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Electricity consumers in Enugu have condemned what they described as broad day fraud by the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC) through over-billing and failure to provide prepaid meters to consumers in the state.
They also expressed worry over the poor electricity supply to the South-East geopolitical zone of the country, particularly Enugu state.
Some of them including Obadiah Chibuzor, a retiree and data management consultant and Ojielo Chukwudi, who spoke at a Customer Forum organized by a non-governmental organization (NGO), Advocacy Partnership for Good Governance, at Radio Nigeria Enugu Pavilion, accused EEDC of estimated ‘crazy’ bills, exorbitant charges, continuous billing of disconnected customers and general poor services.
They also alleged weak and poor power infrastructure, indiscriminate disconnection of customers for up to three years, vandalism of transformers by EEDC workers, deliberate denial of customers of pre-paid meters, and high handedness by officials of the electricity distribution company.
Manager Customer Service, Ijeoma Ogudebe, EEDC however, blamed some of the problems on logistic problems by Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCM), faulty meters, and illegal activities of some electricity consumers such as illegal connections and bypassing of meters.
Manager, Customer Service, EEDC, Ijeoma Ogudebe said over 700,000 electricity consumers in the south-east have not been assigned prepaid meters.
Ogudebe who said it is the responsibility of the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company to provide meters to all its customers noted that the company has rolled out massive meter distribution programme.
According to her “we are already distributing meters; and the metering programme is on course and it is something ongoing because we know that each and every one of our customers wants meters. Even as a company, our target is to ensure that all our customers are given meters. We have started and there ia no way we can meter every day at the same time” she said.
“We have about 700,000 customers that we need to meter. There are some who have meters that we need to change, and so far, we have metered a good number. This is something, we have started and we are fast on it already”.
On the challenges hampering the smooth flow of the metering programme Ogudebe said “there are some problems we encounter, some of our customers don’t even want these meters and is quite challenging because we even need to get our regulators to give an order that when customers reject that meter, we should disconnect them.
“There is also a challenge of people who, as we meter, they bypass the prepaid meter which is really affecting the phase we are in now”.
She said most customers have not yet understood the operations of the EEDC and the challenges it faces, to ensure customers get uninterrupted power supply.
Speaking, the Coordinator, Advocacy Partnership for Good Governance (APAGG) said estimated billing by electricity distribution companies in the country amounts to defrauding electricity consumers as they are billed for energy not consumed adding that issues of “ credit reporting, consumer fraud, infrastructural deficit and improper billing system characterize the activities EEDC.
He charged the electricity distribution company to abide by the new NERC policy which stipulates that consumers should not be billed if not metered.
