Although most Nigerians welcomed the idea of the prepaid electricity meters when it was first mooted few years ago, today not a few are happy with the turn of events as they recount tales of woes and disappointments, reports Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf
LIKE a new bride, most Nigerians literally welcomed the introduction of prepaid meters with open arms. But the irony, however, is that today, they have to gasp and groan when they can only see and cannot have it, no thanks to the uncooperative staff of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, which abdicated their responsibility after collecting money but failed to deliver.
This is the dilemma of electricity consumers across the country.
Unpalatable tales over prepaid meters
Despite several claims by some officials of PHCN that the prepaid meters have been distributed to end users through the Distribution Company, DISCO networks, across the country, customers say they are tired of endless waiting.
Mr. Nnamdi Bosa, a resident of FHA-Diamond Estate, Isheri-Olofin, LASU Road, was one of those who looked forward to getting the prepared meters when it was first introduced some years ago.
Out of conviction that it was the easiest way to forestall the incidence of excessive billing common with the manual meter he didn’t exercise any qualms at all about paying for his own prepaid meter when he was approached by a staff of PHCN at Ikotun Undertaken office in Lagos, but he has had to wait for six long years without either the prepaid meter or a refund.
He tells his story himself. “In 2007, I raised an Eco bank draft worth N55, 000 to pay for a three phase prepaid meter. At the time I was assured by the staff that I was going to get the meter in a matter of weeks. My bank a week later confirmed that the PHCN cleared the cheque but it is exactly six years now that I paid for the meter, yet I’m still waiting to take delivery of the meter. In fact, no money, no meter.”
Bosa further lamented that less than 15 houses out of 600 blocks of flats at the estate where he lives have the prepaid meters, and even then they are not better off considering the fact that they have to go in long search for credit vouchers to power their meters.
The story is much the same elsewhere.
Like Bosa, customers, in separate interviews, condemned the delay by the PHCN in installing meters in several houses more than three years after payment.
The Chairman, Diamond Estate, Agege, Ibrahim Opeloyeru, said that consumers who needed pre-paid meters had waited for so long, adding that PHCN needs to expedite action on this.
He said PHCN’s excuse is that the meters are not available and costly to obtain.
Mr. Opeloyeru alleged that some officials of PHCN were deliberately hoarding the meters in order to continue placing customers on estimated bills.
He said that some residents of the estate waited for two years after payment before their pre-paid meters were installed.
Another customer, Flora Onyewuna, a journalist, living in Mosafejo, Amukoko, an uptown district of Lagos, said that she had paid for prepaid meter a year ago, but has yet to get it installed.
Ms. Onyewuna said that her home had been receiving high bills.
She said in the last six months, there has been inexplicable bills, yet no regular electricity supply to prove that we used such an amount.
“We used to receive N2, 000 and N2, 500 bills before now, but for the past six months, it is now hovering between N7,000 to N8,000. We still pay the same amount when there is no regular light. This is unfair,” she said.
Sharing his experience, Mr. Waheed Amao, a pure water manufacturer said, in spite of the series of letters the company had written to the management of the Eko Electricity Distribution Zone, their request to have pre-paid meters is yet to be granted.
“It is bad enough that people hardly enjoy electricity, but it is most dehumanising when they have to pay for energy they did not consume. This issue of over-billing and sometimes crazy bills has been a battle between officials of PHCN and consumers over the years,’’ he said.
Echoing similar sentiments, Chief Badmus Owolabi, who resides in one of low-cost housing estate along the Isolo axis of Lagos, also complained that most industries in the area were yet to have prepaid meters installed in their premises.
“Nigerians welcomed the introduction of pre-paid meters with open arms, but have to gasp and groan when they can only see and cannot have it.”
On his part, Mr. Okuru Bennett, a resident in Port Harcourt said: “I got one, while at Elekahia, which Trans Amadi Business Unit fixed for me around 2005 but by the time I started making moves to Rumuola from 2007 in the same Port Harcourt, I paid N50, 000 for pre-paid meter. I tell you, I keep on going and calling but continue to get the same reply. Rumola Business Unit has not been given prepaid meters.”
Feeble defence
Reacting to the non-availability of prepaid meters, Godwin Idemudia, the Assistant General Manager, Public Affairs, Eko Electricity Distribution Company, said the Zone had embarked on installation of the backlog of pre-paid meters for customers that paid before June 2012.
Corroborating Idemudia, the Principal Manager, Public Affairs, Eko Electricity Distribution Company, Mr Ademola Adegoke, however, denied the allegations, saying that no industrial company is billed on estimation.
According to him, “It is not true that we don’t have meters for our industrial customers. The truth of the matter is that except in rare cases when an industrial customer’s meter may be temporarily bad, no industrial customer is supposed to be billed on estimation.
“Even if the meter is faulty, estimated billing can only be for a few months pending when replacement is made for the faulty meter. It can thus be safely said that more than ninety five per cent of our industrial customers are metered.
“Going by the huge quantum of energy this category of customers consumes, we cannot afford not to have fool-proof method of billing them.
Adegoke also said that an objective random sampling of the Industrial and commercial customers would confirm his stance on the issue.
