PrimeStar discovered that two national stories titled, “Electricity Consumers Accuse NERC of Colluding with IBEDC to Exploit Them” and “N5b Profiteering! How Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company Swindles Customers” published on the website of The News on Thursday, October 24, 2019, at exactly 5:48 pm and Friday, January 17, 2020 at exactly 4:32 pm respectively were pulled down on Tuesday January 21, 2020. Considering their relevance to the nation, PrimeStars holds that such stories should not be taking away from the public view, hence republish them alongside an interview titled, “How we tackle electricity distribution challenges – Engr Ayodele, COO, IBEDC”, published on the website of the magazine on Sunday, February 2, 2020, at 6:57 pm.
AKINDELE AKANJI
On Wednesday October 23, 2019, Electricity consumers in the South West could not hide their displeasure at the DISCOs and Customers Care Forum organized by the Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission, NERC, held at Jogor Event Centre, Liberty Road, Ibadan, capital of Oyo State. Their grievances bordered on the unsatisfactory and exploitative services as well as nefarious acts they alleged that the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company, IBEDC, has subjected them to ever since its inception. There were protests from different landlords/landladies associations, who stormed the forum with different posters, placards of different descriptions, condemning the privatization of the nation’s electricity company. One of the aggrieved customers said that the DISCOs is an avenue where the government is milking the poor masses and an avenue for the rich investors that bought the company to rob the commoners of their hard earned money.
During the rancorous question and answer and interactive session on customer issues, most of the customers vented their anger in relation to what they are being made to go through ranging from epileptic power supply, having to buy electricity equipment including poles, cables and transformers at their own expense. The forum, which had in attendance landlords/landladies Associations, organizations, individuals, stakeholders, community leaders and traditional rulers, provided the opportunity for the NERC to know the grievances of the people under IBEDC, which covers Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Kwara and parts of Niger, Ekiti and Kogi states.
Majority of the customers frowned at the corruption in IBEDC, noting that the system is structured to make the customers part with their money illegally. An elderly customer said, “Let us be sincere and honest to ourselves. The level at which we are exploited is unbelievable. Communities are taxing themselves to buy transformers, electric poles, cable, wire, and other accessories. We pay heavily to install these transformers. We erect the electricity poles by ourselves. When there is a fault, either in the transformer or on the electric poles, we bear the cost. Now, my question exactly is that what is the responsibility of the DISCOs?”
A consumer from Ota in Ogun State lamented that the privatization is not working, stressing that it is like old wine in a new bottle. Another consumer, an activist summarized the privatization of electricity in Nigeria as a failure, affirming, “Privatisation of PHCN is a failure. DISCOs are failures”. He berated the NERC for failing in their responsibility to regulate the activities of DISCOs, alleging NERC of colliding with the DISCOs to extort consumers. “We are disappointed in the NERC because they have woefully failed both the consumers and the nation. Rather than protecting the consumers, they are colliding with the DISCOs to cheat ordinary people, who are struggling to survive. Is it not a failure on the part of the government that promised to metre the whole houses in Nigeria within 18 months of the privatization, now five years after, NERC is saying that in the next three years, all houses would have been metred”.
Another consumer said, “Let us be truthful to ourselves, NERC is not sincere and the commission is not straight forward”. NAFDAC also complained about IBEDC’ refusing to metre its office at the Federal Secretariat, Ibadan. The forum ended rancorously as NERC failed to justify various nefarious activities of DISCOs.
The customers further frowned at the non-compliance of NERC regulations as a customer called on the regulatory agency to impose sanctions on DISCOs that are not playing the game by the rules. According to them, if customers are sanctioned for wrong doings, there is no moral justification to spear DISCOs who flout the electricity regulations at the detriment of the customers.
