Tina Amanda
Concerned Electricity Consumers in Rivers State on Wednesday took to the streets to protest over the outrageous estimated electricity billing by the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company.
The Consumers converged in front of the PHED Headquarters at Moscow Road Port Harcourt and demanded the immediate distribution of prepaid meters to every household in Rivers State.
They also expressed worries that the billing system has become so outrageous even after reading their meters, as the bills tripled.
They expressed displeasure that even with the epileptic power supply in some areas of the state, they are still experiencing high billing.
Though the protesters, however, attested to the fact that electricity supply have improved in some areas of Port Harcourt, they said that estimated billing is the major problem they are faced with currently.
Some of the protesters who are property owners in Wokenaranwu Road, Egbelu and Ogbogoro in Obio Akpor local government area also lamented the outrageous demand of three point six million naira by PHED to supply power to the area.
They demand justice while describing such an amount as criminal offence not in line with the Electricity Regulatory laws of the country and against the free project of National Integrated Power Project (NIPP).
Also, Chairman Rivers State Civil Society Organisation, Enefa Georgewill, said it is the duty of the PHED to provide meters free of charge to consumers in the State.
“We are saying that PHED is worse than the disbanded E-crack Unit of the Police that have been extorting from Rivers people. When the former President Goodluck Jonathan was in power, he privatised electricity sector and part of the key agreement between the distribution companies and Consumers is that they must provide free electricity poles to Consumers.They must provide meters free.
“Several years down the line, this failed company could not provide meters, but when they came in newly, they brought standard meters to very few places. Something that was meant to be given for free, they sold it for outrageous amounts to consumers.”
Reacting to the situation, Acting Corporate Communication Manager, Chioma Aninwe, said it is consumers’ right to approach PHED Head office to report issues on over billing or any other challenges faced for rectification.
She advised consumers not to pay money for metering and report any PHED Staff demanding money from them.
“What we need to understand is, in the issue of tariff, the tariff is set by Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Company where PHED have no hand, we operate under a principal. The consumers maybe uninformed that there is increase or adjustment in electricity tariff.
“Every customer has right to know what they are being billed, what one kilowatt of energy costs, and it is the duty of every PHED Staff to educate consumers in the field. They should not wait for them to come to the customer care before getting any necessary information they need. Every PHED Staff should be an ambassador.
“We have a metering gap of one million and federal government gave us seventy-nine thousand. It can not go round to all four states, what we did was to map out some places because we are covering Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Cross Rivers and Rivers State, the meter can not go round.
“What we are also telling consumers is that if the meters are not getting to them, they should use Meter Asset Provider (MAP) which they will only pay the vendor, nobody pays PHED for meter. We are also informing consumers that if anybody who claims to be PHED Staff demands for meter payment under mass metering scheme, please do not pay, but report such person.
“Our contact phone numbers are on all PHED vehicles, call the corruption hotlines and we will get to the root of the matter because we have zero tolerance for corruption in this management”
