NERC fines AEDC N200million, orders refund to customers over arbitrary billing

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) Friday fined Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) N2000 million and asked the DisCo to immediately reimburse all customers in band B to E wrongly billed over the recent increase in electricity tariff.

NERC on Wednesday increased end-user tariff by 240 per cent from about N70 per Kilowatt per hour (KhW) to N225 kilowatt per hour, insisting that the increase only affected band A, which is about 2 million of electricity customers or 15 per cent which consumed 40 per cent energy in the country.

Instead of smoothly implementing the supplementary tariff increment, AEDC went overboard and increased the tariff for most bands.

Although the utility company admitted, blaming it on system glitches, NERC in a new order asked the DisCo to refund and show proof before April 12.

NERC said that the decision follows a detailed review and customer feedback, which revealed that AEDC had applied the new tariff to all customer bands, contrary to the tariff order, which was designed to ensure fair billing practices.

According to the commission, AEDC must reimburse all customers in bands B, C, D and E respectively that were billed above the allowed customer categories/tariff bands provided in the Order.

NERC noted that the reimbursement must be done through the provision of the balance of customer tokens that the affected customers would be entitled to receive at the applicable rates and all token reimbursements shall be issued to the affected customers by 11 April 2024.