gombe.

Mr Mohammed said the company plans to establish the Doma Region to further strengthen its capacity to improve customer satisfaction.

Also, Musa Abdullahi, JED’s chief security officer, stressed the need for collaboration between the company and its customers, given the negative implication of vandalism in its franchise.

He said that with over 8,000 transformers in its franchise, securing them from vandalism could not be done by JED alone, hence the need for the residents to partner with them.

“Each day, we experience four transformers per day that were vandalised in our franchise states, and in trying to fix them, we spend N1 million on average.

“If you are using N4 million per day, you can imagine the loss in a month, so this is serious,” he said.

A participant, Thomas Johnson, commended JEDC for its engagement towards improving service delivery.

(NAN)