Electricity

Group tackles firm over power supply to Lagos community

A non-governmental organisation, the Coalition for Affordable and Regular Electricity, has accused the Ikeja Electric of inflicting untold hardship on residents of the Harmony Ago-40 Estate in the Aboru area of Lagos State as a result of poor electricity supply to the community.

In a petition addressed to the acting Chief Executive Officer, Ikeja Electric, Folake Soetan, the CARE National Coordinator, Chinedu Bosah, and National Secretary, Monsuru Shoyombo, said ever since the power sector was privatised, the community had been experiencing epileptic power supply.

Efforts to get the IE to improve its services in the area were said to have yielded little or no result as the group stated that a series of complaints made to the firm in the past seven years were ignored.

The petition read in part, “The Harmony Ago-40 Estate community in the Aboru area of Alimosho has been subjected to hardship and suffering through very poor electricity supply since the power sector was privatised in November 2013 and our community is part of the communities handed over to Ikeja Electric under its territorial sphere of control.

“Before Ikeja Electric took over, the Harmony Ago-40 Estate community enjoyed 14 hours of electricity supply daily except for days when the general supply network had problems. Since December 2013, Ikeja Electric has continually failed to respond to electricity challenges and has abandoned the community, but is only interested in billing alone.

“The Harmony Ago-40 Estate has over 400 buildings and with just two transformers coupled with terrible/poor electricity network, this explains the reason for the overloading and poor electricity supply.”

The group, while lamenting the worsening power supply in the estate, condemned the IE’s Aboru Undertaking Manager, simply identified as Emma, and the company’s Business Manager in Akowonjo, one Okoye, for allegedly arm-twisting the estate into keying into what it described as “premium power” that would enable residents to enjoy 22-hour supply for an outrageous tariff of N50 per kilowatt hour.

CARE stated, “Information reaching us is that the Aboru Undertaking Manager, Mr Emma, and the Akowonjo Business Manager, Mr Okoye, are currently arm-twisting the Harmony Ago-40 Estate community into keying into the ‘premium power’ scheme as the only way of resolving the myriad of electricity supply problems imposed on the community by Ikeja Electric.

“CARE sees this ‘premium power’ as creating an apartheid of segregation and discrimination in the area of electricity supply with a view to furthering the exploitation of residents and communities and by so doing, Ikeja Electric violates and undermines sections 14, 15 (2) and 17 (3a) of the 1999 Constitution as amended.”

When contacted, the spokesperson, IE, Felix Ofulue, said, “The challenge with supply in Harmony Estate is that the feeder and transformers are overloaded and presently on load shedding. Supply currently fluctuates between 12 and 24 hours.

“However, to ease these challenges, the company is working to replace the undersized aluminium conductors and poles as well as install relief distribution transformers. We are also encouraging residents to key into the Meter Asset Provider scheme to apply for prepaid meters.

“With regards to the allegation of coercing the estate into keying into Ikeja Electric’s bilateral power service project, it is difficult to understand the petitioners’ premise for arriving at this conclusion, which is based on gut feelings, because this deal is not even on the cards for now.

“The true picture is that the leadership of the estate approached the IE’s Aboru undertaking and asked about the bilateral power project going on in a neighbouring estate. After learning of the immense benefits, they picked interest and the IE was invited to speak to the larger community.

“A great majority of the residents bought into this idea and since then, the undertaking team has been inundated with calls from the community for the service.

“By the way, the bilateral power is a tripartite agreement between a generation company and Ikeja Electric under the ‘Willing Buyer, Willing Seller’ scheme. It is an enhanced level of power supply and associated services to willing customers in identified communities or estates under an alternative power supply arrangement.”

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