METERING: ELECTRICITY CONSUMERS RESIST ESTIMATED BILLING

A prepaid meter in one of Nigerian 

• 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

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