A major shake-up has taken place in the Management of Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), a statement by the Acting Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company, Victor Ojelabi has disclosed.
Ojelabi who was previously the Chief Internal Auditor of the Company was appointed by the AEDC Board on Monday, January, 29,2024, to takeover the management of the company.
The Shake-up, according to Ojelabi, was in furtherance of the implementation of the Board-approved AEDC Turnaround Plan, to reclaim its position as a market leader in Nigerian electricity distribution.
The major realignment and appointments were to also inject fresh hands, those with in-depth knowledge of the workings of the organisation/network to move the company forward.
Going by the new arrangement, Godfrey Abah has been appointed Chief Technical Officer.
He will be responsible for overseeing and managing all aspects of the Company’s technical operations to ensure efficient operations and optimal network performance. His appointment takes effect immediately.
The company said, the Chief Business Officer role has been restructured, to have 3 Chief Business Officers reporting to the MD/CEO directly.
Leticia Ejendu has been appointed as one of the 3 Chief Business Officers, within the new CBO structure.
She will oversee the other regions pending the appointment of the other two CBOs. Her appointment takes effect immediately.
The company also announced the appointment of Ibem Idika as Head, Human Resources.
He will be responsible for developing, coordinating, and implementing the HR policies across the Company as well as implementation of the Company’s talent strategy.
He takes over from the acting Head, Human Resources and will be resuming immediately.
Also appointed was Irene Nwankwo as the Chief Internal Auditor effective immediately.
She will be responsible for evaluating the effectiveness of governance, risk management, and internal control arrangements and playing a key role in promoting good corporate governance in the Company. Her appointment takes effect immediately.
The company, however, asked Mimi Angyu of Branding and Corporate Communication, and Sasi Jaja of Regulatory and Government Relations to operate in an acting capacity, pending the resumption of the substantive heads of the areas.
AEDC said, further announcements would be made to fill up all the critical roles.
It would be recalled that AEDC began operations and business of power distribution in the month of November 2013 as one of the 11 Electricity Distribution Licensees granted License to operate post privatisation era.
Within a 10 years period, the company has recorded landmarks achievements in the power sector in the areas of metering deployment, customers centricity, and network expansion / improvements.
However, these are not without its challenges in areas of financial management, dearth of governance structure, and sector’s risks volatility and regulatory risks exposures…
Within a 10-year period the Company has been managed by 5 managing directors with the newly appointed Acting Managing Victor Ojelabi as the 6th MD /CEO.
Neil Croucher, Ernest Mupwaya
(longest serving), Akinwumi Bada, Engr. Adeoye Fadeyibi, Chris Ezeafulukwe, who allegedly resigned his appointment, have all led the company, and now Victor Ojelabi.
The company has also experienced dwindling fortunes in revenue and cash flow with some service providers and contractors who have rendered various contractual services / completed various installation projects/ regular vendor services being owned in arrears of 2-3 years indebtedness without any hope of being paid soon.
Very recently, the company ( AEDC ) was placed under receivership and was eventually taken over by a Nigerian due to the inability to pay for backlogs of debts believed to have been accumulated due to lack of prudential cost recovery, financial leakages, human elements, resource wattages amongst others.
As of 2018 / 2019, the monthly cash collection of AEDC was about N15 billion. The only snag was the challenges of management, and how to improve on Customer Centricity, Data Centricity, Revenue Optimization, Collection Efficiencies, Billing Efficiencies and Reduced to the barest possible point the ATC & C Losses amongst others.
It is hoped that the new management changes will provide windows opportunities to take AEDC back to its place of pride.
