PHED to meter over 80 Percent of customers

The Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHED) has announced plans to meter over 80 per cent of its customers in Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa and Cross River states by December.

The new Managing Director of PHED, Dr. Benson Uwheru, while speaking yesterday with stakeholders, disclosed that 60 percent of its customers in the franchise areas have already been metered; revealing plans were underway to increase the percentage by December.

This follows complaints by some customers in these states that despite registering and paying for meters, they were yet to be metered. 

Uwheru said: “About 60 per cent of our customers are metered. What this means is that about 40 per cent of our customers are un-metered.

“Our plan is to ensure that we meter all the customers in our database. We are in talks with various financial institutions for asset financing programmes to procure meters for our customers, with the payment plan spread over a period.

“I can say that between now and December, we are going to push aggressively and reduce the 40 per cent to another 10 to 20 per cent, which is possible.”

He also disclosed that N5.2b revenue was generated from electricity bills, from the N7.4b targeted in August 2022.

He explained that the Port Harcourt Disco was now predicated on three pillars of standardisation of process and quality control; People and performance management and aggressive revenue growth through reduction of losses both technical and commercial losses.