Consumers lament outrageous electricity billing despite benchmark

• DISCOS deny claims, give reasons

To address the issue of outrageous billing that has continued to plague the electricity distribution sub-sector, and the numerous complaints by consumers, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), had repealed estimated billing methodology regulation as the basis for computing the consumption of unmetered consumers.

It also issued a deadline of April 30, 2020 for proper identification and metering of high-energy users.

According to her, residents contributed money to purchase poles, cables, and meters, and also replaced the transformer but the distribution company would later claim ownership.
   
“Then the electricity distribution companies will, without taking the meter reading, send outrageous estimated bills to you for power never consumed. And if you dare raise a question against this action, they will come and remove the cable you bought with your money as their property.
 
“You then will be charged what they call a ‘reconnection fee’ to get your cable fixed back. And you will have to bribe their personnel to replace a melted fuse or you will remain perpetually in darkness and still pay the bill at the end of the month.
 
“The most heinous part of their corporate crimes against the people is the revenue target they set for their personnel every month.”

According to him, the feeder, which is located at Cele Bus stop, oftentimes develops faults, thereby halting power supply for days.

“In a month, it could be faulty four times; and most times, it takes five days to fix it. We suspect that the feeder is overloaded and the reason is not farfetched. Lately, the area is witnessing urban renewal and this has caused an upsurge in population. Many of the bungalows in the axis were sold, and the new owners are building duplexes and storey buildings. Meanwhile, in some of the bungalows, the owners don’t even have televisions and they consume minimal electricity, but with the new occupants of the duplexes and storey buildings, there is a lot of electricity consumption. So, the feeder is overloaded and weak.”
 
Also, Kehinde Soaga, a resident at Ijaniki, in Lagos, under the Eko DisCo, lamented that his house, a three-bedroom bungalow, is perpetually billed on estimation.

He alleged that officials of the DisCo often extorted money from the occupants, saying: “The issue has been lingering, as they have continuously extorted money from my family. I call on the Federal Government to stop this nightmare called DISCOs in Nigeria. They are not only incompetent; they do not have the capacity to effectively provide electricity to Nigerians; it is very evident. The government should allow states and local governments to oversee and manage power for their people.”
   
However, in a chat with The Guardian, spokesman for Ikeja Electric, Felix Ofolue, insisted that the DisCo has improved on electricity supply across its network and provides an average of 16 hours.
 
He defended that the increase in supply comes at a cost, which translates into the increase in the bills.
 
He said: “Again because everyone has practically been restricted to their homes in the last three months, there is a proportional increase in consumption pattern across various households. It is not peculiar to unmetered customers; it also applies to customers with prepaid meters.

“As a distribution company, we are the collecting agents for the rest of the value chain, and what we collect from customers is shared according to a defined formula to the rest of the value chain. So what it simply means is that we purchase the power, we distribute, and we need to remit funds back to the suppliers of this power. If this is what customers refer to as a target, then to a large extent we are responsible for ensuring that we pay for the supply that we get from the national grid.
 
“The issue of the estimated bill is emotive, and we understand that much, that is why the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) scheme was introduced to bridge the metering gap, so we encourage all our customers who are unmetered to take advantage of the scheme to procure meters. This will greatly reduce cases of estimated bills.”
   
Likewise, his counterpart at EKEDC, Godwin Idemudia, urged Ijesha residents to lodge a report at its office to understand the feeder that needs attention.

He equally defended that “The energy supply since the beginning of the year has been on the increase on a monthly basis so that should reflect on the bills.”

He added that “The only sure way of ruling out estimation is by metering, and we are encouraging our customers to take advantage of MAP.”