Arbitrary billing, mass disconnection of electricity, and others took center stage at a recent stakeholders’ engagement, involving the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, the Distribution Companies and consumers in Lagos, Raheem Akingbolu reports:
When Clement Akpene moved into his house in Lekki Gardens Phase 3, some few years ago, he felt fulfilled and was expecting to live life to the fullest.
Though he is resident in Lagos, he works as a civil servant in Abuja, hence he spends only a few days with his family in Lagos. However, the fulfillment and happiness he had anticipated with living in the porch area of Lagos seems to have vanished.
Not that Clement or any member of his family is having any health challenge or whatsoever, but the problem he has had to battle with over the years seems unbearable.
At the Lekki Gardens Phase 3, where he resides, over the years, he had been made to feel the pains of what he called “broad day light extortion” by the Excos of the estate over power consumption.
The Excos, according to him, had taken over the responsibility of EKDC by selling power to them at exorbitant rates.
While his several attempts to see that justice is done over the years have not been yielding fruits, when another opportunity presented itself last week, Clement joined several other electricity consumers at the five-day Electricity Consumer Complaint Resolution Platform event held in Lagos, organised by the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), to seek redress.
The platform lived up to its expectation as it was a gathering of electricity consumers, representatives of Eko Electricity Distribution Company, IKDC, and the industry Regulators as consumers rolled out a barrage of complaints.
The Electricity Consumer Complaint Resolution Platform afforded the Discos, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC and the consumers come face to face to resolve some of the issues.
Looking seriously distraught, Clement, while recounting his bitter experience in the estate, he noted that he had been in darkness for over 10 months as his power supply had been disconnected by the Excos over indebtedness.
“While the Eko Disco approved N21.00 per kilowatt of electricity for members of the estate, the Excos bills each household N60.00 per kilowatt of electricity and makes remittance to Eko Disco”.
“As of now, they have even increased the tariff from N60 to N80 which is going to be effective from July 1.
“What they do is that they have special tools which they used in removing EKDC from the estate and they forced us to be paying for power to them as a third party to EKDC.
“They have a special software they use in generating tokens just like EKDC does. They calibrate our meters not to work with EKDC installation but to work on their own installations so that they can be able to control, generate tokens that use the same meters. If you buy an EKDC unit, if you load it on those meters, they would not work.
While Clement said the excos have been selling power supplied by EKDC for about five years till date, he said they have disconnected several people in the last two years for missing payment.
“For instance, the minimum payment for electricity bill is N41,000 which gives 200 units.
“If you travel for about six months, for instance and you miss the payment, when you return, you are expected to pay about N246,000 or get disconnected, ” he lamented.
Strangely enough, the complainant noted; “the meters, as programmed by them, (the Excos) run faster than the normal installation by the DISCOS. N41,000 light will give you 200 units and it will not last you up to a week.
Accompanied by another aggrieved resident, Aisha Usman, Mr. Akpene said the extortion has gone on for over four years in the estate and while they brought it to the attention of EKDC, the disco referred them back to the executives of their CDA telling them to go and settle with them.
According to them, though in one of their meetings with EKDC, the Excos were told to revert to government tariff, but till this date, they have refused.
“I have made complaints to EKDC, they never replied, and when they even replied, they would tell me and other residents to go and comply with the excos . This is against human rights.
“During one of the meetings we had on 21 January in Marina, with EKDC, the NERC which flew in from Abuja told the excos that they do not have any licence to sell or distribute power to the residents.
However, while responding to Clement’s barrage of complaints, the EKDC’s lawyer, who said the case is already in court, said the Disco was working on the matter.
He however, explained that the difference of what the members of the estate were paying is for the maintenance of the Estate generator and purchase of diesel.
Usman, on her part, said by living in an estate should not mean she does not have the right to have access to the government’s approved electricity tariff.
Reacting to the development, the FCCPC Executive Vice Chairman/CEO, Mr. Babatunde Irukera said the scheme by the estate was wrong as he insisted that there should not be middle men between consumers and DISCOS.
He promised that the issue of the Lekki Garden Estate would soon be resolved.
In his address, Irukera, who said the commission got the highest number of complaints from electricity consumers, charged the electricity distribution companies to show more sensitivity in handling consumer issues given the importance of such utility.
He urged the Discos to be more responsive, sensitive and transparent in dealing with consumer complaints as this will go a long way in addressing some of the challenges being encountered by the consumers in their quest to get services.