A customer painted a gloomy picture of his community, lamented to our reporter saying, “In my area in Ibadan, we have central working committee, CWC. Under CWC, we have 16 estates. CWC coordinate the estates. That CWC is another corrupt body that takes the advantage created by DISCOs to milk the poor. They disconnect individual light or estates that refuse to be milked. We have four transformers that we buy with our money. Whenever we approach IBEDC to help us with the installation, they tell us that they can’t help us. So, we have to look for private engineer, buy all the accessories and they install. In between, the IBEDC staff will come and collect bribe saying that they will not energise it if we don’t give them huge amount of money. There was a time one of the transformers had a major fault. We contributed N600, 000 for IBEDC to repair it. Two weeks after the repair, it went bad again. All the electric poles in my area, we bought it with our money without IBEDC buying one for us. Another saddest aspect of the story is that each transformer that we bought with our money, they forced us to donate them to IBEDC. After the installation, they gave us form and asked us to fill it that we have donated the transformers to them, a private company that supposed to buy these things for us as part of their responsibilities, now forcing us to donate them. If we refuse to donate, they will not put it on. I doubt if IBEDC has ever bought one transformer and electric poles for any community since it started to manage our electricity in major parts of the South West. They cook up papers and present it to the government that they are the one doing all these. If the government of President Muhammadu Buhari is sincere at fighting corruption, it ought to have investigated all these corrupt practices in IBEDC and if found to be true, revoke their license. IBEDC have really breach the privatization agreement and it must pay for it”.
He continued, “Is Nigeria the only country that is using electricity? Is this happening elsewhere? From all indications, it seems the current government is incapable to fight corruption and this is the reason why it is going to be difficult for Nigeria to survive”. I think the government should really investigate IBEDC and other DISCOs. The decision of the federal government to revoke the license of some DISCOs is a step in the right direction. The only error made is that IBEDC is not included”.
Earlier, in his remarks, the Commissioner, Consumer Affairs, Dr. Moses Arigu, who pointed out that forum has been held in Lagos and other parts of the country, said the forum was to sensitise consumers on their rights as well as create awareness on the responsibility and obligations of both the consumers and the DISCOs. “We are here to hear the complaints of the consumers and how they can channel their complaints to get to the appropriate quarters. We will talk about safety, billing, estimated billing and other issues. We will talk in details about metre. We will tell you how you can apply for metre”, he said.
Agiri pointed out that the government was doing everything possible to put an end to estimated billing by ensuring that all houses are metred on or before three years, adding that arbitrary charges would be eliminated so as to encourage foreign investors to come and do business in Nigeria.
He said that there are two ways whereby customers could get metres for their respective houses, saying customers could get metres by prepaid or allow the DISCOs to metre their houses and discuss how the metre fees would be paid. According to him, a single phase metre cost N37, 000, while three phase metre cost N68, 000 approximately, adding that the charges covers installation, maintenance and replacement.
The Commissioner explained that consumers would be compensated for metre paid for through energy as he stressed that there was no country in the world where metre is free, adding that metre has between 10 and 15 years of life span. According to him, out of 9.9million consumers, only 5.7m has been metred, claiming that there is a gap of 60 per cent.
In the forum, NERC urged consumers to officially contact DISCOs in writing whenever there is electricity fault, adding that minor faults in the transformer that is officially lodged would not take more than 48 hours to resolve, while major issue should not exceed 15 days to be resolved.
On the issue of transformer, he urged consumers who needed transformers to make a request from the DISCOs, adding that any official request for transformer and its installation should not exceed 14 days for DISCOs to officially respond. “It is the responsibility of DISCOs to provide electricity infrastructure including the purchase of transformers and other accessories. In case they cannot buy it as at the time you approach them, and you can buy it by yourself, negotiate with them on how to be refunded and that will take the form of energy. If you have bought it, it is their responsibility to install it”, he added.
He admonished the consumers to lodge complaints at the NERC forum very close to them about the unsatisfactory service from DISCOs, stressing that they would attend to it as prompt as possible.
Customer was told that DISCOs have no right to disconnect any house or business buildings without notice except they were found wanting in the area of illegal disconnection, unauthorized access, tampering of metre and metre bypass, saying that sanction attract from N100, 000 to N150, 000.
