With the introduction of the band system by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) sometime last year, consumers who fall under the Band A category have been lamenting hard. They lament how payment system is hitting them hard and adversely affecting their business and quality of lives. Gboyega Alaka reports.
It’S not the best of times for John Osayi, a public school teacher with a monthly after-tax take-home of N150,000. Well, that may actually qualify as an understatement, as Osayi himself considers it “ultra-hard,” no thanks, he said, to the cut-throat electricity tariff band system that has put his Liasu Road, Alimosho Local Government community in Band A area, causing him to spend one-third of his salary on electricity. This leaves him with N100,000, which he considers miserly, as it can hardly take him for a week, with his family of five – himself, wife and three children. As a result, he is constantly struggling, especially because his wife, a petty trader, is hardly able to muster any significant support. Because of this pressure, Osayi has undertaken other income-generating endeavours, such as private teaching, even tutorials at evening classes; but he barely makes anything significant, and hence has found himself constantly struggling to survive.
“I can’t understand why I have to pay so much for electricity while others pay far less. What is special about this area? Are we rich men? Is this Ikoyi or VI that I should be paying so much?” a frustrated Osayi asked.
Even before the ‘crazy’ band system, Osayi said life had become nearly unbearable, especially with the subsidy removal and the floating of the naira, which made it lose its value tremendously and caused prices to go up.
The story is the same with Shakiru Ayinde, a journalist with one of the frontline newspapers in the country. “Since my community in Egbe near Ikotun was placed under the Band A tariff system, I have put my Air conditioner on permanent suspension. I live in a two-bedroom flat and I have an AC, freezer and fridge, alongside five fans – three in the living room and one each in the rooms; and of course, bulbs, a plasma TV and decoder; but since this tariff band system, even my fridge has been suspended permanently. My electric cooker has also been embargoed, to the extent that I’m beginning to fear that they may even develop faults and pack up.”
All this, according to Ayinde, is because the cost of recharging his electricity meter has gone up astronomically.
“Before the band system, I used to pay 30,000 every month, and that’s with using all my appliances. I admit, we fall under the 33KVA line and we had generous supply of electricity, but suddenly, it jumped to N60,000 and going almost N70,000 if I must maintain the lifestyle of using both my freezer and fridge, my AC, though never regularly and my electric cooker. So I reorganised myself, such that it is only the freezer we now use both for cooling water, drinks and storing food. Yet, I still spend over N50,000 per month on a regular basis. That’s not cheap by the common man’s standard. And it becomes more painful when a friend who lives in another area, purportedly on a less favoured tariff band, tells you he bought a tariff of N10,000 and has been using it for three months. And yet he tells you his supply is not really bad. You then ask, why are you suffering such fate? What makes you different?”
Ayinde said it becomes more interesting and pitiful, when the same guy tells him, “Honestly, Ayinde, I pity your predicament o”, and finishes off with “Sorry huh!”
The annoying part, according to Ayinde, is the fact that the Power Holden Company of Nigeria (PHCN) or DisCos are no longer keeping to the 20-24-hour supply they pledged to the Federal Government before getting approval to go on with the band system.
“Now, they sometimes seize power for the whole of daytime, bringing it back only at night. Sometimes, it’s the other way round. How’s that up to even 20 hours, let alone 24 hours. So if you ask me, the whole thing is a scam. Let NERC bring it down, and let everybody pay the same rate. After all, everybody now pays the same rate for fuel and telephone. Why should that of electricity be different?”
No to Band A, it’s killing our business, MSME owners speak up
Across the Ikotun, Egbe Idimu and Alimosho area of Lagos, where they largely fall under Band A category, the stories have been literally the same – lamentation upon lamentation, with many stating outright that the whole banding thing was not well thought out or is being wrongly implemented.
According to Ogochukwu Michael, who runs a boutique shop, the tariff banding system is a problem. Her words, “It is affecting us seriously.”
And then she spread her arms, as if to show something: “You can see how stuffy everywhere is. We are even lucky the weather is cold now. If it were to be around January, you would have started perspiring seriously. By the nature of boutique stores, it is usually closed, relying mainly on ACs; however, we have been forced to abandon our ACs and settle for fans, which are not good enough. Even with just the fans, we still pay through our noses for power.
“Before the band system, we used to pay about N3,000 for two weeks; and that’s with AC and everything. That amounted to about N6,000 in a month. But with this crazy Band A stuff, a recharge of N10,000 runs out in three days; and that’s without using AC or maybe using it very marginally. So customers come in here and they’re not comfortable. And for the kind of products we sell – clothes and shoes, that’s not too good, because they might need to sample stuff. If I put on my AC, that N10,000 would run out in two days. That is killing. How much are we making that I will be spending N20,000 on electricity in a week? In a month, that amounts to N80,000. This is without AC and with most of the bulbs off. It is only the outside bulbs that we leave on overnight, for security reasons.”
This, Michael said, is a sharp contrast with the rate in her residential area, which does not fall under Band A. Although she couldn’t actually tell under which band Ijegun falls in, she just knew that they spend far less on power.
“We live in a duplex and we spend between N5,000 and N7,000 in a month, using our ACs and other appliances. Even though we don’t spend so much time at home, the fact is that the rate there is far cheaper. The question, therefore is – why the disparity? Does it mean the people in Egbe Area are richer than the people in Ijegun? These are relatively the same area with the same class of people. Can I sell an item for four times the price simply because my shop is located here in Egbe? People would just go over to Ijegun to buy the same product. So the government should please help us look into it. Cancel the system; whatever good it is doing is far less than the harm. The way I see it, we in Band A are the ones paying subsidy for other bands. It doesn’t make sense.”
