The management of Tong-Da Industries Limited has urged the Nigerian Government as well as the electricity regulatory body, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), to save its factory from going under over the alleged exorbitant estimated billing system given to the company by the Ikeja Electricity distribution company (Disco), which it lamented has affected the industry and rendered many workers jobless.
While narrating the company’s ordeal to THISDAY recently, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Tong-Da Industries, a plastic recycling and production company at Plot 2, Kudirat Abiola Way, Oregun, Ikeja, Mr. Nwankwo Charles Okwudili, alleged that the Disco officials have been billing his company exorbitantly through estimated billing system even after installing an infrared meter in the company to be monitored in the Discos office.
The businessman lamented that: “Sometime in 2016, Ikeja Electric installed a meter in our factory, and started billing us based on the meter system, and we had been paying until August 2021 when we discovered that Ikeja Electric was not using the meter, but were just billing us on the estimated billing system.
“And whenever they come, they are always hostile to us to pay up at the end of every month. So when I traveled, my company was disconnected from power by IE without any due notice. When I came back, two weeks later, I paid the bill with the reconnection fee of N2.7 million for a month, and two weeks after, they brought a bill of one month, and I told them that we used the power for just two weeks after reconnection, why are you billing us for one month, and then, I didn’t even know it was estimated.”
He stated that the action of the Disco has affected his business and ruined is production, adding that: “I have suffered personal loses, even as the company is no more meeting up with production. It is a very pathetic situation. Many of my workers have left the company because I can’t pay them anymore. I can’t even meet up with my tax to the government anymore.