Speaking with The Nation, Mr. Pekun Adeyanju, Public Relations Officer, Ikeja Disco who refused to comment on the status of prepaid meters for customers under Ikeja zone, however, hinted of plans by Ikeja authorities to formally rollout prepaid meters next week.
Federal Government riot act
Thankfully, the Federal Government has directed new owners of power distribution firms to provide all electricity consumers with meters as soon as they take over the successor companies of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria.
It advised that the new power firms should accord priority to the metering of their customers nationwide.
The Chairman, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, Dr. Sam Amadi, who stated this, last Tuesday, added that crazy billing by power firms would not be tolerated.
He spoke on behalf of the government at a two-day workshop organised by the NERC for the successor companies and other stakeholders in Abuja.
He said, “The new PHCN successor companies should see metering of all their customers immediately they take over ownership of the PHCN companies as their major priority to avoid bills estimation.”
The NERC boss explained that in the new power reform agenda, both the accounts of the distribution companies and their customers should be balanced and maintained.
He noted that one of the concerns of the commission was to ensure that the rights of the discos and their customers were not tampered with.
According to Amadi, metering all electricity consumers would assist the customers to effectively monitor their energy usage as well as enable the Discos to determine their revenue.
He stressed that the Discos would know the exact number of customers they had when all power consumers were metered.
Amadi observed that the Multi Year Tariff Order 2 of the Nigeria Electricity Power Sector Reform Act 2005 provided money for Discos for losses incurred by them in the metering of customers.
The NERC chairman said the commission would need to reach an agreement with the Discos on how long it would take the power firms to ensure that all their customers were metered.
Amadi said previously, a period of 18 months was given to the PHCN to meter all its customers, but it was unable to meet the target.
The new owners of the power firms are expected to take over their respective companies on November 1, 2013.
Alternative funding of pre-paid meters
In its quest to boost the deployment of pre-paid meters to electricity consumers across the country, the Federal Government has ordered NERC to commence full implementation of an alternative funding scheme.
NERC received the order at the weekend when the commission presented its chairman, Sam Amadi, to the Presidential Action Committee on Power, PACP in Abuja.
At the end of the presentation, PACP agreed with the recommendations made by NERC, and has asked for the immediate implementation of the scheme known as “Credit Advance Payment for Meter Installation – CAPMI.”
The CAPMI was designed by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to fill the gap created by the old metering system as contained in the Multi-Year Tariff Order (MYTO) II in which inadequate funding of the programme led to shortage in the supply of the prepaid meters and the challenges of paying outrageous bills
Recalled that NERC had earlier this year announced that electricity meter was no longer free, contrary to its June 1, 2012 directive that pre-paid meters should be distributed free to electricity customers across the country by Distribution Companies, DISCO’s due to the new tariff, adding that punitive measures will be taken against any DISCO who fails to abide to the instruction.
Curiously, nine months after, NERC admitted that an unacceptable number of Nigerians were still without meters.
Amadi, who addressed a press briefing on the revision of the earlier free meter directive, stressed that any customer who wishes to pay for the meter now would be compensated over time. In return for paid meters, such customers would get energy credit and reduction in their fixed charges over time.
Specifically, one of the top priorities of the commission’s CAPMI is to ensure that huge number of unmetered customers is reduced as rapidly as possible within the shortest possible time.
By doing so, NERC believes that the menace of “crazy billing” and other commercial losses will be greatly curtailed. CAPMI according to NERC is an optional scheme that has been designed to allow willing customers advance money to their distribution company in exchange for the installation of meters.
Why prepaid meters will not work
A number of people are not sold on the idea of the prepaid meters because they consider it not to be a well-thought out scheme.
Mr. Darlington Agumuo, a public affairs analyst, is one individual who is not sold on the idea of prepaid meter. As far as he is concerned, the whole idea is a fluke, if not dead on arrival.
While acknowledging that the major problem of power supply in the country is the problem of correct billing and meter reading to consumers, a development, which necessitated the introduction of prepaid meters, Agumuo was however to quick to add that “The new system, Credit Advance Payment for Meter Installation – CAPMI, suggested by the regulatory agency, for consumers to pay for either N50,000 or N20,000 for a three-phase or single phase respectively and then, the PHCN will reimburse them through non-collection of fixed charges which is put at N750 per month, will not work for a number of reasons.”
Expatiating, he said: “Property owners who already have analogue meters in their premises will find it difficult to pay additional money to acquire the pre-paid meter. It would have been better if the PHCN were to replace the analogue meters with pre-paid ones at no cost to the property owners- since the meter belongs to the PHCN.
“Again, how can property owners who have buildings in several places recover their money if they buy and install the meter for their tenants? At N750 per month fixed charge, it will take six years for one to recover N50, 000 (N750 X 12 = N9, 000 X 6 = N54, 000). Or, N20, 000 (N750 X 12 = N9, 000 X 27 months (as the case may be). You may recharge twice in a month due to unforeseen circumstances. Under MYTO, the fixed charge is subject to upward review.
“If a tenant decides to procure the prepaid meter in the name of the landlord to avoid inconveniences, the landlord may not reimburse him and the tenant will not leave with the meter when he is leaving because the meter is not transferable. This is why the tenant may not be willing to pay for the prepaid meter because they are not sure they will stay for six years or 27 months to recover their money.”
