The General Manager of the National Power Authority (NPA), Dr Zubairu Kaloko, has disclosed that the government owes his institution three billion Leones as of February.
Addressing transmission and distribution workers at the NPA board room yesterday on how to address customers and distributing of electricity, the General Manager noted that, “customers pay your salaries and therefore they must be treated with respect”.
Dr Kaloko maintained that the culture of NPA had to change, adding that it’s going to be a friendly based institution.
Commenting on areas that are not having electricity, he gave the reasons that either because of stolen cables or that there were no poles or even transformers in these areas.
Addressing the issues of customers calling the transmission and distribution sections and they were not answering their calls, he said that was bad practice.
“The customers should be treated with respect and we should listen to their complaints and help them,” he declared.
He disclosed that NPA was not purposely cutting electricity from them; but that his institution needed money to buy cables and equipment to supply them with electricity.
At present, Dr Kaloko said cables were in Morocco but that they were still waiting for the minister of Finance to release the money they requested to buy these cables.
The General Manager echoed that the rainy season was coming and that his institution needed that money to buy the cables and conductors.
For those customers who are not paying their bills, he stressed that they (customers) were depriving people who were not having the electricity but were willing to honour their bills.
Dr Kaloko informed the workers that they would soon be given uniforms to differentiate them from people purporting to be workers of NPA.
This, he said, was for security reasons for the customers to know people who were working for his institution.
The General Manager revealed that the minister of Energy and Power Haja Afsatu Kabba had decided to open the NPA training school where every worker would go for refresher training, noting that the training was going to be based on professionalism.
On the Le24 billion debt that he said they inherited, he disclosed that they had set up a team to investigate and after that steps would be taken. He called on all workers to join him and rebuild Sierra Leone.