From Jimoh Balogun
Many consumers of power in Nigeria, especially in Ekiti state, have described the nation’s power situation as ‘the more you look; the less you see.”
With the power sector, it is about the less power you get the more money you pay.
For many unmetered consumers, the estimated billing system in the power sector is exploitative and is allegedly designed primarily to rip them off their hard-earned money.
Over the years, many Nigerians have protested what they describe as over-billing and extortion by the distribution companies (DisCos) in the estimated billing given to them as their purported power consumption.
They said the situation has become worrisome and unbearable amid the unfavourable economic situation presently in the country and called on the Federal Government and the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to compel the DisCos to provide prepaid meters to houses to stop the extortionist billing regime.
Some Nigerians, who spoke to BusinessDay Sunday, in separate interviews, disclosed that there is usually a mismatch between the power consumed within a particular period and the estimated bill received from the DisCos.
There was a genuine hope of better days ahead among electricity consumers in Nigeria in November 2013 when the distribution and generation companies came into existence through privatization of the former National Electricity Power Authority (NEPA).
The DisCos, with 11 currently in operation, were mandated to provide prepaid meters, among other services.
However, more than a decade after, millions of Nigerians are still without prepaid meters. Efforts in recent years by the Federal Government to provide subsidies and free prepaid meters to Nigerians may have been politicised.
Many households could not benefit, amid accusations of hoarding against officials of the DisCos.
Many Nigerians and stakeholders agree that the DisCos have failed in the provision of prepaid meters to consumers in their service area.
“In the last two years what we have been getting is bills between N20, 000 and N4,000, this is a compound of about 6 rooms and a small shop outside which I use to sell minerals.
“When I was younger, before they brought any bill they normally come to check our meter to know how much we consume but that is not the case now. My tenants are complaining about the estimated billing, which is just killing us here in Egbeda,” Femi Ogunleye, a landlord in Alimosho area of Lagos, said.
He said that his efforts to get a repaid meter for his compound had failed severally, while stressing that the collection process should be more transparent.
“I have tried to get a prepaid meter, I mean I have applied on several occasions to their office in Egbeda here without success, I keep hearing that it is not available even though I have the money to pay now. Last year they promised me that the prepaid meter would come, but I was told later that when it came other people hijacked them,” he added.
Emeka Offor, a resident of Isolo, said there was the need for the Federal Government to call DisCos in order to save Nigerians from the current extortion.
Offor said that high estimated billing by DisCos had made life unbearable for him and people around his environment.
According to him, “IF you move around this area no house is using a prepaid meter, they just bring the bill as they like. I mean any amount. The last time the landlord came to meet with them and they promised to give us prepaid but we are still waiting for them to bring it.
“The situation is so bad, this compound they said we are owing N200,000 and last week they brought N25.000 how do we pay all that in Nigeria of today?
“All this is because we do not have a good government; can they try this in some other countries that have responsible and responsive governments?”
The latest statistics from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission says that more than half of the registered consumers in Nigeria are on estimated billing.
Despite this high electricity charges, Nigeria still suffers from chronic power outage.
In its 2023 third quarter report, NERC noted that of Nigeria’s 12.82 million registered customers, only 5.70 million or 44.51 percent are metered. In Q3 2023, DisCos metered 148,389 consumers.
Many stakeholders have said that after 10 years of existence, this rate is too low, leading to extortion by DisCos staff, meters by-pass, and low bill payment by consumers who often do not understand how the DisCos arrive at the estimated bill given to them.
According to reports, between July and September 2023, consumers lodged 333,947 complaints against the DisCos to NERC on metering, billing, and service disruption.
“In this area we don’t have prepaid, it is estimated billing and they bring about N10, 000 for my flat, it’s high compared to if I used prepaid. I am hoping to get one soon, but it is just extortion.
“I think everyone is aware, it is not a new problem even government agencies are complaining
“For me it is a reminder that the privatised entities lack the capacity to deliver on the mandates they were given and an indication that the selling of NEPA was fraudulent,” Samuel Uku, a resident of Igando in Lagos, said.
By the same token, another Lagos resident in the Ikeja Distribution (IKEDC) service area took to social media to record his frustration with the power situation in his part of Lagos.
He said: “Power supply in my neck of the woods is worse than squalid, a state of affairs that’s putting pressure on resources via the use of generators. Until a few weeks ago, I boasted that I could bottle electricity for sale. That was how stable the power supply was in my hood.”
But, Franca Ihentuge, a resident of Orji in Imo State, also told BusinessDay that the bill she received for January 2024 was too high compared to what her household paid in the previous months.
Ihentuge said her household paid N3,000 in November and wondered why the power company wanted her to pay N15,000 in January.
Angela Ebong, a resident of Port Harcourt, told BusinessDay that her compound jettisons the idea of prepaid meters after two years because of the frequent altercation among residents. According to her, the four flats in the compound were paying N20,000 before the increase in tariff, which is about N5,000 per month. {BusinessDay}