Irukera pointed out that not getting enough electricity supply was not the major problem rather the manner in which the consumers’ challenges are being addressed and not only called for a change but urged electricity consumers to insist on their rights.
In a remark, the Head Consumer Affairs at Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Mr. Shittu Shuaibu, charged the consumers on estimated billings to pay the amount proportionate to what they consumed pointing out that electricity consumers who are on estimated billings have the right to contest excessive billings and while that is being done, the Discos should not disconnect them.
In a reaction, the Head Consumer Service Department at Eko Electricity Distribution Company, Mrs. Iyiola Ezichi, who explained the process of complaints resolution said the prepaid meter remained the solution to some of the challenges.
While the train of the Electricity Consumer Complaint Resolution Platform moved to the mainland where IKDC controls, the mood wasn’t different.
Several electricity consumers stormed the venue at Alausa and took turns to narrate their displeasure of the Discos officials’ delays in resolving their issues, disconnecting them arbitrarily, giving them crazy billings and collaborating with their Community Development Associations [CDA] to extort them.
They also decried poor service, as well as being forced to fund the purchase of electrical installations like transformers by the Discos.
Complainants from Community Development Association, CDA Igbelaara Ikorodu, said they mounted pressure on the government of Mr. Ambode (former Lagos state governor) to provide them with a transformer.
The members of the community noted that though the transformer is there, they are yet to be given power supply.
According to the three members representing the community, Isiaka Hassan, Engineer Alilu Usman, and Sowole Mudasiu, the Ikeja Disco in connivance with their CDA is demanding they pay N3,900,000.00 for the installation of the transformer.
Speaking at the Ikeja platform, Irukera described a scandalous penchant by electricity distribution companies to disconnect consumers, saying this is tantamount to hostage taking and kidnapping.
Condemning the idea of disconnecting consumers from the source of electricity while there is a pending dispute, he likened it to hostage taking and kidnapping.
“Disconnecting when people are exercising their legitimate right to dispute the bill is not different from kidnapping; it is hostage taking because there is a process but the moment you decide to make their lives miserable unless they do as you dictate amounts to hostage.”
Regretting bitterly that complaints about electricity still tops the complaint list in the Commission, Irukera said that services in the electricity sector continue to define the reputation of the Commission poorly.
He noted that electricity is not just any other product but so vital, and “until everyone in that value chain understands and appreciates the importance, that is when we will make significant progress if not we will continue to have electricity as the greatest source of consumer complaints.”
“If the Discos can be more sensitive, more transparent in their dealings with consumers I suspect that the complaints we receive may then go down to half.”
Regretting the way most of the Disco staff treat electricity consumers, he said it should not be so.
“The officials of the electricity Discos should not be arrogant, they should not carry on as if they are divinity because they are not. Their uniform and other apparatus does not confer divinity on them, they should be happy to listen and attend to electricity consumers because that is what they are paid to do.”
According to him, “Discos have gotten to a point where no one takes their bills seriously anymore, because they are considered outrageous. I think the pressure on metering will not be so bad if the estimated billing was more transparent and reasonable.”
Irukera, while charging the distribution companies to stop the arbitrary billing system, asserted that “connecting balance sheets to an opaque arbitrary metering system is the worst form of abuse, especially for an essential public utility.”
He also contended that group disconnection usually adopted by distribution companies because of the debts owed by some members of the affected groups unfortunately disregards and undermines the rights of other consumers in the groups who did not owe.
“For me, there’s something fundamentally, absolutely irreparable and inexcusably wrong with penalising people because of the conduct of others. It is just not excusable.
“Government should never do that to its people. But if the government does it as a state actor, as inexcusable as it is, it might even be permissible. But one person who has absolutely no right and should never have the prerogative to do it is a private citizen to another private citizen. And that is what Discos do.
“They group-disconnect consumers. If there’s one responsible consumer who is being disconnected unjustly, what you are doing is that you are discouraging responsibility,” he added.
The FCCPC boss disclosed that the demonstration of huge investments and capital outlay in infrastructure development by the DisCos remained a step in the right direction but the inability to translate those investments into quality service delivery remained a cause for concern.
He said consumer complaints are part of what should be expected in any business model but the inability of the DisCos to resolve those complaints in a transparent manner has been a recurring decimal.