For Oge Onyebuchi, who runs three different shops and businesses on the same block of shops by Ile-Iwe bus Stop in Egbe, Lagos, it is double Band A palaver, as his residence nearby falls under the same payment system.
“I run three shops in this building – this one that we’re in – a boutique, a phone accessory shop and an electronic shop, using one meter. Before they put us in Band A, we used to recharge the meter with N2,000 and it lasted one whole week. That of course translated to around N8,000 a month, depending on how we used the air-conditioner. At a time, it started increasing, and graduated to N5,000 a week. Currently, that N5,000 only takes us three days, without AC. And I don’t use any other appliance that draws much power. We use just bulbs. The highest appliance we use here are fans. My AC has been faulty for a while but I’m not even keen on fixing it, because using it means more expenses. The only time N5,000 takes me beyond three days is if there is a long power outage.
While admitting that his area enjoys regular supply of power – sometimes up to the promised 20 hours, Onyebuchi says he suffers the same predicament in his 3-bedroom residence.
“I spend almost the same amount on power at home, which means I spend about N100,000 on power every month. But that’s because I am hardly at home, otherwise it would have been more. I have also been able to keep it at that N5,000 per three days because I learnt to manage my consumption at home. In the past, I only put on my fridge at night to enable whatever I have inside to freeze, but when I noticed that the bill was still high, I put a total stop to using it or even the AC. So now, I don’t keep food in the house anymore. I had to reorganise myself because business is not moving as expected and expenses are skyrocketing. Like they say, drastic situations demand drastic measures/solutions.”
Government knows what to do
A visibly angry proprietor of DNS Drinks store also in the Ile-Iwe area of Egbe would suffer no fool gladly, which was why her first response when her views were sought on the issue was, “What’s there to talk about? Government knows what to do. Government knows that we are suffering; businesses are suffering. It is very clear that nobody is enjoying it. Go to every other business or resident living in Band A area; you will hear the same story. From what I learnt, this Bad A thing was supposed to be for highbrow areas; how they managed to smuggle it to common men areas like ours is what I don’t know. We live in Egbe, Ikotun, not Ikeja, VI, Lekki, or even Ikoyi; where do they expect us to get the money from? The cost of recharging is cut-throat and it is affecting the cost of maintaining business. It has got so bad that there is power and people deliberately refuse to recharge for lack of money or to save money. N10,000 recharge runs out in less than three days; imagine spending over N100,000 a month on electricity alone. How much do we even pay for the shop itself?”
Asked to make an appeal to the government, she said: “That request is silly. They know what to do, don’t they? They know that the masses are suffering; they know that we are in pain; we need them to ease out pain, not add to it. They should give us normal bill. Why are some people paying so much more and some paying far, far less? The excuse that they give us power for long hours does not hold water. If I consume more, let me pay for more, but not at a higher price.”
Mrs. Olawaye, who runs a phone accessories store, has the same story. As a matter of fact, she confessed that the huge bills at one point resulted in squabbles among other shops, with whom she shares a meter, until they devised a way of using a meter reader to calculate each shop’s consumption.
“We began fighting one another. People were pointing accusing fingers at each other, regarding who was consuming more. But we never have that kind of issue before. It was when they introduced this Band A thing and people started feeling the pinch. Back then, we (four shops) were contributing N500 each to charge our prepaid meter- 28 units at N1000 naira; we would buy N2,000 worth of power and use it for about a week. Now, N1,000 only buys 4.4 units. It is alarming! Meanwhile we can’t just add the rate to our products, because there is an economic meltdown already; people would just go to other places where the prices are down.”
At this point, Gbenga Emmanuel, who had come to patronise Olawaye’s shop chipped in – “If you guys are complaining, what about we factory owners? We produce nylon (polythene) and we pay over N7milion for power in a month. We have a factory, Skylight, on Opeloyeru Street, Egbe here. Before banding, we were spending around N1.5/N2m in a month. If we operate at full production, we now spend around N7 to N8milion, otherwise we still spend over N6m. As a result, we hardly break even. We just work to pay staff and maintain the machines, with the owner of the business hardly taking anything home. Meanwhile, the normal thing is that if you own a business, the whole idea is to be able to take home good returns.”
He appealed to the government to look into the situation, as it is killing business and affecting lives negatively.
‘We now run more on diesel generator’
Not surprisingly, D-One Lodge, a hotel facility close to the globally-renowned Synagogue Church of All Nations in Ikotun now runs more on diesel.
When asked why, the manager, who said he only just assumed office recently, said the bill was becoming unbearable.
At a point, the bill rose up to like N2million, so the management had to devise a way out. The Band A system has made running business very difficult.”
The manager wouldn’t say much; however, someone close to the management whispered to this reporter: “Imagine running all those air-conditioned rooms on AC? Or are you going to tell your guests not to switch on their ACs?”
Isolo got out of jail
Hassan Adamu, a tyre distributor who lives in Isolo said the experience was the same for him until the PHCN took them off Band A.
“Imagine people in Isolo, a very low-brow area paying N1,000 for 4 units? How did they expect them to cope? Minus the Aswani market and maybe the Ire Akari area, this is a largely common-man settlement. They should be made to understand that it is these kinds of policies that encourage cheating and other sorts of illegal connections. The truth is that 80 percent of people living here cannot pay that rate.
“Recently, they took us off that crazy band and I’m so relieved,” Adamu said with a deep laugh.
Asked how they went about it and if they protested, adamu’s response was, “I don’t know. I am not aware of any protest. But it is possible that some residents went to lay a complaint.”
