The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, on Monday warned power firms in the country to deliver better services to electricity consumers or exit the industry.
Fashola stated this during the 11th Monthly Stakeholders’ Meeting held at the Ikeja West Transmission Station, Ipaja-Ayobo, Lagos.
He said, “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.”
He noted that the ministry was conscious of the challenges facing operators in the sector, adding, “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.”
On the issue of inadequate liquidity in the sector, Fashola assured the operators that work had commenced with development, local and international partners to resolve it.
“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.
According to him, their partners in government also understand what the challenges are, and there is quick decision-making and collaboration to tackle them.
Fashola 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.”
