BUSINESS

provide us with meters,” he said

Mala Babale, another unmetered customer, said the YEDC was charging him about N15,000 monthly, which, according to him, was beyond the light he consumes.

“I have been paying N3,000 to the YEDC monthly. Surprisingly, a bill of N15,000 was brought to me. They refused to install the prepaid meter and are charging us unfairly,” he said.

The Business Manager, Yola Elecricity Distribution Company, Alhaji Usman Wafta, said all the allegations were baseless.

“Ours is just to distribute the allocation received. We don’t charge outside the law. We have a methodology of billing based on average number of people in the area. And we welcome complaints from customers that feel unfairly charged,” he said.

Kano

Alhaji Habib H Rijiyar Zaki said his bill for this month was different from that of the previous months. “I always argue with them over the bill they are bringing to me. Sometimes they will bring a bill of N9,000 to me in a month. I wonder what I used in the house to attract such amount,” he said.

He said it was difficult to access the prepaid meter, adding that the house next to him had the meter installed, and when he protested, he was just asked to be patient.

When contacted, the spokesman of Kano Electricity Distribution Company (KEDCO), Muhammad Kandi, said the company had a standard methodology approved by their regulatory body on estimated billing.

“We calculate using the methodology approved by the regulatory body. Of course, the bill will not be the same because some houses consume more power than others,” Kandi said.

He said it had always been their aspiration to meter residential areas. He, however, noted that they inherited a meter gap of about 5million. “It is not possible for us to fill the gap created in the past three decades in three years, but we have made the commitment that every year we shall install 100, 000 meters. And we are determined,” he said.

The challenge before NERC

The NERC has said that customers who feel aggrieved over their estimated bills or poor quality of service have the right to contest it with the DisCos.

In a video uploaded yesterday, the NERC said such customers must first complain to the DisCos and wait for their resolution within 10 working days. If that fails, they should appeal to the NERC Forum Offices for intervention.

Although the commission did not officially respond to our enquiries, a key official interfacing with customers told our reporter that they would soon open more forum offices to cover the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

It remains to be seen whether or not the new NERC boss will have the required courage to force DisCos to comply with the directive of the regulatory agency on metering customers so as to address the plight of many electricity consumers in the country.