The hope of Kano Electricity Distribution Company (KEDCO) customers of getting improved power supply in Kano has been dashed.

This followed the collapse of newly installed 60 MVA transformer at Kofar Dan’agundi transmission station in Kano metropolis.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the transformer serving the area got burnt and was replaced with a new one, which was commissioned on March 23, but worked for only two days before it broke down.

Mr Sani Bala-Sani, the Head, Corporate Communications of KEDCO, however told NAN in Kano on Wednesday, that effort was being intensified by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to rectify the anomaly.

“The transformer was installed last week. It only worked for two days Tuesday and Wednesday before it developed a problem,” he said.

According to him, the company is supplying electricity to the three states under its jurisdiction, Kano, Katsina and Jigawa.

He called on customers, especially those in Central part of Kano metropolis to exercise patience as effort was being made to repair the transformer.

Bala-Sani expressed satisfaction with the improvement in power supply to Kano from the National grid.

“The power supply has improved considerably compared to what was obtained in the past few months. Yesterday (Tuesday) we received 231 megawatts,” he said.

He called on customers to ensure prompt payment of their bills to enable the company serve them better.

“One of our challenges is non-payment of bills by customers. We received N3 billion bills from TCN in March but we were able to collect less than N1.8 billion from customers,” he said.

He said the company had taken stringent measures toward improving revenue collection which include installation of pre-paid meters, setting up Task Force as well as engaging community leaders to tackle defaulting customers.

On Kumbotso Transmission Station which was also gutted by fire two years ago, Bala-Sani said the TCN had yet to bring a new transformer from Kaduna for installation at the station. (NAN)