• Friday, March 29, 2024
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AEDC reads riot act to field officers, declares zero tolerance on fatalities

AEDC reads riot act to field officers, declares zero tolerance on fatalities

Managing director and CEO of Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), Ernest Mupwaya, has told officers in charge of operations in the field that the company will no longer tolerate any form fatality both to the workers and members of the public.

According to Mupwaya, he prefers that the work is not done than for what is done to be the source of accident or death to any one, whether staff or members of the public.

Mupwaya made the declaration when he proclaimed the creation of an Inspectorate Division in the company and handed it over to the director of Risk and Compliance – Collins Chabuka, whose directorate will oversee the activities of the Division.

Any staff that does any act adjudged to be capable of causing any electrical accident or electrocution will be treated the same way as the staff found guilty of the actual act, he said. He said the sanction that would be imposed on such employees might include the loss of employment.

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In a company statement made available to newsmen by the general manager, corporate communications, Oyebode Babs Fadipe, the MD/CEO said the company had carefully structured its operations to ensure that in pursuit of service delivery and profitability, “it does not do any act that can damage the business environment.”

Some of which he listed to include damage within the workers, damage to the community at large and such other damage that could create negative environmental impact.

“It is not by accident that the issue of Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) is a Board level matter,” he said, adding that such recognition demonstrated in very clear terms the importance attached to HSE by AEDC.

Tracing the transformation journey of AEDC, he noted that the company had gone through various levels of changes in trying to improve its HSE profile, including staff training across board on how to operate the systems, which have resulted in some successes.

But he regretted that there were still certain areas where the company had not done so well “hence we are still seeing some accidents happening in our network which are purely avoidable.”

Every transformation programme, according to him, is such that the initial path starts with the identification of what needs to change, work out the processes of change, train the staff and ensure that every one has acquired the required knowledge for change.

“Once everyone has acquired the knowledge, the next stage of the transformation,” he said, “is the enforcement stage.”