The Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHED), said it recruited 355 new workers to mitigate the rising unemployment in the country caused the COVID-19 pandemic.
The PHED Managing Director, Dr Henry Ajagbawa, made this known while addressing the new workers in Port Harcourt, according to a statement by the company’s Manager of Corporate Communications, Mr John Onyi, on Friday.
Ajagbawa was quoted as having said that PHED also recruited the workers in line with the company’s recent restructuring that sought to improve service delivery to customers.
“The new employees were recruited from the company’s coverage states of Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River and Rivers, in accordance with the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) extant laws.
“The new inductees will be customarily trained on the business model of the company to enable them to account for every energy sold to customers.
“PHED is known to have a culture of integrity with zero tolerance for corruption. This is why the company is regarded as a tribe with common goals, culture and behaviour,” he said.
The managing director advised the new workers to be hardworking in carrying out their assigned duties to enable the company to achieve its set objectives.
According to him, PHED management is focused on building a world class company that will deliver unequal services to customers in the four states of its operation.
READ ALSO: INVESTIGATION: How PHEDC Coerces, Extorts Customers in Akwa Ibom (Part I)
“So, this is a new and young PHED that we intend to build from scratch through complete purging of corruption, in order to inject freshness into the system.
“However, we are worried at the rising energy theft and meter bypass in our network which, left unchecked, is capable of crippling the electricity industry,” he told the workers.
Ajagbawa urged them to ensure that customers were captured into the system as well as monitored to reduce theft of energy and meter bypass in its network.
Mr Raymond Osueni, who spoke on behalf of the newly-employed workers, thanked PHED management for the opportunity and assured of his colleague’s commitment to serve.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that PHED had recently denied allegations that the company planned to sack about 120 workers over losses in revenue blamed on COVID-19 lockdown. (NAN)
