By Etuka Sunday
New President of Licensed Electrical Contractors Association of Nigeria (LECAN), Dr John Ekere Etim has revealed that he wants to retrain members to get them updated in the modern technological advancement in the industry.
He stated this in an interview with journalists in Abuja during the weekend.
Dr Ekere who said that the essence of engaging licensed contractors in all electrical works whether by private or public sector is to reduce the rate of electrical accidents explained that during his tenure, the association will engage stakeholders to get results for members.
According to him, “We are going to work with all the stakeholders like, NEMSA, NERC, DisCos and Standards Organization to ensure that accidents is reduced to the barest minimum by enforcing standards in the system.”
“We recently discovered that even DisCos do not use qualified contractors we want to engage all stakeholders to ensure that the right thing is done in the electricity industry in orders to promote standards and safety in the industry.”
He stated that licenses of electrical contractors are of categories and there are specific jobs for particular categories.
He said that he will make sure that the members are restricted to the category of job they are licensed to do.
Dr Ekere said that the objective of the association is to group contractors together, particularly those who have obtained license to operate.”
Before now, it used to be federal ministry of power that issue operators in electrical industry license as electrical contractors but now it have become the duty of Nigerian Electricity Management Service Agency, NEMSA and the Association has been in existence since 1961,” he said.
According to him, “Issues of electrical fire accident is not traceable to LECAN members only, the point is that standards are not often followed by builders and house owners by making use of the right and qualified contractors this makes it difficult to follow safety precautions.”
“Home owners do not comply with statutory role of engaging qualified contractors, what they do is anybody that has pliers and screw-drivers claiming to be electrician they engage them without giving consideration to the competence. So the people will not do the right thing by using the right materials since they don’t have anything at stake.”
“But when our members are involved, and we discover they did any poor quality service delivery, we would sanction the person and can recommend his license to be withdrawn by the NEMSA, you can see that it is risky for our members to do shoddy job.”
Speaking also the Chairman of Federal Capital Territory FCT branch of LECAN Abdulahi O Ibrahim said that the election that brought the new President into office was free and fair as it was accepted by all the contestants as the people’s choice.
According to him, “the association wanted a seasoned professional engineer that was how the new President emerged. I have already given my words that whosoever emerged will get my unalloyed support, so as the state chairman of LECAN in the federal capital territory, I will work with him to take the LECAN to the next level.”
“As the national President will be operating from the FCT now, I believe is going to push the Association up and help the efforts the Abuja Chapter has been making in terms of sensitization of the public and government to ensure that the use of certified electrical contractors is increased in order to avoid unwanted accidents while electrical users get value for their money.”
He added that it is only when qualified and licensed electricians are used that you can be sure that lives and property are protected from fire incident as a result of electrical faults.
