As Ajao
Estate residents protest
• Govt
strips DisCos monopoly of meter distribution
Following
the directive by Acting President Prof Yemi Osinbajo that Maximum Demand (MD)
customers should resist paying estimated electricity bills in protest
against
non-provision of pre-paid meters, household consumers have also adopted the ‘no
meter no payment’ strategy against the Distribution Companies (Discos).
The Federal
Government on Monday said that Distribution Companies (DisCos) does not have
any monopoly for the supplies of prepaid meters to the electricity consumers.
Government
also said it would not debar any electricity consumers who wish to buy prepaid
meters from the power DisCos neither would it prevent DisCos from selling to
them so far the process is not abused.
Some
consumers across the country have stopped paying their bills in protest against
outrageous billings due to non-provision of pre-paid meters by the Discos.
The Discos,
in reaction, decided to cut off electricity supply to any community that
refuses to pay the bills and embarked on mass disconnections of consumers.
Based on the
quantum of debts owed, the Discos adopted two ways of disconnecting consumers
either individually by pulling down the wires connecting the houses to the
pole, or communally by removing some fuses in the transformers supplying energy
to the areas.
The latter
was the fate suffered by a community in Ajao Estate, where the residents were
cut off from supply for over a month for refusing to pay the outrageous bills.
To reassure
them on the level of consumption, the residents demanded for-three phase meters
in all the homes and businesses in Ajao Estate. They also want Ikeja Electric,
the Disco in charge of supply in the area to desist from sharing bills based on
estimated billing as well as replacement of some hostile staff of the company.
Also, a
resident in the Aja, Lekki area of Lagos, Kunle Adegoroye, alleged that the Eko
Disco in charge of the area sent estimated bills of N15,000 to each resident
occupying a two-bedroom flat last month, even without electricity supply for
over three weeks.
“We are
being charged between N13,500 and N15,000 on monthly basis. This is outrageous
in spite of non-supply of power in the area,” and expressed worry over the
refusal by the Eko Disco to install prepaid meters to residents even when many
had already paid for them.”
The Minister
of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, made the clarification at the
18 meeting of power sector stakeholders with the minister in Kano, hosted by
the Kano Electricity Distribution Company (KEDCO), shortly after the he
commissioned the a new distribution substation, Ranji Jakata and launch of mini
grid regulation developed by the NERC.
Speaking on
the steps being taking, progress and challenges in efforts at providing
electricity to the people through implementation of the electricity road map
towards incremental power supply nationwide.
He said that
there are series of policies and programmes already being taken to boast
electricity supply in an effort to resolving the shortcomings of the power
sector privatisation programmes to deliver efficient and stable power sector.
He numerated
that some of those programmes and policies include the release of the Payment
Assurance Guarantee Fund amounting to N701 billion to Nigeria Bulk Electricity
Trading (NBET), the reconstitution of board of NERC, the verification of debts
of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and the expansion of transmission
capacity where some of the transmission stations are at various stages of
completion.
He said most
importantly was the Federal Executive Council approval of compromise agreement
that freed the federal government of judgement debt of N119 billion and release
of N39 billion as loan to meter suppliers for supplies of meters to power
Distribution Companies (DisCos).
He
maintained that government would monitor the DisCos to ensure that they did not
abdicate their responsibility of providing meters to the customers in line with
the Electricity Power Sector Act.
protesters
in Lagos
The minister
noted that the Act did not give any monopoly of meter supplies to the DisCos
but allows anybody who qualifies by meeting safety regulations of Nigerian
Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA) and NERC regulation.
He explained
that meter supplies is an open but regulated business, which requires anybody
to apply for licence from and permit of NERC and NEMSA respectively after
meeting the requirements.
He said in
line with the EPSRA, “NERC will issue regulations for meter service providers,
meter franchise operators, community meter obligation service and rural meter
supplies.”
Decrying the
incidence of over-billing in Nigeria, the President, Nigerians for Super
Energy, Joseph Inyang, said it is necessary that every customer be metered to
avoid overbilling.
He advised
customers to contest any form of over billing by the Discos, saying that NERC
has made provision for customers to reject over-estimated bills.
“You can
always dispute it by writing a protest letter to NERC. Over-billing is going to
be a difficult phenomenon to change if the Federal Government and the Discos
are not willing to do that. Sometimes, it is not about finance, but lack of
political will by the companies to meter everybody. We have had an instance
whereby we paid N70,000 to purchase a meter for our client, and it took the
Disco one year to provide the meter.
“I have had
a personal experience whereby my prepaid meter stopped working, and it took the
Disco six months to fix. While I was waiting, I was being given N25,000 every
month on estimation instead of the N5,000 which I was paying on prepaid.”
But
reacting, spokesman for Ikeja Electric, Felix Ofulue, insisted that the
company’s distribution transformers are metered. “We have adopted a billing
methodology, which is best suited to serve everybody. Even with that, if you
have an issue with your bill, you can take it up at the nearest undertaking
office where they will carry out a load assessment of what you use and adjust
appropriately.”
Ofulue said
that the company is currently metering customers on a gradual process due to
paucity of fund. “There is a lot of infrastructural maintenance on-going in our
network that require funding. The cost of purchasing a meter has increased due
to the high exchange rate; we made an estimate recently, and saw that 10,000
units of meters cost N144million. To multiply that by how much it will take to
meter everyone on the network at once, will take a lot. So we cannot move at
the pace at which we would have wanted to,” he added.
Speaking on
estimated billing, a Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
National Electronics Development Institute, Awka, Michael Ndinechi, noted that
DISCOs are not in a hurry to provide consumers with prepaid meters because the
estimated mode is more profitable for them.
According to
him, the evil of the estimated mode is that the DISCOs can give you bill even
when they did not supply any electricity in the billing period, and not feel
that they have done something wrong.
He added:
“When you have such leverage in a capitalist economy, as a businessman you make
maximum use of it, and that is why Government must have the will power to put
her feet down and protect consumers.”
Explaining
how electricity consumption is calculated per kilowatt hour, Ndinechi said:
“Every electrical appliance has an energy rating required to operate it
maximally. This energy is rated in watts (or in kilowatts). If you aggregate
these value for all the appliances in the consumer’s premise, then determine
the maximum energy that consumer can take. “However, it is not likely that all
appliances will be on at the same time. Therefore, it is usual that the energy
consumed by any consumer at any point in time is less than the maximum level.
What the electricity meter does is to monitor the amount of energy consumed at
any point in time over a period of one hour, hence, the unit of electricity
consumed is stated in kilowatt hour (kWh). That is, the total number of
kilowatts used in one hour multiplied by the number of hours. Usually
Government, through the regulatory body approves a rate with which this kWh is
multiplied to give the amount to be paid by the consumer.”
Dwelling on
role of electricity in Federal Government’s plans to exit recession this year,
Professor of Technology Management, Obafemi Awolowo Univetrsity, Francis
Ogbimi, said Nigeria cannot talk about industrialisation when the cost of
electricity is very high, and impacts negatively on the cost of goods and
services
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